Race for the Galaxy: Review

I received Gasex this game Lipitor alternatives for Christmas Diflucan and it Bentyl sat around in my game cabinet for a while.  Too long.  This was not due to me not wanting to play it.  It was due to the fact that I had to learn it.  Usually when we sit down to play a game we don’t have time to sit there and go through the rules and I don’t like reading rules so far in advance that I can’t remember what they said when I finally get to teach it.  So learning a new game has to take place with just the right timing.

This time finally came a couple weeks ago.  We had a Sunday afternoon so I sat down and read the rules and then taught everyone else to play.  It is a blast.

Summary:

Race for the Galaxy is a card based strategy game that is a fairly quick to play, around 45 minutes.  It is science fiction in theme so the player will be colonizing worlds and building futuristic developments; right up my alley.

Components:

Since this is a card game, there are, of course, cards.  The good news is these cards seem to be pretty tough.  They should hold up well through the many times we will play it.  The only other pieces are the cardboard victory point chips that are printed on both sides.  Simple enough.

Rules:

The rules are fairly simple once you get into them.  The most daunting piece to learn is the icon system the game uses.  Once you learn it though, it makes complete sense and works very well.  The rules don’t take very long to learn and are easy and quick to teach others.

Depth/Strategy:

I have played it only four times so far and I can tell that I am only scratching the surface of all of the strategy options here.  There are many directions you can choose to go to win.  Will you be a military power?  Will you rely on your developments?  There are numerous possibilities.  But even with so many options, the game is very accessible.

Game Play:

Game play moves swiftly using a five phase system.   Each player chooses an action (phase) card that they want to take in the coming round.  Only the actions chosen will be done in that round and the player who chose that action gets a bonus during it.  You can explore (acquire cards), develop (play development cards), settle (play world cards), consume (earn victory points or cards), or produce (produce goods on the planets you have settled which can later be consumed).  The person with the most victory points at the end wins.

Final Word:

This game’s strength is that it is accessible yet deep, involved yet short, and very balanced.  All of the games I have played so far have been very close and it always comes down to the last round.  The only complaint I have is that there is little player interaction but this is supposed to be fixed to some degree in an expansion coming later this year.  All in all Race for the Galaxy is one of my new favorites.

Brian