Introductory Two-Player Game, 6 new cards (3 per edition, fixed)
+ 15 new cards (fixed, 2 of which were available through other means) +
2 pre-customized 60-card decks (Federation and Klingon; which include 13
of the 15 fixed new cards) + 2 15-card booster packs (1 Premiere, 1 Alternate
Universe)
Average Picture Score: 3.33
Average Lore Score: 2.71 (5: Admiral McCoy)
Average Trek Sense Score: 2.85
Average Seedability/Stockability Score: 2.91
PRODUCT CONCEPT: The original jumping-on point created after AU is a pricey version of the more recent Trouble with Tribbles starter decks. Here, the same concept of a Federation deck opposed to a Klingon deck is used, but with several problems. For one thing, instead of separating the two decks, they've been combined into a single product, then duplicated with different premiums as "Edition 2". Furthermore, the decks are almost entirely built on commons so even the pre-released (non-premium) cards aren't going to enrich your collection. Combine the two decisions, and you have a product you only want one of. And judging from the quality of the premiums in each Edition, my guess is Edition 1 (Federation) didn't exactly fly off the shelves. I would also comment on the fact that with commons only, the game is brought to its simplest (even the rules booklet is incomplete). I understand it was designed as an introductory tool, but why sow confusion as to what the rules actually are? And I can't even say the premiums are connected thematically either. Some are: Admiral McCoy and Spock join the warp pack's Montgommery Scott; the Feds are all from the Barash illusion; two of the Klingons are CGIed fathers of well-known characters. Gi'ral doesn't quite fit (though she at least knew Mogh), nor does Data Laughing. The packs included could change the face of your introductory deck some, but you'd have no way of using any Romulans or AU cards you'd pull. I've got to go with a 1.5 here.
PACKAGING/LOOK: Two boxes, one blue, the other red, too large for what they are holding. They both have the same graphics, even if colored differently, showing Commander Data, Kle'eg, Gorath and Tasha Yar, the latter not appearing in this set unless she's the rare in a Premiere booster! There's also the planet from Reopen Dig, and some pretty cool shots of the Enterprise and of a K'Vort. The ships stand out because they are in full color, not behind the colored filter. The blue box looks better, playing off the bird-of-prey's engine effects, etc. All the elements are repositioned on the four sides of the box. The undersides are more distinctive, with either a Federation Outpost or a Klingon Outpost as background, and the different Premium cards displayed with crisp full-color clarity. The box is so oversized that a large plastic piece has to hold the decks in place within 3 depressions. The box is sturdy, but not high enough to really store cards inside when you take out the plastic. Inside, each deck is shrink-wrapped (with the Premium Spock puzzlingly placed in the Federation deck), and the other Premiums in their own clear package. Data Laughing is alone in its sleeve because of the way it was initially distributed (see below).
Each box also contains 3 hand-outs. One is the old black-and-white rules booklet, another is a blue-and-white advert for Decipher's website (with a fun peek at what it used to look like) and on the flip-side, for both editions of the 2-player game (oddly, with a Vor'Cha standing in for the boxes' actual K'Vort). More importantly, there's an 18-page full-color booklet called "Quick Start Rules and Collector's List". It is horizontal and close to the length of the box (the only reason I see for that size). The rules are well illustrated, with lots of extra art (not always from cards), with a pleasant layout that has room to breathe. There's a handy list of cards for each pre-fab deck from this set so you can rebuild the decks if you need to. There's also a nostalgic look at expansions out at the time, or announced, including Holodeck Adventures to be released in the summer of 1997! The Collector's List is colorful and pretty, but of course only holds this set, Premiere and Alternate Universe. Of limited value at best today!
One quick note on the cards themselves: The printing quality is standard for the period, with some very good digital work on the likenesses of Mogh and Ja'rod using elements from their progeny's looks, but there's disappointment when it comes to game text. Indeed, on a couple of missions, ENGINEER is written as ENGINEERING. What were they thinking? Archaeology is mispelled on Reopen Dig as "Archeology", and the K'Ratak's attributes are in lower-case letters. There's also a problem with missing copyright indicia. The package as a whole is hit and miss then, with some things pretty, but others just wrong-headed. Ends up around the middle with 2.4. More annoying than useful.
DISTRIBUTION: Major problems here. At 20$+, I don't want to have to buy two boxes for only 3 different cards. The Federation's aren't even on par with the Klingons'! You do get other cards unique to this product, but not all players will want to buy both editions. Of the missions, one of the 12 was first issued in the Warp Pack, a small pack of cards given out for free either through mail-in offers or with Premiere decks that had 5 new cards and a handful of Premieres (all white-bordered). 4 cards in the Warp Pack were printed in black border in Alternate Universe, but they all appear here as well. Data Laughing was originally a mail-in promotional card you could send away for if you'd bought the Official Player's Guide to he game published by Brady Games. The Guide looks good, but was almost obsolete by the time it came out, covering only Premiere (it put Wind Dancer in the 50 Most Powerful Cards list, for example). For people who'd spent the money to order Data Laughing (you could add the Guide's price to the postage fees), an extra Data Laughing was a bit of a smack in the face. And with all that, you got over 100 commons, cuz that's all the decks are made of. Commons you probably already had massive amounts of. They're mostly from Premiere, though there are a few from Alternate Universe. What's interesting for collectors, perhaps, is that those AU cards are white-bordered. You won't find Alien Labyrinth, Hidden Entrance, Malfunctioning Door, Ferengi Attack, Hunter Gangs, The Gatherers or IKC K'Ratak in white border anywhere else. A curiosity at best. For collectors in particular, this one's something of a rip-off. Just 1.5.
