Mission: Red Planet Review
/Overview:
In this steampunk world, you take charge of one of many ambitious companies that have set its sights on Mars. Mission: Red Planet is a game where you must outmaneuver your competition by any means necessary. You hire pilots, soldiers, and even saboteurs in order to gain control of the red planet. The winner will be the company that has survived its ruthless competitors, made the best use of your scientist's discoveries, and monopolized the sparse martian resources.
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How it plays:
In Mission: Red Planet you are fighting for control over the various regions of Mars and it’s moon Phobos. Over the course of ten rounds, you will be utilizing different specialists under your control to load up rockets heading for mars. The key is in positioning yourself to take control of different regions and working to deter your competitors from doing the same. When it is time to get resources only the player with the biggest presence in a region will profit so be careful where you devote your manpower. If your opponent steals control over a region at the last second then all your efforts there will be wasted.
Players gain resources on three occasions throughout the game, after the 5th, 8th, and 10th round. Each time the number of resources you can gain is increased by one (gaining one resource the first time, two the second time, and three the third time). There are three different resources, each is worth a different amount of victory points at the end of the game which makes some regions much more valuable and sought after.
Along with getting points for resources each player starts with a mission card which will score you more points at the end of the game if you complete it. Your mission might be to control specific regions of Mars which would make some of the less valuable regions more interesting or your mission could be to have the most of one specific resource causing you to fight much harder for regions that produce it. There is also a global mission to collect the most ice, the least valuable resource. Whichever player gets the most ice will get the reward. All of these missions can net you a lot of points at the end of the game but may require you to sacrifice other potentially valuable plays to be able to complete it..
Everyone has the same nine specialists in their arsenal. Every turn each player will select one of these specialist cards from their hand simultaneously. Each specialist allows the player to load rockets on the board with a specific number of their astronauts. When a ship fills to its capacity it will launch to Mars at the end of the round. Since each specialist goes in a specific order you might want to use a less powerful one that goes sooner to guarantee that there is space for you on one of the rockets.
That is not all specialists do! Each one also has a powerful special ability that you also get when you use them. For example, The Explorer allows you to move astronauts already on Mars which allows you to quickly swing the control of a region into your favor. Another specialist is the Pilot who redirects the flight path of a rocket to whatever destination you pick. You could use this to bolster your control over a region or prevent enemy astronauts from landing in your region. The most complicated role is the scientist which allows you to either draw an event card from the deck or look at a discovery card in play. There are three types of event cards in the deck, Actions: which gives you special moves or affect the board at different points in the game, Missions: like the ones you start with which allows you to net even more points at the end if you complete them, and Discoveries: which are played on the different regions of Mars and affect them in different ways. Discoveries are played face down and slide under the region on the board. Only the player who made the discovery knows what it does unless the other players use their scientist to look at the card. Discoveries can be good or bad, like causing regions to produce even more resources or causing players to lose points for every astronaut they have there.
At the end of the game you add up all the points you get from your resources and completed missions cards and whoever has the most points is victorious!
Our Thoughts:
Mission: Red Planet is this blend of theme and strategy that I am always looking for in games. At its heart, this is a fairly simple blend of area majority and action selection that makes for interesting play. On top of that are these moments when you successfully blow up a rocket filled with your opponent’s astronauts or invade a martian territory to get majority right before it scores that creates these really amazing memories that stick with you and create stories that you will be talking about long after the game is over. Trying to guess which specialist your opponent is going to play and trying to guess what discovery card they just placed on a region will leave you guessing and really gives the game so much more depth than how it may initially appear. It is also super nice that with the simultaneous action selection that acts as the main mechanic of the game, it scales very well between all the player counts without adding a ton of time for each additional player in the game.
Every component in this box both looks amazing and reminds you that you are in this steampunk universe. From the interlocking docking stations for the rocket cards to launch from to the board which is these 4 large puzzle pieces of cardboard that fit together to make a circular playing area, every piece of this game is very high quality and looks stunning. People will be interested in this game just from how awesome it looks sitting on the table. It is really hard to find anything to complain about when looking at the actual components of this game, however, I am never a fan of small decks of cards which this game uses for the event cards.
While it may seem like a lot at first glance, Mission: Red Planet is pretty easy to learn and the rule book is laid out in a fairly intuitive way. It does not take long to teach this game to most people, however, it can take several rounds to really start to understand how everything works together. Once you get going though the game plays very smoothly and it can go very quickly. If you are playing it with other people who have played before you will find games can be played easily in under an hour. It can quickly fall prey to those who like to think everything through, especially if it’s their first game, so that can also stretch out the length of the game.
Pros:
High-quality components which all look incredible.
Fun, satisfying, and tactical game play that scales well between different player counts.
A mixture of theme, intrigue, and strategy that makes each game tell its own story.
Cons:
Difficult game for people who have to think through every possible outcome to learn, which can really make the game become long and drawn out.
Smaller sized event cards.
A large amount of player interaction which some might find upsetting.
TLDR:
If you like trying ruining your friend’s well-laid plans, trying to outwit your opponents, or thrilling adventures of steampunk corporate espionage in space then you might like Mission: Red Planet.
If you do not like having your own plans sabotaged by other players, being forced to quickly come up with a new strategy on the fly, or high levels of player interaction then you might not like Mission: Red Planet.
If you are interested in Mission: Red Planet click the link below to find it listed on Amazon!
