Nemesis - An Introduction

 Nemesis - An Introduction

Game Specs

• Advertised Player Count: 1-5
• *Actual* Player Count: I've only played it with 4, but I think 3-5 is probably your best bet. 4 feels like a sweet spot to me because it's enough players to create some chaos on the ship but also to better create tension because of the increased possibility of conflicting objectives.
• Playing Time: 90-180 minutes
• I think this is fairly accurate, but it's a bit hard to tell from my own experience just because the rulebook was a bit tough to navigate when it came to finding specific rules and interactions, and that really slowed us down. 
• Age: 12+
• Premise: Everyone on the ship has been awakened from hypersleep prematurely because something is wrong with the ship. Upon awakening, they discover a dead crewmate. Something else is on the ship. And the crew needs to work together to stay alive in order to achieve their objectives. Of course, not everyone has the same objectives, so working together isn't always beneficial for everyone involved...

It took me entirely too long to get to this game, but unless I played it with Chad, I was the only one who had read the rules and it seemed to be on the longer side even if everyone knew the rules. This is both true and false, as I really am convinced that this game will move considerably faster if everyone has played it before. But that might also be evidence of my naive optimism, like when I go out to play games and promise my wife "I'm pretty tired, so I won't be out late." She knows I'm both genuine and wrong when I utter those words.

Honestly, I think the game is kind of simpler than it reads. But the rulebook is both thorough and frustrating in its placement of rules that we frequently double and triple-check. But ultimately, it's a hand management game that features cool minis moving around a ship infested with malevolent aliens. Explore the ship, pick up gear, avoid the aliens if you can (oh, you can try and fight them, but it takes only one bad dice roll to be in a real bad spot real quick...), and attempt to fulfill your objective while hoping nobody is working directly against you. See? Simple!

I do think there's a little bit of clunkiness in how the Invaders get deployed, but I honestly don't know how avoidable that is, given that it does a terrific job of emulating the feel of both Alien and Aliens, the movies on which this game is clearly based while skirting IP laws. There's a quiet that pervades the ship and the uncertainty of where the Invaders will appear all squares with the atmosphere Ridley Scott created in Alien. But once folks start picking up weapons and find ourselves surrounded by Invaders that have closed on our location, and now we're running through the ship slamming doors behind us because we can't kill all of them and we're worried about being overrun, it feels a lot more like James Cameron's Aliens. It's a game well made, in my opinion.

Bottom Line: There are plenty of people who won't necessarily enjoy the possibility of backstabbing in the game, and I think semi-co-op is a real tough line to walk in a boardgame. I know plenty of people who'd rather play a game that is either cooperative or competitive, not somewhere in-between. But I think it's handled well in this game's design and it's a game for people who enjoy role-playing a little bit. In my experience, I can tell everyone onboard what my goal is so that I can try to prove I'm not a threat. But it's more fun to be coy and play into the notion of not necessarily trusting other people enough to tell them exactly what I'm up to. It fosters tension and for me, tension is central to enjoyment of the game. Otherwise, the Noise tokens aren't as creepy as I think they're meant to be. But be ready for a longer, heavier game when you play, because it's definitely that! But it creates good, Alien-like atmosphere and I'm a fan!