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Quick Look: Shadowrun: Crossfire

Designers: Mike Elliott, Rob Heinsoo, Jim Lin, Gregory Marques, Sean McCarthy, Jay Schneider & Rob Watkins
Artist: Víctor Pérez Corbella
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
Year Published: 2014

No. of Players: 1-4

Ages: 13+

Playing Time: 30-60 minutes.

Find more info HERE.

From the Publisher:

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Review:

This is a review that is long overdue.

I have had Shadowrun : Crossfire in my collection almost since it originally came out, but for some reason or other have not managed to properly present my thoughts on it until now. Which in many ways is a travesty, because despite my lack of giving it proper attention in review form, it has consistently made my Top 10 favorite games of all time, sometimes even managing to secure a spot at my #2 in some years. 

And for those of you who do not know, I am generally a very harsh critic of Deck Building games. Only a select few have managed to escape ratings above a 7 out of 10 for me, and with good reason ; too many are derivative spawns of Dominion that really fail to do anything new for the genre. And I will even highlight the Thunderstone series, which is ironically engineered by the same mind that produced Shadowrun : Crossfire (Mike Elliot) ; despite its efforts , Thunderstone again failed to do anything that brought sparkle to our gaming table.

Which is why it is such a grand surprise that Shadowrun : Crossfire (SC from now on) managed to captivate us so much. Because while Thunderstone fails for me personally, SC manages to deliver in ways that not even Mage Knight (our other favorite Deck Builder) can. And that is truly saying something when one considers that the game doesn’t use anything other than cards when in comparison to Mage Knight’s much more epic presentation of tiles, tokens, leveling up, etc…

What defines SC is that it turns the Deck Building genre flat on its face. And for the sake of brevity I am going to assume that you as the reader know the gist of what a Deck Builder usually entails. But as a broad generalization, players would often expect to slowly amass a very large pool of cards throughout your game, enabling you to trounce other players with synergistic combos that lead you to a triumphant victory with the most points ;in true competitive fashion.

Now take that trope, and toss it straight out the door. Because in SC, you will be fighting for your lives together in true cooperative Klingon glory. 

Not only that, you can also say goodbye to the prospect of possessing a large pool of cards to whip out on a whim ; the cards you will collect over the course of the game will be very sparse in comparison to what you may be used to…

Gameplay starts with players choosing a Race and Role. The races of the Shadowrun Universe include Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Orcs and Trolls, and each begins the game with a diverse set of stats and features. Dwarves for example, possess a very scant 2 cards to draw from their initial starting deck, but being the greedy money lubbers that they are, also commence the game with more Nuyen (Gold) than other races. Orcs are true power houses right off the bat, gaining 5 cards, and a good portion of health (HP), Elves are well-balanced, etc. 

Then commences the selection of a Role. These aren’t going to be exactly like the RPG, and are in some ways more cosmetic than functional, but these determine your starting hand at the most fundamental level, and the quantities of various colored cards you begin with (Green, Red, Black and Blue, corresponding to the Decker, Face, Street Samurai and Mage roles, respectively). These can and should shape the cards you choose to buy throughout the course of the game, as many cards in the Black Market are bolstered by having a large pool of certain card colors, and if you already start with a larger pool of a certain color, it almost certainly pays off to invest in cards that allow you to benefit from what you already have…

Then you select a Mission, each with its own objectives. You set up the Black Market of 6 cards to buy from, Two Obstacle decks (with normal and hard difficulties), and a Crossfire : Event that serves to randomize the gameplay with certain craziness every round.  You distribute obstacles to each player (Runner) according to the Mission directives and let the fun commence.

You can attack mobs and gain precious money as soon as your foes are vanquished, playing a unique color-matching sort of game where each “stage” of enemy health needs to be tackled in successive order in order to be defeated and removed from the runner they are attacking. You can attack enemies facing you or your team mates, and sometimes (using a card’s Assist ability, if it has one) make a move during other player’s turns to help save their bacon…

And what an experience this is, from start to finish!

Now first, let me clarify that I am playing the original base game from 2014 along with the High Caliber Ops expansion. And if you have a choice, I advise this set over the more recent Prime Runner edition, as I have and have played both. In a nutshell, I find the components better in the 2014 edition, and moreover , the slight rules makeover of Primer Runner ruins some of the challenge of the original game for me. As an additional aside, I would also say that having the High Caliber Ops expansion is essential for some balancing reasons, and significantly increased my score of the game from a 7/10 or 8/10 to 9/10 to  10/10 for what it does to iron out some kinks. 

With that being said, here is what makes SC stand out : 

The Difficulty. 

Good wowzers, this game is sometimes a bloodbath, with you and your friends suffering grisly fates at the hands of enemy mercs. But that is okay! I would expect nothing less in the world of Shadowrun, as it could be no easy feat infiltrating a mega corporation armed with the latest tech-savvy goons. Be warned , you could expect to have your arses handed to you many times over the course of many games….

But with this seeming drawback comes the good : You can level up with Karma (experience) over the course of many games. Gaining upgrades to your starting hand, stats, and other special abilities can make subsequent  runs easier (or perhaps allowing you to tackle more difficult missions, like a boss Dragon).

