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First off, I really dislike the title of this game. At a glance, the name Ares Expedition looks and sounds way too close to “Expansion.” It needs a name that nails that it is a stand alone game that just happens to be set in the Terraforming Mars Universe. After numerous games, I also think it needs to somehow work “Wormhole Theory” into the tile. According to Space.com, “The wormhole theory postulates that a theoretical passage through space-time could create shortcuts for long journeys across the universe.”
In Ares Expedition, the combination of the simultaneous play, taking more Actions per turn the more players you have, and additional players pushing the Ocean, Oxygen and Heat tracks to completion quicker creates one of the oddest sensations....the MORE players who are playing, the less amount of time it actually takes to play! I'm not sure if it is creating a wormhole or ripping apart the very fabric of the space/time continuum, but either way, I'm here for it. For instance, my first game was a teaching/learning at two-players. We ended up finishing up at roughly two hours and fifteen minutes. So, I looked at that fantastical “plays at 60 minutes” on the side of the box with serious doubt. My second game was also a teaching game but this time at three players and it wrapped up in one hour and forty five minutes. We then tried a four player game, once again with a new player, and it finished up at an hour and fifteen minutes. Hmmm, maybe that playtime isn't pure fantasy.
Ares Expedition takes the framework of Terraforming Mars and condenses it down. Sure, it still has a “board” but it is basically saying “That's just for scoring, the game is all about the cards in front of you.” And playing cards does give the best feeling in Terraforming Mars, whether it is slamming an Ice Asteroid into the planet for a one-time boost or cranking up TM or Heat production a notch so that it pays off later.
As I briefly mentioned earlier, one of the new mechanisms is that you only take the Phases/actions that the players select at the beginning of the round. They are: Development, Construction, Action, Production, and Research. Or, as you will find yourself calling them: Play a Green Card, Play a Red or Blue Card, Take the actions on your card and/or a standard action, Gain money and resources, and Draw some cards. This adds a bit of indirect interaction with the other players where you try to guess which phase they will be choosing so that you don't all pick the same phase. At the same time, you still want to pick one that the bonus action (whoever plays a Phase gets a bonus or boost for that action) benefits you in the best way. Of course, you still get those moments when everyone picks the same phase or you speculate someone will play a phase you need to take and then no one picks it for the current round. Factor in that you can't pick the same Phase two rounds in a row and it adds that certain, if not interaction at least anticipation, to the game.
Once your corporation gets humming along, you'll be bringing down tons of resources and Mega Credits that you were starved for only a few rounds earlier. You often see one player/corporation becoming focused on specific tracks/areas (just like real life). One card gives you the option during the action round to flip over an ocean, which normally costs 15 Mega Credits for only 10 Mega Credits...and it gives you an additional discount for how much your steel production currently is. Suddenly you are flipping oceans for about 1/3 the cost the other players would have to pay...and you can do it twice a turn if you are the one who chose the Action Phase for that round. Of course, when there are no more Oceans to be flipped, you'll have to diversify in order to thrive.
The new double thick player boards are very sweet since you can't really bump them and dislodge all of the cubes. But I really wish they would have given the main game board this upgrade as well. Giving it a jostle will still move the scoring cubes on the Ocean, Oxygen and Terraforming tracks.
A co-op mode which is actually pretty cool because it 1.) Effectively limits the game to 15 rounds and 2.) Takes almost zero maintenance from the players. It is, essentially, two players drawing one cube from a stack after each round, when you run out of cubes, the game is over. Did you get the Terraforming Rating high enough? Congratulations, you win. If not...ummm...I guess you have to answer to some pissy shareholders?
The things that are absent from this release that are in the original Terraforming Mars you likely won't miss that much. The adding of cities and associated cubes, purchasing scoring goals and such are all part of the deeper strategy in TM but Ares puts everything up front and on the cards. The original TM does sometimes intrude when a rule from the original game would nudge me after bouncing around inside my head and I'd have to look up the Ares version to confirm there was a change. Still, I will be hanging onto Terraforming Mars and the Prelude Expansion when I have the itch for a deeper, longer game or when we have five players at the table. (Ares Expedition doesn't have a fifth player option, to which I can hear everyone who has ever been stuck in a seemingly never-ending game of Terraforming Mars mumbling “Thank Fucking God.”)
Ares Expedition, despite it's confusing name (Yes, this is a hill I'm willing to die upon and, Yes, I do know how to read....thankyouverymuch), provides a great Terraforming Mars experience. The “If you have the resources to boost a track, you must boost that track” requirement sidesteps the drawn out TM experience where players try to tweak their engine to Nth degree. It plays in a shorter time the more players you add, so you'll never hesitate at adding additional players. I'm more than happy to follow the rabbit down this Terraforming Mars wormhole.
A review copy of this release was provided by the publisher.
