So, I got the expansion from a friend who was at Essen today, and spent the evening playing it. Sadly there were only two of us, which made us die a bit more than we probably would have otherwise.
We started out putting the new yellow and white threats on top of the old decks, and tried out the new double actions missions. There were a lot of threats! Where the old missions gave you 7 threats on four players (serious count as two), these give you nine or so. I'm not sure because I cannot actually be sure that we didn't miss threats. We played five missions, and when I tried to count up at the end I got between 8 and 10 because we'd either missed one or mistakenly played with an unconfirmed one. That's how chaotic it was, at least on two players.
That first mixed game killed us pretty soon. Man, there were a lot to keep track of! When you've got a hand full of cards with one more symbol than you're used to, you don't really need a ninja scattering poison drones all over the ship, or fighters phasing out of existence. The new threats are fun!
After that, we decided to play a whites-only mission, and that's how we kept it for the rest of the night, completing three and losing another.
The new stuff, and how I liked it:
- New threats, and they're cool, too. I didn't dare play with the red ones, but they're, well, we just looked at them and sighed. But then again, I seem to recall we did the same thing with the yellow ones once. Maybe one day? The yellow and white ones are fun though, and add variety. Malfunctioning A buttons are disturbingly difficult to keep track of.
- Double action cards. 755
These seemingly crams more play into the same amount of game, which is awesome. After you've spent one or two games getting into it, of course. And man, there's this feeling of being cool and capable in this version, where the original only had happy-go-lucky, "you don't get any training because it's cheaper that way. This time around you're veterans, and you can leap through the stations in low-gravity pushing buttons left and right.
- Specializations. I love these, it's essentially niched heroic action cards that can be used with the advancement system. They really build on the double action cards when it comes to feeling capable. (not that you don't panic and fail magnificently like the original, you still do that occasionally.)
- The advancement system. I have been using a simple xp log since the very beginning, but that one didn't serve any purpose beyond telling everyone who had been playing the most. This time it affects your specialization options, and I look forward to gaining levels to try out the cool stuff. Also there are achievements worth a few extra xps, which make for good hunting. Too bad me and my girl didn't manage a complete campaign, there were 6 points in it for "honeymoon - complete a whole two-player campaign with a player of the opposite sex"!
All in all, I've just gotten started. I can see this being like when I first got the game all over again, with me hunting around school for people to play with in the breaks. There is much to discover. 528