REVIEW: Panic Station

This year I asked for games for Christmas (don't know why I didn't think of that before!), and I was elated to get this one as my first game gift of the holiday.  Even better, I had a game night planned for the very next night, and we got it to the table twice.  Here's the lowdown:

GAME DESCRIPTION

PANIC STATION

Designed by David Ausloos

Published by Stronghold Games and White Goblin games, 2011 (still in print)

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COMPONENTS, PACKAGING AND PRESENTATION

The game comes in a hinged tin which is pretty visually appealing, although I really am not a fan of non-standard sized game containers in general.  This one's not too bad, though, and the insert is functional, although it does not appear to have been designed for this specific game… I could be wrong about that, though.  Inside are a rulebook (more on THAT later, but here’s a hint: YIKES), a bunch of wooden disks, a sheet of stickers to apply to said disks, and a heap of cards.  One point of irritation right out the gate: if you're going to make me apply stickers to my pieces, fine... but don't make the friggin' stickers the exact same size as the pieces I'm supposed to attach them to, especially when the pieces themselves aren't perfectly cut!  Occasionally irregular wooden discs with perfectly round stickers... what an absolute joy a huge pain in the ass to work with.  Ugh.  Anyway, cards are average in quality, and the artwork is decent and easy to differentiate.  There's some pretty dubious iconography going on, though not nearly as off-putting as games like Race For The Galaxy, the standard bearer for games with confusing icons.  If I need to roll a three or higher on the die for a card to function, putting "+3" on the card doesn't work for me.  Overall, though, I'd say the component quality was acceptable, and the groovy tin pushes it slightly above average.

COMPONENTS RATING: 5.5/10

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RULES & PLAYABILITY

As has been well documented on BGG, the rulebook that comes with this game is nebulous to a fault.  Although the basic concepts of gameplay are fairly straightforward, there are MANY times when a situation could come up that the rules are not able to clarify.  Furthermore, straight out of the box the game might be considered broken if the people around the table get into too much of a “groupthink” situation.  However, there are revised rules easily available on BoardGameGeek (see link above) that fix almost all of the problems the rules have, and some wonderful users have created a file for those rules that can be printed out and cut such that it effectively replaces the original rulebook entirely.  With these revised rules, the game plays very smoothly and has very little room for confusion, although there are a couple of mechanics that can be difficult to remember at first (for instance, how to determine if a player has been infected or not).  Overall, though, the game plays pretty well… once you have the revised rulebook.  Unfortunately, I have to rate the game based on what I actually got in the box.  This rating will improve significantly in future printings, I’m sure, but for now… sorry.

RULES & PLAYABILITY RATING: 3/10

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GAME EXPERIENCE

Once you get the rules hashed out, playing the game is a BLAST.  If you’re the Host, you’re trying to stay under the radar juuuuust long enough to infect someone at a crucial moment and turn the game in your favor, and if you’re a Human you’re constantly giving everyone else around the table a wary eye, all the while trying desperately to avoid waves of Parasites that are randomly sweeping through the station.  It captures the paranoia of other games like Battlestar Galactica and Shadows Over Camelot perfectly, and distills it down into a simpler game in a much shorter play time.  Because the mechanics of the game are so simple and straightforward, there’s very little to interfere with the vibe of the game, which is where this game really shines.  This game is all about the vibe… if you have people in your gaming group that aren’t able to tap into that, you might have a less-than-ideal play experience, but I think that’s going to be the exception rather than the rule.  The sparse mechanics lend themselves well to creating the right mood around the table, and once the card trading starts, no one feels safe.  Well done!

GAME EXPERIENCE RATING: 8.5/10

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REPLAY/OWNERSHIP VALUE

There is very little depth to this game mechanically speaking (although there is a mini-expansion for the game that might improve that somewhat), but because of the randomized layout of the station itself and the fact that anyone could be the Host in any game, this game definitely has some legs in the right game group.  If you tend to play the same games with the same people week after week, I would recommend playing it before you buy it if possible… but even if it’s not, it’s a reasonably-priced game ($20 - $30, depending on where you buy it), so it’s not like you’re going to be throwing a ton of money away if your group doesn’t enjoy it.  Otherwise, if you’re more of a “travelling gamer” like me, I think this is a must-buy.  It’s one of the rare games out there that plays well with six players, can still get done in an hour or so once everyone knows the rules, is easy enough that you might even be able to get some non-gamers to play it occasionally, and creates tension around the table that can’t be duplicated in that time frame by any other game I know of.  It’s a perfect end-of-the-night game for any game group, when everyone’s a little tired and doesn’t want to burn their brains anymore.  In short, this one depends on your situation, but I think it’s a worthy addition to any game collection.

REPLAY/OWNERSHIP VALUE: 8/10

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OVERALL RATING: 62/100

This is a solid game, and once it gets reprinted with an updated rulebook, it’s going to be even better.  As long as you’ve got the right group of people sitting around the table, this one’s going to be a hit.  However, buyer beware: you’re going to have to do some digging to get that updated rulebook, or else you’re going to spend a lot of time frustrated while teaching the game.  Use the link I provided above, download the updated rulebook (and maybe a player aid or two), and have a great time.

