When your employer rezes their Pink Slip agenda, leaving your ass canned, you've got to hack their shit, leave them with nothing!
...or just get Netrunner on the table.
Day two with Matt was just the two us (we made 'cuz we tried), so we started things off with Android: Netrunner. If you aren't an embarrassing nerd, know that this is one of the hottest releases of 2012. It's a reprint/re-imagining of an older game by Richard Garfield (creator of the highly obscure Magic: The Gathering, and cousin of Henry Rollins, true fact), originally published by Wizards of the Coast. I know little to nothing about the old game, so I'll stick to what I do know about the new one. Fantasy Flight is putting it out this time around, dumping it in their Android universe, and by "universe", I mean "setting that is highly derivative of Blade Runner that has only been used for two other games, one of which was a train wreck." Seriously though, this game is a William Gibson fan's dream come true. It's a customizable card game for two players, featuring two asymmetrical sides to play. There's the Corp, who tries to advance their greedy corporate agendas, protecting them with "Ice" (read "network security"), hoping to reduce anyone trying to hack their way in into a smoldering wad of meat sitting at their computer terminal. Then there's the runner, who jacks themselves into cyberspace, using their resources, hardware, and icebreaker programs in an effort to steal the Corp's agendas before they come to fruition.
So what are my initial feelings on this one? Well, HOLY CRAP AM I TERRIBLE AT THIS GAME. Or maybe it's that the Corp has a steeper learning curve, but I'm betting it's a fair amount of both. We played three games in a row, and with each game I felt I did a little bit better, but I couldn't get a single agenda into play throughout. Both sides need money for one thing or another, and that can be pretty hard to come by. The real problem is playing the smoke and mirrors game, which is how the Corp needs to play. I haven't quite figured out how to get someone to think that something is worth going after while getting the thing I'm really concerned with to go off. I can't seem to master "the prestige," so to speak. It seemed that as soon as I started to advance an agenda, Matt was willing to take the plunge and make a run on it.
Is the game fun? Yeah, definitely. I can see why people like it so much. Writing about it has me feeling super eager to play it again, even if it's only to try to really get the hang of playing the Corp. I'm tremendously relieved to see how well this game plays out of the core box on its own. This is meant to be an introductory product, and I've taken issue with Fantasy Flight in the past for how playable these types of games are out of the gate. One core set is enough, and my early feeling is that there's ample design space to explore in this one box.
I'm trying to explore the concept of never ending, continuous reviews with this blog, and this game seems like fertile ground for that.
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