The game is a cooperative blast. No other Deck Builder (aside from the derivative Dragonfire game from WotC that fails to live up to SC due to some rule changes and new implementations) can match what SC does. You really need to think out of the box and beyond your selfish desires of maximizing your own abilities and moves and instead focus on what will enable you to complete your objective ; or perhaps better said, focus on what will keep your party alive until the end should your objective fail. As you can even get a small XP bonus for failing a mission if your team somehow has 1 member escape alive. And sometimes it is better to walk into a mission expecting to fail than it is to make winning the primary objective. If you make the ultimate goal to stay alive, you at least get something…should you all die, you all reset without the XP benefit for the next game.

As mentioned previously, you will not have nearly as many cards in your deck as in other deck builder games ; as such, this makes each new addition to your deck a priceless commodity that you need to employ with great consideration. Moreover, the fact that you add these cards straight to your hand (as opposed to your discard pile) as soon as you buy them often gives you a surge of relief, as you were probably dwindling down to just 1 or 2 cards in your hand (you can only draw two new cards if you have 1-3 cards at the end of your turn). Having that extra purchase immediately accessible feels like a breath of fresh air or life-saver in most instances…

You can even buy some cards that can be used during other player turns as well, bringing up great possibilities for interaction. 

Enemy Cards and Crossfire Events are both very wicked! But in a good way. I don’t want to spoil the fun, but some of these again make it clear that team work is essential.

Leveling up can really make you feel a power surge. It may not seem like much, but even having a meager extra 1 HP or basic cards to start with can really make a difference. And the level of progression gets thankfully much more powerful over many games (but then again, so can the difficulty, should you choose to tackle more dangerous missions…)

Plays (relatively) swiftly compared to other Deck Builders, and is relatively portable, taking up little table space. 

Thankfully, it’s also not a huge mess to set up and tear town, either. But still manages to feel like it has a ton of options for players to elect when buying and strategizing.

Highly immersive art and theme. I almost feel like I can feel the smoke from the stogies we are all figuratively smoking at the table (even though none of us smoke). That’s how powerful the mood and vibe is.

The negatives :

Here is a big one : As many have stated in other reviews, the High Caliber Ops expansion is vital to get the most out of the game. The base game is already extremely difficult to score wins in ; the expansion makes things feel much more balanced overall. Which is amazing, because many of the cards it introduces feel like they are just “subtle” differences, but over the course of many games, I would say it is immediately palpable that the expansion smooths things out quite a bit. It’s not that the game feels easy, not at all. It just feels more refined, as if you have more of a fighting chance…

Some deride the difficulty of the game. Not us. If victory were easily attainable, I would rather not play at all. This game will really make you collectively sweat, and that is part of the charm. 

It can take a long time to be able to buy upgrades if you initially lose a lot. The Prime Runner edition manages to offset this “drawback” a little, but for us, we prefer the extra difficulty present in the original base game. It just feels right earning those credits, as challenging as they might initially be in achieving…

Stickers for Upgrades : This has always been a contentious issue for the game. When you finally save up enough Karma to buy a permanent upgrade for your character, you place stickers on your player board. These are not easily removable, and the game manual can even tell you to put stickers over stickers if you decide to replace one, which is a big no-no for me, especially since supply of these is limited. So for us, I have employed a creative work around by placing stickers we want to use onto a durable construction paper first, then cutting out the sticker that has its new backing. Since the boards and stickers of the original game (not the Primer Runner edition) are laminated, it is just a matter of using scotch tape to place the upgrade onto our player board, which is now easily removable. Is this a pain to deal with? Yes indeed, but worth it if you plan on playing a lot. I feel bad for owners of the Primer Runner edition though, as this solution will not work as well, and may require a different workaround…

Summary : 

In a way, Shadowrun : Crossfire is pretty much the deck building equivalent of my favorite game of all time : Uprising : Curse of the Last Emperor.  SC can be insanely difficult to “Win”, but brings players together in ways that not many other games can for us. 

The fact that this is a Deck Builder that lacks a board and still manages to give such a thrill is quite the testament to its viability. It is great for creating group banter, a sense of comradery, and plays in short enough a duration  that you can perhaps squeeze in two games during game night if challenged for time.  Ironically, the game can throw a monkey wrench even into the most successful of runs you are having and vice-versa, but that is one of the best parts. 

It is a sheer uproar when you are seemingly on the verge of success but have a crossfire event manage to fill a corridor up with orcs chasing you and gunning you down ; which, by the odds isn’t likely to happen at all, but when it does, it gives you memories to forever talk about with your gaming buds. In other instances, you end up beating an unbeatable scenario as it unfolds…

Shadowrun : Crossfire is at the pinnacle of the Deck Building experience for us. Not derivative in a world that is stagnating and oversaturated with copycats at all, SC was truly ahead of its time. It is a shame that I am only now getting an opportunity to sing its praises, but I would suppose it is better to be late than never in doing so…

9.25 / 10

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