Introduction: who I am, what I'm doing, and why I'm doing it

Hello! My name is Bill Corey Jr, and I'm a board game junkie enthusiast. I was born in 1973, and I have been a part of the gaming community nearly all my life, having grown up in and around Lake Geneva, WI (the former Mecca of gaming, back in the old TSR days). I play RPGs, CCGs, and videogames (although not as much as I once did), but my real passion is with "designer" boardgames. I have a rotating collection of about 150 board and card games, and I have a dedicated game room with a walk-in game closet in my home. I am also one of the organizers of the Gaming Hoopla convention and am a game designer as well, having successfully sold one of my board game designs (at the time of this writing it is still unpublished, but hope springs eternal). I have worked at the major game conventions for many game companies over the years, including Koplow Games and Mayfair Games. So, as you can see, I'm hip deep in my dorkdom, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I was encouraged to start this blog by a friend of mine, who thinks I'm a better writer than I think I am. More importantly, she once told me that the only way to get better at writing is to write. I am suspicious of such a simple answer to a question that's eluded me for years, but hey, she's a writer, so she probably knows more about it than I do. Of course, now I sort of have to consider myself a writer too... but only if I stick with it, I guess. She also said it's important to write about something you feel passionate about, especially at first... and so here we are.

The focus of this blog is probably going to be game reviews... mostly board games, but occasionally other types too (videogames, RPGs, etc). I might occasionally throw in a rant here and there about game design, sportsmanship, or etiquette, and if I'm feeling really froggy I might even take a shot at satirical humor from time to time... but mostly it's gonna be reviews. Note that I am NOT going to go into a rules breakdown for each game I review. I might list a few key rules if they impact the review itself, but there are tons of other resources out there that can teach you how to play pretty much any game that's published, and I'm not going to reinvent the wheel typing it all out again.

When I think about whether I like a game or not, there are a few different areas of a game that I consider important, so each of my reviews is going to focus on those areas and give each area an individual rating from 0 (absolute garbage) to 10 (perfect, without room for improvement). However, even though each area is important to me, they are not all equally important. At the end of the review I'll give an overall rating for the game based on the different areas' scores, but they'll be weighted differently. Here's a breakdown of how it'll work.

GAME DESCRIPTION
I'll try to remember to list the game's designer, publisher, in- or out-of-print status, and a link to a boardgame's entry on BoardGameGeek if applicable. That way if you want to dig a little deeper, you'll have everything you need right there at your fingertips.

COMPONENTS, PACKAGING AND PRESENTATION (20% of overall rating)
This will consist of the physical "bits" that you get when you buy a game. It'll cover the quality and attractiveness of the pieces, cards, boards, the box itself, the usefulness of the insert in the box, whether the game can easily be put back into the box once it's been opened and punched, the graphic design of the various components, and the rulebook (although the rules of the game themselves will be rated under "Playability" below... this just factors in the artwork, readability, editing, paper/printing quality, etc of the rulebook). A game has to look at least halfway decent if I'm going to want to bother playing it, and this will be my opinion of all of those factors taken as a whole.

RULES & PLAYABILITY (30% of overall rating)
This rating will be made up of the design of the game itself: game balance and design, rules clarity, player aids, helpful or annoying iconography, and so forth. If a game has an obnoxiously steep learning curve, this is also where you'll hear about it (probably because of a shortcoming in one or more of the above elements). This area does NOT cover how much fun a game is, however, nor does it cover whether the game is worth owning or playing repeatedly... those are a part of Game Experience and Replay/Ownership Value respectively. This area is purely about the mechanical aspects of the game: does it work the way it's supposed to, and can the players figure out how it works reasonably easily?

GAME EXPERIENCE (40% of overall rating)
Have you ever played a game and at the end felt like that was two hours of your life you were never going to get back? Yeah, me too. This area measures how much fun the game is to play, how rewarding and satisfying the overall playing experience is. A game can be mechanically brilliant, but if it's no fun playing it, what's the point? That's not all there is to it, either. If a game features excellent opportunities for social interaction with the other folks around the table, suffers from excessive downtime, has unavoidable analysis paralysis, or too many fiddly bits to keep track of, those things all affect the experience of playing the game more than they do the mechanics of the game, so they'll be factored in here. In short, this is an abstraction of how enjoyable your time around the table with the game is.

REPLAY/OWNERSHIP VALUE (10% of overall rating)
This is a kind of nebulous term that covers a few different things. Most notably, it covers whether or not the game is worth owning or not. This factors in replayability, "bang for the buck," and long-term strategic depth. If a game can be "solved" within one or two plays, then owning it loses a lot of its allure... whereas some games seem to demand play after play to unlock new potential strategies. However, because not every game needs to be owned by every gamer, and because sometimes it's hard to get any game to the table over and over again, this area is weighted less than all the others. A low rating here doesn't make the game bad... it makes the game less important to own your own copy of.

So there you have it. If you have any comments about my rating system, I'd be interested to hear them... although I'm probably not going to be changing it anytime soon. If you disagree with the weighting of the four ratings, it shouldn't be hard to adjust them to your own tastes.

Happy reading, everyone!