Forum Overview :: Reviews :: REX, aka Dune 2.0, aka Cosmic Encounter Obsolescence

[quote name="fabio"]So Fantasy Flight Games wanted to do a reissue of the 1979 Dune boardgame but couldn't get the IP rights from Herbert's estate, so they pulled a Space Hulk and just copied the mechanics with a different background. Unfortunately, a lot of the fun from a Dune game comes <b>from</b> the background, and FFG went with their Twilight Imperium LORE that no one cares about. Once you get past that though, scribbling out every proper noun in the game and replacing it with its Dune equivalent, REX is a lot of fun. The mechanics revolve around forging alliances while fighting other players while collecting random appearing resource while avoiding a random deadly hazard. In Dune it was collecting spice while avoiding sand storms, in REX it's collecting "influence" (bwuh?) while avoiding a fleet of orbital bombarding ships. Once all your scribbling is done, role play your faction to your heart's content. Fattest player gets the Harkonnen. Combat is a neat game of loser loses all chicken. Players secretly "bid" one to all of their units for a total strength in addition to some other modifiers. Winner loses the number of units he bid while the loser loses everything. Everyone in the game starts with a random traitor card, each representing one of five leaders from one of the other factions. Leaders add their value to the battle. If you happen to have the traitor card of the leader your opponent played, he loses everything and you nothing. The rest of the fun comes in the asymmetry of the factions. The "Fremen" know ahead of time what path the bombardment fleet will take and are more mobile with ambushes. The "Emperor" gets powerful "Sardukar" units and receives all money spent by other players on combat cards. The "Bene Gesserit" can decline combat, use "the voice" to forbid certain combat cards, and secretly predict at the start of the game a faction and turn number to win (if their prediction comes true they win instead). The "Harkonnen" receive four traitors instead of one. "Atredis" get an edge in combat cards. "The Guild" receives all money spent by other players on movement. Another good mechanic is the way alliances are handled. No more anti-climatic decision-free co-wins of Cosmic Encounter. There is a trade off to alliances since it increases the victory condition the larger it gets (first to control 3 victory spots wins. 4 spots for two person alliance. All 5 spots for three person alliance.) You can only change alliances when a certain card comes up so it's a commitment that requires foresight, but can quickly be dropped. I'm not sure it's perfect. -Combat seems like it can become a bit annoying with the cards. If you didn't buy any combat cards you're not going to win any battles. The nature of the cards makes some combat feel like blind rock paper scissors where there isn't any paper, just rock and super sharp rock cutting scissors. This is all still preferable to Cosmic's ten times more random and a hundred times more meaningless combat. -The rulebook forbids anyone from writing anything down, to prevent players from memorizing what cards others have. This is a retarded holdover from the Eurotrash boardgame genre where photographic memories are supposed to be fun and must correctly be stricken from the game. - You really need 6 players to make the game work. - Whoever goes last has a HUGE advantage in the movement and battle phase for that turn, as in whoever goes last has a decent chance of immediately winning the game that turn (certain factions are capable of winning on the first turn if they go last). First player shifts every turn, but with six players and a maximum of 8 turns, some players get the random advantage of going last twice. So some flaws, but every fun aspect of Cosmic Encounter is present here without the mounds and mounds of suck. How much effort are you willing to put into taping pictures of Dune characters onto all the cards?[/quote]