Frag Gold Edition

Way back in 2001, there was a wonderful new high-tech gaming device in gamers’ homes. No, not the Sega Dreamcast, it was the Sony Playstation 2! Gamers were mind-numbingly getting acquainted with new graphics and first-person shooters like Metal Gear Solid 2, Halo and Max Payne.

Around the same time the first edition of the Frag was released and became a fan favorite and a best seller. So much so, that it spawned (pun intended) five expansions and a set of minis. In 2009, Steve Jackson Games re-released the game in a special Gold Edition with upgraded components in a dandy yellow box. All the other editions are out of print. What gives?

Please press “Start”

Game play: (Run!… Shoot!… Run!… Shoot!)
Before the game begins, players get to create their own Fighter – dividing 7 points between three stats: Health, Speed and Accuracy. This makes each player feel, at least a little bit, that they are a unique player in the game. And you can tailor your fighter for your play style. Shoot a lot and get in close? Assign more points to Health. Run fast and shoot seldom? Give yourself some Speed! You get the idea.

Then the game play for Frag is very streamlined. You roll, you run, grab pick-ups and you fire, in any order you want until you can’t do it anymore. Or, until you are fragged. The game board provides some map features that make things… well…more complicated. Acid pools, teleporters and most useful: walls. You have to have line-of-sight to shoot, and those walls can really save your genetically enhanced exo- skin.

Add in three decks of cards to enhance your ability to wreak havoc: Weapons, Gadgets, and Specials. Weapons are simply that, many different types of hardware that cause different levels of damage and have special effects – there are Assault Rifles, Rocket Launchers, Needlers and a trusty Portable Nuke. Wait, what?
Gadgets are items that you can pick up that help with some of your basic attributes and protect you: Adrenalin Surge, Armor, Medpacks and the like. Specials are cards that you can play that really get things going. Most of them are called Game Hack cards: they give your fighter the ability to do double damage, or a Magic Bullet that allows you to shoot at every other fighter in range all at once. Rule breakers.

You die? You respawn. You kill? You score a Frag. Score three Frags and you win.

Press “Start” to continue…

Style/Components: (Adequate)
All of the game components are of good quality, full color and very intuitive. The graphics on the cards are a little simplistic – a sort of old computer-like art. Compared to some of today’s best game art, it’s just ok, but there are still some cool images. You won’t play the game for the artwork.

Value: (Well.. maybe.)
$40 is a bit pricey for the replay value of this game. You can get a lot more game for your money. But, if the style of this game is appealing to you, you won’t mind. It has a great replay value when you play multiple games and get to level up your fighter.

Audience: (Caution!)
It’s 2012. The game says it’s for players ages 12 and up. But let’s face it – the majority of 10 year olds in the world have played a FPS, and aren’t to bothered by seeing a zombie blow up in front of them. Sad but true. This game has everyone running around shooting each other and the violence is implied and not very graphic. As a Family game, it’s fun, but you may not include it simply because of the theme. Avid, Casual, Strategic and Social Players will find it challenging to stay alive. Power Gamers may find it a bit too simplistic.

Instructions (Understandable)
Nothing fancy here. The instructions are well written and easy to understand; a good logical presentation of the rules.

Overall Review: (You talking to me? )
This game sold well and is a fan favorite because it incorporates a balanced amount of luck and tactical decision making with a theme that is fun to play. It doesn’t “really” feel like you are playing a first person shooter. But the ability to “create” your fighter each game also adds some variation and feeling of control. The mechanics are simple. This sounds like a lot other games, right?

The beauty of Frag is that its game play possibilities don’t grow out the game conditions, they are created by the different sorts of players sitting around the table. What kind of player are you? Cautious? Impatient? Cool and calculating? This game allows you to play out your style with flair and test it directly against others in a fast and furious firefight. It’s an arena game. And only one player will emerge victorious. It’s a great time seeing your friends true personalities come out when toting a grenade launcher. Sounds fun, right? Eat lead!

As the instructions suggest, the game does play best with 4-6 players, and I highly recommend playing “tournament style: playing multiple games in a row. The winning player can add one point to any attribute and play again. Just remember to keep your head down! OOPS.

Game Over

While the stack of dice can get excessive during gameplay and the math for figuring damage/health can at times be unnecessarily large numbers, overall Frag is a entertaining (and occasionally humorous) tribute to old-school computer FPS games. At the beginning of the game, each player decides their Stat Totals (this is one of the few places that there are reasonable limits in this game), then the players take turns rolling dice to move and shoot at each other (most weapons can be equipped/decisions can be made whenever the player decides to, similar to how most Munchkin cards are played.)

The game, however, is not without its flaws. It was designed to both poke fun at and mimic FPS shooters of ages past, and it does so down to exposing their own flaws as well: There are situations in which certain cards/combinations of cards are broken and drastically unbalance the game. Just as in Munchkin and other Steve Jackson games, expect to occasionally have arguments and house rulings concerning exactly when and what order various cards take effect as they are played. Finally, I mentioned the math involved in certain cases. This game comes with 18 d6 dice, and depending how combat and battlefield situations it is possible that a player can and will roll all of these (and potentially more) for their damage roll. This attack is then compared and divided by the defender’s roll in order to determine damage, and this formula can lead to some large numbers using division.

Now, if that didn’t scare you, here are some good and potentially amazing things about this game and its design. As the battlefield takes place on a grid, player created maps are not out of the question nor are they difficult to make thanks to the simplistic artwork. For gamers with extra tokens/pawns, the rules are flexible enough to theoretically allow for any number of players provided that you have enough tokens to represent them (the most I’ve ran in a free-for-all game has been 10-12 players with enough patience to wait for their turn, and a similar number for a team game using House Rules). Finally, broken cards aside, this game holds to the FPS theme fairly well, complete with limited ammo, “Cheat Codes”, “Glitches”, “Lag”, dropped weapons upon being Fragged, and much more!

For tabletop groups who want a fairly inexpensive FPS feel to their evening of board gaming without picking up a controller, Frag is worth giving a shot.