Aliens: Another Glorious Day In The Corps

I recently finished rewatching the first three Alien movies again for the umpteenth time. There’s something timeless about those movies to me that keeps them from wearing out. Could there have been a better casting than Sigourney Weaver as Ripley? For me, the 1986 Aliens (the second installment) is the absolute best of the lot. One of the things that tie the movie together is the zany group of marines who help inject some timely humor into an otherwise dark and claustrophobic movie, rife with gore and slimy, acid-spitting aliens.

In the world of board games, often it’s the dressing that brings bodies to the table. It’s not a new idea to use popular movies, books or series to create set the stage for board games. I can think of a number of somewhat crappy games that only saw the light of day because they were tied to a popular IP or brand.

Aliens: Another Glorious Day In The Corps is definitely not a crappy game. Designed for between one and six players, this game captures all the grit, tension and chest-bursting alien action that we all know and love. Now, I’m generally not a fan of cooperative-style games. Maybe I just run with the wrong crowd but I find the average co-op just doesn’t bring the best out of people. Arguing over who should do what on their turns is a turn-off. I say all of that because even though this game is a co-op, it’s full of all the things I love about the Alien movies.

Game publisher, Galeforce 9, has this to say about this offering,

“Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps! is a co‑operative survival board game in which you and your team of specialist Colonial Marines will gear up with serious firepower and head into Hadley’s Hope to find survivors and answers. But you’re not alone. To survive, you’ll need to work together, keep your cool, and stay frosty to fight off relentless Xenomorph ambushes and get out of there alive.

Players can play up to six different missions, taking them into different areas from the Hadley’s Hope terraforming facility to the deep, dark recesses of an xenomorph nest. Aliens also offers an exciting campaign mode to play four of the missions linked together, so players will need to fight relentless xenomorph attacks and keep each other alive all the way to the end of the campaign. The remaining two missions are purely about survival, it’s kill or be killed. The players are dropped into the game with nothing more than a pistol. They will need to scavenge weapons and gear while hordes of Xenomorph aliens are trying to get at them. How long can you survive against the odds?”

Let’s Go, Jarhead!

The game includes a three-mission campaign and four standalone “Bug Hunt” missions. You and your friends begin the campaign with any weapons and equipment you desire so pick your optimal load of weapons and ammo because it’s time to move out! The ultimate goal is to accomplish the missions’ objectives which varies depending on the mission you’ve chosen. The Bug Hunt missions are different in that you start with the bare basics in weaponry and, as you move through the mission, you and your gang must find the necessary equipment to handle the alien threat and try to make it out alive.

Something that’s become fairly standard is that each player is assigned a unique hero with unique abilities as well as specific stats. These abilities are powerful on their own but can be used very effectively when multiple players use their abilities together. Basically, if you actually cooperate, you’ll have a much better chance at surviving. Something I think is very cool about this game is how they handle players getting killed. The game has a number of NPCs, Grunts, which are weaker heroes that players can activate at the end of their turns. Grunts can be used as to support players, or also be used as a diversion and potentially as a sacrifice so everyone can escape. But don’t go throwing all your grunts away recklessly because you’ll likely need a few in reserve. The reason is that in the event your hero is ever captured or killed, you select a grunt and flip its character card over to its heroic side.

Can You Endure The Onslaught?

The gameplay revolves around managing the Endurance Deck. It contains benefitting Event cards, terrible Hazard cards, and the game’s timer. When you use your weapons or when you use certain abilities, cards will be moved from the Endurance Deck to the face-down Exhaust pile. From the top of the Exhaust pile, you can also recycle cards by placing them under the Endurance Deck. This will allow you to complete your mission in a shorter amount of time. 

At times, the game will force you to move cards to the discard pile. This removes them from the game which starts to make things difficult for our rag-tag band of marines. The clock is ticking too. Once the endurance deck and exhaust pile are…exhausted, your party is officially out of time. 

I won’t sugarcoat it: this is not an easy game to win. And even when you do, usually a couple of players are gonna die along the way. For this reason, I’d say to just make sure you go into this game with the expectation that your marine ain’t comin’ out again. You just gotta do your best to remain stoic, alert and ready for anything. And when it doubt, ask yourself, “what would Ripley do?”.

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