NEW ICONS, CARD TYPES & MECHANICS: Wow, some of the most useless things were introduced in this set, then promptly forgotten ;-). The Barash icon took a loooooong time to bear fruit, Cantankerousness was a joke skill, and the pared-down battle rules in the Quick Start Rules weren't really used by anyone seriously, were they? (Not much of a change anyway.)
Barash icon
Graphics: A glowing holo-projector from Barash's cavern, not
ot be confused with the colder Orb icon, which isn't that dissimilar. The
Barash icon had a lot of people scratching their heads because, well, it
was basically meaningless (and remained so for many years to come) and
for those that didn't link it to Hologram Ruse, looked just like a glowing
blob. Still, its colors are pretty, and I think it's distinctive enough.
A 3.3.
Trek Sense: The icon would be much better if it included a holographic
icon. Even with the Barash icon's use on, say, Holodeck Door, the Barash
personnel are never treated as holograms. And yet, that's what they are.
Frustrating, this seems so unnecessary. A 0.5 for being on the "correct"
personnel, but that's it.
Usefulness: Found on barely a handful of personnel, at least
Holodeck Door extends its downloading effect to them, and they're free
to walk out of the Holodeck, unlike normal holos. Barash himself allows
them to report to his location for free. It's first "use" though, goes
back to Rules of Acquisition as the worst of two probe results on a Chula
dilemma. Gee, thanks. As if those personnel really needed to be any more
useless. Although you might find a use for a couple of them (Ambassador
Tomalak for one more Federation Romulan, Admiral Picard as matching commander,
etc.), they're almost always just a boring collection of skills. No more
than a 2.4.
[Average total: 2.07]
Cantankerousness (skill)
Trek Sense: Ridiculous joke to give McCoy, and only the elder
McCoy, a skill unique to him. No other cantankerous character (say, Voyager's
Doctor) has ever gotten the skill. OS and CF McCoy didn't rate the skill
either. And it's not like it's a skill at all, it's a character flaw (though
perhaps endearing). Terrible. A 0.
Usefulness: It only appears on one personnel, Admiral McCoy,
and it only appears on one mission, Reunion. That's the whole of it. Of
course, the hidden use of Cantankerousness is that it exists. That means
you can use it to make sure personnel hit by Frame of Mind become truly
useless. Turning someone into a Cantankerous Barber effectively neutralizes
that personnel. For those kinds of reasons, it scores as much as a 3.
[Average total: 1.5]
Pared-down battle rules
Trek Sense: The big difference here is that a leader is not
required to initiate a battle. Otherwise, it's just like the original rulebook
says (with a correction as to retaliation). You'd think there was room
for that small detail, and that it doesn't make much of a difference...
So the Trek Sense? Well, the whole "leader to initiate" thing has its flaws:
Staff-grade Officers are considered leaders, but wouldn't have the authority
to initiate battle in the real world; some non-leaders are nonetheless
aggressive enough they would, especially if not with military personnel;
etc. But no leader? Well, in many cases, personnel wouldn't follow a non-leader
into battle. They don't have the authority, or haven't earned the crew
or Away Team's trust. Of the two options, leaderless is actually weaker.
A 1.5.
Usefulness: This is an official way to play the game, I guess,
so is it advantageous to do so? Well, yeah, it's one less obstacle to initiating
a battle. Seeing as there's no real incentive to do battle in the 2-player
game, and that there are few available leaders in the prefab decks (which
would exclude the premiums), it's not a big issue. Leaders/OFFICERs aren't
hard to find, so it's not a big issue even in a normal game. Yeah, "official"
maybe, but not supported, so the point is no doubt moot. Practically a
"what if" when I give it its 3.
[Average total: 2.25]
(Average score for new mechanics: 1.94.)
OVERALL USEFULNESS: Well, the new missions are very simple constructs, but for the most part, the requirement/points ratio is pretty advantageous. The Premiums common to both boxes mostly help the Feds, but are generally good cards. Data Laughing, for its part, really depends on other cards to work. The Federation box's premiums are fairly lame and dull, but the Klingons' are better. Mogh is a good skill-horse, in particular, while Gi'ral is instrumental to Colony decks. As a 2-player game, the set ultimately fails because, for one, it's not very exciting to play with universal commons. Worse still, the decks aren't even balanced, with the Federation coming out on top thanks to Montgommery Scott. Players might replace some cards with their premiums or whatever they got in the 2 booster packs, but even then the Feds are blessed. 2 extra personnel no matter which box they're using, and a greater chance of getting random personnel. For what can be gleaned from this thing, a 2.6.
TOTAL: 9.94 (39.76%) Way under the bar!