| Aliens: This Time it's War | |
| Mark Chaplin | |
| Mark Chaplin | |
| 2011 | |
| Card Game, fighting/horror | |
| multiplayer | |
| 18+ | |
| Card Game | |
| Board/Card Game | |
Contents[]
Release[]
Release date for the game Aliens: This Time it's War;
2011
Plot[]
Designed by Mark Chaplin and artist Sean Chick, Daniel Chick and Viktor Csete and published in 2010 and in Hungarian in 2011.
'The Company has colonised the planet LV-426. Contact with the "Shake and bake" colony is lost. The Company sends a team of Colonial Marines, with Ripley as "Advisor", to find out what has happened at Hadley's Hope.'
Aliens: This Time it's War is an unauthorised, non-profit and non-collectable card game set within the boundaries of the hugely influential 1986 sci-fi film, Aliens.
Gameplay[]
Consisting of two balanced 60-card decks, the game pits two players against each other in a life or death struggle. One player takes the role of the Colonial Marines, and his opponent assumes control of the hordes of deadly xenomorphs.
At their disposal, the Colonial Marines - very tough hombres - have a roster of high-tech, state-of-the-art weaponry.
The Alien player's objective is to eliminate all the Marines, before they escape the planet and "Nuke the entire site from orbit."
The game has an asymmetrical design, with both decks featuring different cards and abilities. Aliens: This Time it's War is played using a 5-column system, representing consecutive melees. Gameplay is quick and bloodthirsty with Marines butchered frequently, and aliens destroyed by the well-placed use of cards.
Numerous tricky decisions must be made throughout. For instance, the Colonial Marine player could choose to deploy the Powerloader during the Reactor Chamber battle, but the resources that this would require make it a very risky, but rewarding, play. Similarly, the Alien player can deploy the Alien Queen at any time during the conflict - she's free to play aboard the Sulaco, but hugely expensive if used during the APC Withdrawal, for instance.
Primarily a combat-driven card game, each player must manage his deck of cards effectively to win. In addition to simple, unique abilities, each card also has two values: power and cost. No icons are used.
Aliens: This Time it's War can trace its parentage back to San Juan, Magic: The Gathering, Battle Line, BattleTech CCG, and Iliad.
Conditions for victory:
The Colonial Marine player wins if she manages to "Nuke the entire site from orbit".
The Colonial Marine player wins if she reaches and survives the Sulaco Loading Bay battle.
The Alien player wins if Ripley and all the Colonial Marines are either killed or cocooned.
Other than being double-sided - with the flip-side featuring the manner of the Marine's unfortunate demise - each character card has a Survival Rating, indicating the likelihood of them surviving to the end of the game. For example, Frost and Dietrich have a low chance of survival, whereas Hicks has a high Survival Rating. Also, certain character's deaths have hugely deterimental effects on the game, such as having to discard a card, or in Cpl. Ferro's case: the Colonial Marines having to fight an extra two turns on the Dropship Evac Battlefield, while Bishop remote pilots down another UD-4L Cheyenne Utility Dropship to Hadley's Hope - unless Bishop is also dead, and then it really is "Game over, man. Game over".
Game modes[]
You can play in the following modes;
tba
Gameplay modes[]
Singleplayer
Characters[]
Gorman, Vasquez, Drake, Frost, Ferro, Spunkmeyer, Dietrich, Crowe, Wierzbowski, Bishop, Burke, Ripley, Newt, Apone, Hicks, Hudson.
Features[]
61-card Aliens deck
62-card Marine deck
Five Battlefield cards: Reactor Chamber, APC Withdrawal, Ops Centre, Dropship Evac, and Sulaco Loading Bay.
15 beads, pennies or counters.
One Airlock card.
One "Nuke the entire site from orbit" card.
One Ripley card.
One Newt card.
One Sgt. Apone card.
One Cpl. Hicks card.
One Pvt. Hudson card.
One Lt. Gorman card.
One Pvt. Vasquez card.
One Pvt. Drake card.
One Pvt. Frost card.
One Cpl. Ferro card.
One Pvt. Spunkmeyer card.
One Cpl. Dietrich card.
One Pvt. Crowe card.
One Pvt. Wierzbowski card.
One Bishop card.
One Burke card.
Maps[]
Reactor Chamber, APC Withdrawal, Ops Centre, Dropship Evac, and Sulaco Loading Bay.
Weapons[]
Equipment[]
Enemies[]
Vehicles[]
Publishers[]
Mark Chaplin publisher of the game Aliens: This Time it's War.
Developers[]
Mark Chaplin developer of the game Aliens: This Time it's War.