Aliens, James Cameron's 1986 sequel to Ridley Scott's horror masterpiece Alien, is one of my all time favorite movies. The scenario of a group of strung-out marines trapped in an enclosed environment with a horde of bloodthirsty monsters is ideal fodder for gaming, so it's no surprise that the film has been mined for game material since it came out, both official (Aliens, Legendary Encounters: ALIEN) and unofficial (Argo, Nemesis, Space Hulk).
Leading Edge's Aliens (sometimes known as This Time It's War) game has long been one of my favorites. It has a simple, elegant tactical movement system and tense game play that effectively simulates the action from the film. The only thing wrong with it is its low production value, with bland graphic design, paper maps, and cardboard standees in lieu of miniatures (the publisher did offer upgrade packs of metal miniatures, but they were way outside of my price range in 1989).
So when Gale Force 9, publishers of the excellent Firefly board game, announced that they were doing an Aliens game, I got very excited. My hope was that they would do something similar to the Leading Edge Aliens, or even a reskin of their own Firefly Adventures, a cooperative tactical movement game that does some innovative things with non-player controlled enemies.
Somewhat surprisingly, Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps isn't really either of those things. It's similar to Leading Edge's Aliens in that it is a cooperative game where the players control Ripley and the marines in an attempt to survive and escape rather than defeat all the Aliens (an impossible task). It's similar to Firefly Adventures mainly in that the rule book is confusing and poorly organized, managing once again to make a relatively simple game seem overly complicated. But that's pretty normal for rule books these days.
The components are definitely light years ahead of the Leading Edge game, with heavy cardstock boards and detailed plastic miniatures. There have been a fair number of complaints in various forums online about the fact that the miniatures require assembly, without any warning on the box, but they include detailed instructions and I didn't find it particularly difficult. The only poor design decision here is that the Aliens have long, spindly hook-shaped tails that were a little challenging to attach, get in the way during play, and make the miniatures difficult to store (remember Barrel of Monkeys?). They're nice looking miniatures though, and as far as I know, this is the first time the actual human characters from the film have been represented by official 28mm gaming scale figures.
The game uses miniatures, gridded tiles, cards and dice to recreate the key scenes from the film. Each player takes control of a single character, and any remaining characters remain in the game as "grunts" that the players can order around, but without complex game info to keep track of. This means you always have the same number of characters on the board, but your team has more interesting abilities if you have more players. Of course, that also means the game will be more challenging.
While the game is played out on a grid with miniatures, the core game element is the Endurance Deck, a stack of 60 cards representing weapons, equipment, events, and hazards. The deck is used as a timer (when the deck runs out the players lose the game), a currency to pay for game effects (by discarding cards from the deck), a way to generate random effects and give players extra tactical choices (by drawing or revealing cards). It also contains a few Hazards, negative effects that must be resolved when the card is drawn or revealed. It's very similar to the way the old Star Wars Customizable Card Game worked, but honestly the idea is so good that someone should be using it.
At the end of every turn, the players draw several "Blip" cards to determine where the Aliens appear. Aliens start out as blip tokens, unseen until they move into proximity to the human characters, at which point the tokens are replaced by one or more Alien miniatures. It's a neat effect that mimics the tension-building motion trackers from the film, and allows for some uncertainty as you don't know how many Aliens are approaching until they're in the room with you.
The details of the different scenarios allow for some variety, but ultimately the goal is always to escape the board with as many survivors as possible. This leads to some agonizing tactical decisions: do I take the time to weld that door shut, or just run for it? Do I keep my marines near the door to cover each other and all escape together, or is it better to risk some of them so that others can get out for certain?
If anything, my only complaint is that if too many Aliens are on the board all at once it can get to be a bit of a grind, both with the sheer number of Aliens you're moving around each turn, and also with the repetitive rolling to try to shoot Alien after Alien. But it's a good game that definitely simulates the action and tension of the film.
- Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps official website
- Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps on BoardGameGeek