Grave Robbers from Outer Space Card Game Review
Say, is that a tentacle?
I wanted to kick off the first article on Gaming Unplugged with a game near and dear to my heart... Grave Robbers from Outer Space!
Now I know what you're thinking. Sounds like a B-move right? Well good news! It IS a B-movie. Well... It's a B-movie based game.
Grave Robbers from Outer Space (GROS) is the flagship for the B-movie series of games from publisher Z-Man Games and designed by Stephen Tassie. The entire series of games are each themed from different campy styles of films. GROS is the sci-fi/horror entry.
This type of game is considered a "non-collectible" card game. That essentially means that it has complex game mechanics, such as is found in Magic: The Gathering, but unlike Magic, you don't have to fork out mad wads of cash to keep up to date. Instead of expanding via individual booster packs, it does so through updates and "one-time-buy" expansions. For the B-movie series of games, each expansion also plays as a game in and of itself.
The game itself plays relatively easy. The concept is you are trying to film your own B-movie, while sabotaging other players' movies by sending your monsters over to wreak havoc. Right before the game starts and you draw your hand, you get to decide on the name of the flick. This is done by the upside words at the bottom of each card. A number of cards are flipped from the top of the deck and you try to flow the words together into a sentence. If the other players agree it is coherent, you have your title. This comes into play at the end of the game, as if you have any cards in play, or in your hand, that share words from the title, you earn extra points.
There are five types of cards in the game: Actors, Creatures, Props, Special Effects and Locations. And almost every card parodies your favorite cliches from B-movies, such as "We've seen your breasts, now you must die." Even the Creatures come from a classic collection, including Dracula, Zombies, and of course, the Grave Robbers from Outer Space! The locations, also, are very recognizable. There are places like the old abandoned mansion, or the local high school. One of the neat mechanics is that you not only get to set your own location, you can also set your opponents! This can make for intense strategic play as there are locations that cause damage, or have massive drawbacks, but at the same time also give excellent advantages.
The games have a number of on-going gags throughout the entire series. The two most popular are the tentacle jokes, and the character Skippy the Wonder Dog, of which there is a version in every game. In fact, Skippy even gets his own game in one of the later expansions, Grave Robbers from Outer Space 2: Skippy's Revenge.
At the end of the day, this is a great game, from a great publisher (Z-Man Games), of whom I can not sing the praises of enough! If you have two to six players and want to have a some good ole' fashion campy horror fun, then no need to break out the chainsaw and Hockey mask! Just pick up a copy of Grave Robbers from Outer Space!
"It's more fun than blowing up the Earth for its own good!" -Gort
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Your friendly neighborhood Falcon,
John "Falcon" Ayers
The Falcon's Nest
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