Today’s spotlight shines on a game that is up-and-coming
amongst board gamers and is one that I must admit I am totally hooked on:
Sentinels of the Multiverse. This is a deeply thematic, fully cooperative card
game for 2-5 players from Greater Than Games.
Debuted in 2011, this game has already warranted three full expansions (with
another in the works!) and was one of the top 10 board/card games funded on
Kickstarter. The most recent expansion, Infernal Relics, boasts contributions
from Richard Launius of Arkham Horror fame. Needless to say, it’s getting big.
What really attracted me to this game at first was the
theme. I am an enormous comic book nerd, and I have already had a lot of
personal success with other cooperative board games (e.g.Pandemic, Castle Panic, and Forbidden Island… even
Shadows over Camelot and Battlestar Galactica if I had to). When I saw this
box, the art and theme immediately jumped out at me. The gorgeous aesthetics
conceal an incredible easy game mechanic system. It’s accessible to the point
of learning how to play in five minutes!
Players select a deck of hero cards for one particular
superhero. Once each player has taken a hero to fight as, the group selects a
super-villain to battle against, and then an environment to serve as a backdrop
to the action. All of the heroes have rich backstories, and echo one (or more)
existing superheroes in our own pantheon of comic book heroes and heroines. You
can choose Legacy (a Superman/Captain America type brawler), Tachyon (a female
scientist version of the Flash), Tempest (think X-Men’s Storm combined with Aquaman),
and many more.
Through play-testing this game, I have learned that some of
the best parts of it are the epic moments where the heroes come together in a
seamless motion and bring down their enemy. For example, a group of us played
recently where we were fighting the Grand Warlord Voss, an alien conqueror
posed to take over the planet. His minions faced us in Insula Primalis (a
Jurassic Park -esque battlefield where dinosaurs and plant life could help or
hinder us). At one point, our battle was interrupted by a huge volcanic
eruption which threatened to kill two of our three heroes! My friend,
controlling Ra (the Egyptian god of fire and badassery), played a card that
made us all immune to fire damage for the next turn; the volcano blew its top,
annihilating all of our enemy’s minions in one fell swoop as we stood by in the
pyroclastic flow, happily immune to the destruction around us. And this
is just a card game!
If you’re into cooperative games, or even if you just like
superheroes and think it’d be cool to feel like you’re on a team of them, check
out Sentinels of the Multiverse. You will not be disappointed. The upcoming
expansion adds new heroes, villains, and mechanics to an already lush game of
luck and strategy. I might be a little biased, but I definitely think this game
deserves the buzz it’s receiving lately. It is really quite fantastic.
What'd you think of this post? Which board game(s) should I review next? Hit me up in the comments below. :)
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