VENOM Assault Review

Look, I'm going to make this really easy for you. I want you to say the first thing that comes to mind when I say "and knowing is half the battle."

Did you just sing out "Geeeee eyeeeeee joeeeee!"

If you did, have I got a game for you. If you didn't, maybe pass this one up. VENOM Assault is a cooperative deckbuilder designed by a trio of guys who very obviously love G.I. Joe...but don't have the license to make a game from the beloved 1980s IP. So what they did was to pretty much create their own bootleg version of the Joes along with their COBRA adversaries. So Sergeant Slaughter becomes Colonel Carnage, Snake Eyes becomes Blindsight, Shipwreck becomes Bulkhead, and the Baroness becomes the Vipress. It's almost comical in a "Rickey Rouse and Ronald Ruck" kind of way, but you've got to admire the conviction the designers had in bringing forth a game that a G.I. Joe board game in all but copyrighted material. Even the Transformers make a cameo appearance in one of the missions.

The card art is cool, even if in terms of style it's about a decade after G.I. Joe's heyday.

As a longtime G.I. Joe fan (I had a subscription to the Marvel comics for pretty much the entire run), I loved seeing all of this stuff, albeit in ersatz. I got all of the references and I enjoyed playing a game that felt reasonably like what a G.I. Joe game should feel like, with lots of super-soldiers, awesome super-vehicles, goofy sci-fi concepts, a dash of innocent patriotism and of course scads of bad ass code names. However, I also felt quite let down that the game never really manages to rise above the rest of the deckbuilding crowd which it is indelibly an example of.

Each player starts with a seed deck of scrubs that eventually you will weed out as "named" members of Freedom Squadron are recruited with recruitment points generated by card play. Cards also can generate combat values which can be used to attack VENOM leaders stationed in locations around the world on the map. If you decide to take Freedom Squad on the offensive, you must choose a Combat Leader to lead the charge, presumably hollering "YO...SQUAD!" or something to that effect. Some cards that you've played may add support, and the sum result is the number of dice you get to throw at the VENOM leader.

But these baddies aren't just going to take it. They also have support values and they get to add cards from a VENOM Support deck, which is where all of the rank-and-file COBRA, I mean VENOM soldiers come into play. These cards do different things, like increase the leader's defense or health. Or they may reduce the Freedom Squadron leader's combat value. Once everything is tabulated, the player attacking rolls all of the dice looking for a target number determined by the settled defense. Each success chips away at the final health value. If Freedom Squadron wins, they get a Reward card.

This is fun stuff for the most part and the dice combat is a welcome diversion from the usual deckbuilding chores. I especially like how each VENOM stronghold on the map has a terrain type and certain types of characters or vehicles impart bonuses. So you want to take combat snowmobiles where it is snowing, naturally. I also enjoy the uncertainty of what the VENOM leader is going to come at you with- it's never a sure bet, so there is some drama in each of the battles.

The goal of the game is set by the mission you choose at the outset, and these are generally cards that require you to complete certain objectives or find certain reward cards before VENOM event cards run out a clock. The fluff writing is spot-on, and these absurdly far-reaching plots are straight from the source material. There are a lot of missions in the box, and although they don't mix up the gameplay too much it's always fun to see where these simple storylines go.

Hey, where is Cobra-La on this map?

But you just can't get around the rinse-and-repeat nature of this game, and if you've got deckbuilder fatigue or co-op fatigue then this game is not going to do much that surprises you or endears you to it if the renegade, unlicensed GI Joe concept appeals to you. It obviously does to me but I have to inevitably compare this game to piles of titles with similar mechanics, such as the recently released Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. I liked Harry Potter somewhat more than this game because it surprised me a few times and it was presented so well in a very accessible, streamlined way. VENOM Assault did the same, but the presentation isn't quite there and this design feels a little overcomplicated as a whole.

I hate to say it, but if these guys had gotten the G.I. Joe license, this game might have been on par with Harry Potter and it would be one that I would likely want to keep for my collection. As much as I liked the soundalike names and jokey references, you just can't get around the fact that it's all trying to be something that it isn't and the lack of authenticity does hurt it in the end if only because the game here is simply unoriginal and mostly uninspired. Comparatively, I think it is most like Legendary but I believe I prefer this game (and its illustrations in particular) to anything the Legendary series has offered to date.