Pixar game night: Cosmic Encounter !!!!

Hey Geekshelfers!  

I'm sure you've heard by now that NASA announced finding a new organism here on earth that uses arsenic to survive.  Ok, it's not as impressive as finding SpaceBabes on Uranus but it's still pretty cool and manages to ignite the imagination, nonetheless!

So it couldn't be more fittingly appropirate that the Pixar boys and I happened to play an amazing cutthroat game of Cosmic Encounter for our weekly game night!

For those who may be unfamiliar with the game, each player controls an alien species with its own power and and you try to establish colonies on other planets.  For example,  yours truly played the dreaded TRADER!

complete with intergalactic suitcase!

Here's a close-up of the Trader... He may not look like much but he can allow you to switch your hand of cards with your opponent's.  This is a really handy power and makes your enemy second guess what you are going to do each time you are attacked.  Veerryyyy shifty, indeed!

He's kinda like a space Liberace...

Ok, so during your turn, you draw a card from the Destiny Deck and it tells you who to attack.  The attacker and defender then go around and convince everyone else to help them... A successful attack means you and your ally get to colonize a foreign planet! The first player who has 5 colonies wins!

The first intergalactic war is fought and Trader's planet is invaded!

Dovi played FURY which allows him to use defeated ships to help turn the tide of battle later on. 

Space arrows...cool.

Here, Everett's Mutant homeworld is being invaded by everybody.  It's 4 against 1....  Everett is FUCKED!

After about an hour and a half, Austin's Spiff aliens ended up winning by using a +40 to his attack!

Notice Spiff's UNCOLONIZED planets......WTH?!?!?!

It was an amazingly tense game and one that we'll be returning to again and again.  Remember, people:  Variety is the spice of life.  And this game has it in spades!

For more information on Cosmic Encounter, go to Boardgamegeek..

Or watch this AMAZING review by Robert Florence of Downtime Town.  He pretty much sums the game up perfectly, in my opinion.



Happy Gaming, people!