I was looking forward to our monthly meetup. Gavin and I had arranged before hand for him to bring his copy of Adrenaline along for us to play.

Adrenaline was getting a lot of buzz at the end of last year. “If you like video games, you’ll love this. It’s a fps but in cardboard” was being thrown around by fans of the game.

Would it live up to the hype? Would Jonathan like the game, despite its theme?

You know I don’t do reviews. Nearest I come to it is me saying what I like and maybe dislike about a game. 

We were playing a four player, six kill game.

It’s a quick game to pick up. On your turn choose two of the following actions: move up to three spaces, move a space and pick up, or fire a weapon. The simplicity of options is what allows it to be picked up quickly. And also reproduce the basic actions of a fps and give it that video game feel.

Line of sight is pretty simple, and fits thematically to the whole fps theme.

The ammo, and ammo types, in conjunction with the weapon cards, spawn points, reloading, etc ooze fps.

And that’s what I love about the game. The mechanics and theme fit like a glove.

Then throw on top of that a majority mechanic on the damage inflicted on opponents when deciding points upon a players death. Genius. 

Plus they worked in a mechanic to discourage everyone just killing the same person all the time.

Everything flows, you have to be aware of the other players damage. Which reminds me the more damage you take the more powerful some of your actions become! Oh and you can overkill.

Because this was a first play we were having to refer to the rule book for details on what individual weapons did. But you soon pick up the iconography.

I really liked to. With different variants, four combinations of the game boards, I think there is a bit of replay ability in this game. It’s light and fun. I don’t think it will be long before this is in my collection and being introduced to Nath, and my students.

Oh and Jonathan liked the game too, despite its theme. That had to be a big thumbs up in anyone’s book.

Our second and final game of the evening was Takenoko.

What a difference playing the game correctly makes!!

Yes our previous play had us playing it with a major foobar! And left us puzzled about the game.

I did enjoy this play through much much more. So much so it will stay in the collection.

Sadly the official records will show through some trickery Jonathan won both games! Which included a late points rush in Takenoko to steal the win from me.

I enjoyed the meet up, same time next month?