First Playthrough:

[gavindowning]

So I did my first playthrough this evening with my housemate. We played the basic scenario (though we played with the advanced game rules). I greatly enjoyed the game. It was close -- in the end, my martian strategy proved superior to the circus folks.

Later, when my wife and a friend joined us, my housemate and I played the martians, while the new newcomers played the heroes trying to protect the crowds from martian slaughter. This game, the heroes kept the crowds alive -- not a single crowd got killed, as the heroes had the superior strategy this time.

So far, I really enjoy the game. The martians play totally differently from the zombies, which I really enjoy. As a result, while the gameplay is very similar, the feel is remarkably different as both sides must use totally new strategies to be successful. I particularly like the way that the spawning points -- flying saucers -- can move about the board, and occasionally attack targets.

The heroes seem well-balanced, and all appear to be a bunch of fun (though JoJo is still my favorite). The only one who hasn't gotten play yet is Angelica, and I hope to see her in use in the next session. Everyone got a chance to use their special power at least once, and none of them felt "generic" in any way. They played like they felt they should.

Over all, I enjoyed the game a great deal. I will eventually be looking at mixing and matching options, but at this point, I think I still need to play a couple more segregated games before I feel comfortable enough knowing what I'm doing to combine them.

Anyone else play it yet? Any thoughts?