Cosmic Encounter

I first played this game when I was a teenager over 20 years ago. We would play the game through the night switching aliens and seeing which aliens would win against other aliens. Often the most powerful aliens who we thought should win would not and the ones that seemed to be the weakest would. The play balance is great.The story is easy. Each player assumes an alien with a special power and tries to take over enough planets to win the game. Along the way the players can make or break alliances. The rules are easy and the aliens are fanciful. I have played the game now with my family and it has stood the test of time. Now if they would only add all the expansion sets of the old game we would be set.

While this game is kind of obscure, it's a HUGE amount of fun! Pick an Alien race (each one gets its own unique power), and conquer enemy territories! It's fun, dynamic, moves fast, and is extremely well conceptualized. Everyone should play!

This version is by far the worst version of the game. Still, it's CE, so it's fun if you don't have access to the other versions and are willing to pay the overblown price. This version is pretty, which is its only good point. The rules were changed poorly, and this version is set up to prevent any possibility of expansion...a major flaw in Cosmic Encounters. Even the tokens (ships) though pretty, are bulky and oversized. The artwork was a substantial improvement over the Mayfair version, but for me, a long term Cosmic Encounter fan, its multitude of careless flaws made the game less enjoyable. I do not recommend this version. I imagine only a collector would want this one, or someone who's never played CE before and isn't interested in expansion. Me...I threw mine in the trash and dusted off my old Mayfair version. The new Cosmic Encounter from Fantasy Flight is distantly superior in every imaginable way and much less expensive, as is every other version.

The game has a simple premise - you are an alien and your goal is to conquer 5 other worlds. There is a simple set of rules, but since you are an alien, you have a special ability that allows you to alter part of the rules, such as instead of instead of discarding a card after use, you might be able to put it back in your hand. Everyone is a different alien, so everyone has a different way that they can alter part of the rules. You ask for allies to help you, but ultimately everyone is out for themselves. Simple as that.Cosmic Encounter is actually somewhat of a classic in the game world. The original version was put out by Eon in the 70s, and there were many expansions that added more and more variety to the game, such as aliens or increasing the number of players. Eventually other companies published the game, usually keeping much of the expansions and adding their own.This is how I am used to the game.But, looking at it as someone who has never played it before, that can be very intimidating.So the Avalon Hill/Hasbro version fixes that. Two to four players, 20 aliens. Nothing too complicated. While I may be used to having 80+ aliens and other options, this is the good one to play with friends and family. And don't be fooled by there being "only" 20 aliens - in a four person game, that still leaves you with 116280 different combinations of aliens. (This version is actually much like the original 1977 version, with much much much nicer bits.)The parts are very nice - even my co-workers who had no idea what they were looking at enjoyed the little ships.My only complaint is with the game being limited to at most four players. I have always said that it works best as a five player game, enabling players to work their negotiation skills a little bit more. But for new players, this is probably a minor concern.