♪My sweet Adrenaline♪

Chris Turner talks about the latest game to join our board game collection; Adrenaline, which seeks to capture the feel of First Person Shooter video games.

A First Look…

Adrenaline, a board game with the feel of a first person shooter, running round rooms trying to kill every person before they take you down. When I first saw this game, I immediately got the vibe of the old Unreal Tournament or Quake III Arena games I used to play, and this sensation only grew the more I looked at the characters, weapons and various layouts of the board. This was the old Deathmatch style games and only fuelled my interest. I sat down with this game unboxed on our usual Sundays, and I have to say it was probably the most talked game of the night. Figures moving around from room to room, shooting their enemies and blasting for kills, everyone knowing the next kill could mean the end of the game. But by all means, let’s see what this game’s all about!

How many can play?

Starring a cast of 3-5 players, this game boasted personality straight from the get-go with vibrant colours to interesting and inventive characters, even the rulebook gave them small interests! I found myself relating to a happy-emoji robot… so happy yet only wanted to see his enemies downed by some elaborate means of killing. Whether that was blasted by a rocket launcher, or shot through the head with a beam rifle. There are various exciting weapons to maim, gouge or explode your foes with.

Setting up for battle

Setting up the game is pretty simple. Designate each player with their chosen character’s damage board. Then give each player their first supply of ammo cubes. Shuffle both the weapon and extras decks before dealing the weapons to each of the three spawn points. After that, simply work out who goes first and go from there! It’s literally that simple.

So? How do we get tah killin’?

You spawn into a room and immediately have to scrounge for weapons and ammo. The hunt is on! It’s either kill or be killed. The problem is, there are only a certain amount of times players can die before the end of the game. This encourages you to so pick your kills carefully. You earn points for the amount of damage you do on a target and those are cashed in when a character is killed. So you have to plan who you are going to kill as it is pointless to kill someone who has only been shot by your opponents as they will get most of the points for your kill.

Okay, so how do you win?

Once someone dies, you and others get points depending on how much damage you dealt them if you shot them first (First Blood!), and if you finish them off, or even Overkill them! However be warned, punishing someone with an Overkill may paint a target on your back. Once all the kills have been claimed, it’s Game Over! You calculate the remaining damage on players and work out who had the most. Whoever had the most points wins!

Um… Overkill?

Ah right… Overkilling is when you kill someone over the initial 11 damage a player can take, so 12 points. Any remaining damage is simply blown away. Although you will get extra points for doing this extra point of damage, the enemy you Overkill won’t be too happy, and will Mark you in response. Marking is another good way of getting a good amount of damage on someone and can be done several different ways.

Replayability?

So I did mention that this game was 3-5 players… but there are three different map variants to try, depending on the size. There are also three different maps and modes; the normal mode which we played, but also a Turret Mode and an AI mode. Fancy everyone working to kill a killer Turret or the equivalent of a Computer AI attacking you? Rules are all in there!

Final Impressions

Overall, I did not hear a bad complaint about this game. The rules weren’t hard to decipher, making the game fast paced. A great pick-up for any Shoot-em-up fan, or even those who just want a quick game to get revenge on that friend who’s been beating you lately. If you remember the great PC Deathmatch games of old, definitely grab this, you won’t regret it!

For now, though, this is Chris signing out! Until Next Time!