I have played this game several times now, but so far only the competitive version of the game.
The components are of a high quality, nice plastic miniatures for the Players and ally pieces, high quality artwork and cardboard tokens all in keeping with the theme of this game.
There is a lot going on in this game and it is very easy to overlook a card or ability during your turn. Players represent an alien race trying to take over planet earth, from their landing site players move their pieces, turn over location cards and battle the resistance there. Each location has a number of resistance and Terror points score, players needing to conquest areas to a total score of 8 to win.
There are event cards players used to help your own plans or scupper other player's plans. There is also Space stuff which is equipment used to aid your invasion. When you land on a location you strength is the number of alien craft you put in times the strength of your race, plus you and the resistance get a dice roll to add to your total. When you battle for a location you draw a resistance card this determines their strength, if a Hero is drawn you draw another resistance card and total the scores. It is possible to beat overwhelming odds by rolling a 6 which is a crushing victory but if the other side also roll a 6 then it is a tie and you lose an alien and have to either retreat or fight the same resistance for another round.
I enjoyed playing this game and it has a Mars Attacks kind of feel to it, but I did feel there was something missing and I wanted more.
Having spoken to someone else who has played the game, the co-operative version is more involved and adds extra elements. I will certainly play this again and hopefully try out the co-operative version.
For replay ability having different versions of the same game certainly provides plenty of options and is a very neat idea.
