Gears of War boardgame from - who else? - Fantasy Flight

Sorry if this is old news. Just stumbled across it:

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/12444.html

I'm not a big FPS guy, but my son loves this game dearly, so it's a probable pick-up for me. FFG kicks all kinds of ass.

I love gears of war, but this could be hilariously bad. If it's taken in the right context, maybe it could be a cool tactical combat game. Who knows? Sounds tactical to me.

I haven't played the video game myself, but a few of my friends really like it. The franchise doesn't interest me at all so I doubt I'll pay the board game much mind unless people rave about it.

Maybe it's a stupid thing to worry about, but I sure hope FFG doesn't spread itself too thin. They've got a whole lot of projects on the go already and I've noticed that they've constantly had job postings on their website for the last two months or so.

It's great that they're trying to grow the company, I just wonder if they're growing so fast that they won't be able to keep up and some of these promising projects will end up in limbo (i.e., Reins of Power).

They've earned the benefit of the doubt with me. They have strung together so many good boardgames (sorry, I don't do RPGs or minis, so I can't speak to those) that I trust them to get this one right.

Hmmm. Sounds like it could be cool. There certainly are a lot of fans of the video game, that's for sure.

My worry is not that they're spreading too thin but that they're entering into self-competition. Doom, Mutant Chronicles and Tannhauser would seem to at least partially exist in that same space as a Gears of War game would (totally a guess, but how else would you do a tactical shooter game, unless it's a tactical shooter boardgame?) Tannhauser pretty much already *feels* like a tactical squad-based FPS.


I mean, it is cool to hear about all of their new projects. I sat down the other day thinking about my next boardgame order, and I was trying to think of what FFG games I needed. The only one that's in print is Arkham Horror, and a friend of mine owns it and all the expansions, so I don't really need it. That's when I realized--I'm all caught up on FFG and am now waiting for Age of Conan to fall so I can get my next dose of FFG goodness.


But seriously, yeah, FFG's lineup is looking unbeatable right now...


Age of Conan
Battlestar Galactica
Games Workshop licensed stuff, including Talisman expansions
Gears of War
Reins of Power (hopefully this doesn't end up vaporware after all this time...)
World of Warcraft Adventure game (aka WoW, take 2!)
Middle Earth adventure game

This could be sweet.

I wonder if it will follow the Descent/Doom formula? With one player (or players) controlling key characters like Marcus and Dom, while the others control the locust horde.

Though given that Gears of War 2 will featurer larger encounters than seen in the original Gears of War perhaps this game will be more like a tactical/squad based minis games where we'll see Hordes of Cog troops battling out even larger Hordes of Locust solider with some vehicles and beastys thrown in for good measure.

Who knows though, FFG has acquired a KILLER license (Seriously, is Gears 2 out yet? The only thing better than FFG acquiring Gears would be if they got something like FALLOUT) and I imagine they'll want to make this game appeal to those fans of the series who might only be casual board game fans, or not in to games at all.

I loved Gears, I love FFG, so i'll check this out.

I bet the game will be out around the time Gears 2 ships to retailers.

I'll give FFG the benefit of the doubt because so far they're licensed games have been pretty good.

I can't wait to see what FFG does with the 40K license, honestly... certainly more than Gears. Gears is one of my favorite games in the last couple years but it doesn't scream boardgame to me, and if it did it would look a lot like a lot of their other games, as Ken observed.

I should also give FFG credit for choosing this particular license. It may not interest me personally since I don't have an XBox 360, but it's probably the hottest new franchise from this generation of consoles and that can only mean great exposure for FFG and board games in general to a much wider pool of consumers than just those who already check board game websites and hobby stores. (Like how the only mentions of board games I've ever seen in the video game forums at rottentomatoes was for StarCraft: TBG and the XBL releases.)

Absolutely. A good treatment of a high-profile license such as Gears of War will do 100x more for this hobby than the umpteenth game with a stern, bearded, vaguely noble-looking European gentlemen staring at you from the cover. Sternly.

I forgot FFG has the license to do stuff with 40K.

I'd love to see a game centered around the Orks.

I don't think FFG are allowed to use Warhammer or 40K to do anything with miniatures, which will kind of limit them unforetunately.

If they are hiring new designers, things should be fine and it shouldn't mean a dip in the number of great games they make each year. The worry would be if they had their good designers each working on ten games at once.

I liked the idea of Tannhauser but I found the game to be too gamey and not much fun. Maybe I just need to play more but the game I played involved both sides heavily abusing quirks of the system. I hope they'll try something different with Gears of War.

Wow.

Snapping up such good licenses both literary and video game is really just the smartest thing any board game company could do - and damn but FFG's aggressive about it!

Starcraft, Warcraft/WoW, Doom, Kingdom Hearts and Game of Thrones, Arkham, Dracula, Marvel, LoTR (though not the most exclusive of licenses), Conan, BSG

Seriously - does anyone else even come close? And they're, on the whole, amazing games!

All this without going into the interesting original material covered by games like Descent/Runebound and Twilight Imperium.

Wow.

/fanboy

If they are hiring new designers, things should be fine and it shouldn't mean a dip in the number of great games they make each year. The worry would be if they had their good designers each working on ten games at once.

My main worry is actually that most new designers simply can't live up to the high standards set by Peterson, Konieczka and Wilson.

DOOM makes all past, present, and future FFG games its bitch.




My avatar made me post that.

My only knowledge of the VG is that:

1) It apparently involves the shooting of aliens and/or monsters
2) They had that commercial with the Tears for Fears cover from DONNIE DARKO
3) It's not on Wii

But hey, I didn't know anything about A GAME OF THRONES (at least before I read some of it and started actively hating the setting) and that turned out just fine.

What's that Moto Grand Prix game in the pictures? Some kind of motorcycle racing game? COOL!!!