It’s nearly Xmas. There is a geek in your life, and you, or a family member, want to get them something special. But you just know that you’ll get roped in to whatever you end up getting, whether you want to or not. Have no fear, folks, because Geeking Out is here with the fantastic games (plus some honorable mentions) that are guaranteed to keep everyone happy this season.

THE COMIC (OR CARD) FAN’S GAME

Cryptozoic has built a reputation for itself on the back of its excellent range of intuitive, card-based “Deck-building” games, covering franchises as diverse as Dragonball Z and Star Trek. None are quite such glorious, intuitive fun though as their DC Deck-Building Game.

In this game you play as one of 7 iconic DC Heroes: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg, Green Lantern and Flash, each attempting to take down a series of super-villains, from the Joker to Darkseid and everything in between. Each hero has a different, thematic ability (Batman is all about equipment, Flash about fast card draw, etc.) and you gradually become more powerful as you recruit more heroes, gain powers and equipment and take down low-grade villains to take out the big guns.

It’s a very easy game to pick up, logical, but has some subtle mechanics that make it genuinely challenging: for example, both Batman and Cyborg run most effectively if you attempt to fill your deck up with equipment, so if 2 players have them, they’re immediately in competition with each other – but what about stopping Superman from getting all the super-powers and becoming nigh-unstoppable? There are also numerous excellent expansions, notably Teen Titans and various Crisis packs. Crisis packs are particularly interesting because they make the game play in a radically different co-op mode, which feels like a proper super-hero team-up.

Fiendishly difficult, my regular group and I have *never* beaten Crisis on Infinite Earths (closest was one time we were 2 cards away from victory versus the Anti-Monitor!) and yet we keep going back to play this over all others. Now that’s the mark of a good game.

THE ZOMBIE AND / OR HORROR FAN’S GAME

There are, perhaps unsurprisingly, swarms – hordes, even – of zombie games on the market right now. Zombiecide, Zombies!!! and more are all good fun, but for me it’s Dead of Winter that wins out.

Plaid Hat’s excellent Crossroads game is a co-operative affair where everyone also has their own agenda – and if you don’t all win, no-one does. In the depths of snow, a group of survivors struggle against the ceaseless undead tide. It has won many awards, and rightly so, with its emphasis on story as much as bloody post-apocalyptic violence. There’s genuine terror in every dice roll and the prospect of generating noise and managing dwindling supplies creates agonising risk/reward scenarios for your colony of rag-tag survivors.

Fun and accessible, this one will keep you on the edge of your seat. Build barricades people, and be sure to take care of the dog, that’s my advice. With some fun promos to be add, and a 99c app to help both card management and add atmosphere, this is a festive treat.

THE SCI-FI / TIE-IN FAN’S GAME

I’m starting with the honourable mention here: Battlestar Galactica. Fantasy Flight are known for their vast, sprawling, token heavy, high-end product. This is no exception, and is a game of excellent intrigue and survival versus traitors Cylon or otherwise. It is, however, inordinately complex – a lot of fun, but set aside a long evening (or more) to play it to its fullest.

That being said, my choice geek game this season is as vast as the whole damn ‘verse: Firefly: The Game.

The Firefly boardgame does everything you’d hope. Everyone hops aboard an old, beaten up Firefly class transport and tries to get jobs, get tight with various unsavoury types (or the Alliance, for that matter) whilst keeping your crew from becoming disgruntled and avoiding Reavers eating you alive. As you fly, you have to ensure you have plenty of fuel and parts, whilst deciding whether to spend your time picking up busy work at supply planets or doing more questionable jobs for greater reward. The Alliance cruiser lumbers around the centre of the board and Reavers skirt the rim, but you never quite know if one might come looking for you.

As if that’s not tempting enough, there’s a wealth of expansions for this game of different shapes and sizes. Coachworks expansions add new ships, such as the Mark IV fireflies Jetwash and Esmeralda:

Pirates and Bounty hunters adds completely different vessels for you to mix things up a bit, even to the point of betraying your own crew to the alliance (how very fitting!)

If the ‘verse and big enough for you, how about adding Blue Sun or Kalidasa systems?

As well as adding further rules variants, Kalidasa also adds the Operative’s corvette, whilst Blue Sun adds more Reavers making them a far more terrifying prospect (if that’s possible).

And hey, if that’s not shiny enough for you, there’s new jobs in Breaking Atmo, customizable ship models for the miniature gamer and even a map of the whole damn verse.

Take my life, take my land, and pretty much take my wallet.

Till next year, Geeks!

---

The Writer of this piece was: Sam Graven
Article Archive: Geeking Out
You can follow Sam on Twitter

---