Console Wars The Card Game review — Fight for supremacy, stay for the laughs

Are you really into video games? Do you battle for plastic box supremacy? Have I got the game for you… although not in the way you’re thinking. Console Wars The Card Game is a tabletop game from XboxEra, with a title that makes you think things are about to get troll-y. After bringing my friends together to give it a try, I found a really cool card game underneath, with a theming that works without giving into the tribification we find so often online.

See, Console Wars, for its name, is not a game about PlayStation vs Xbox vs Nintendo or anything like that. It’s actually a game where you, the player, are the platform holder, and you’re trying to get as many exclusives in your hand as possible. This happens by gaining sets of cards defined by genre, completing those sets, and once you have your fourth full set, the game has ended in your favor and you are crowned victor. It’s a great idea, and negates the platform arguments we’re all truly tired of in its makeup.

Opening up the snazzy and well-made box, you’ll find 165 cards total, with 48 parodies of games you know and love spanning twelve genres. Some of these genre cards are dual cards, meaning they can be played for one of two different games from a different genre depending on your need. These genre cards are the star of the show, with plenty of funny twists on game names. Call of Duty is now Call of Shooty, Minecraft is Mineshaft, Halo is Hola… you get the point. Discovering these in my initial run was great, and it hasn’t gotten old each time I’ve played. The designs for the logos are very well done, my hat is off to the artists who did a fantastic job on them.

These aren’t the only cards of course, with others surrounding them to make up the actual game functionality. There are perk cards which each player gets at the start of the game, and can change based on cards played, and there are global event cards that get put evenly in the draw deck to trigger events as you play. Beyond those, action, fanbase increase, and fanbase cards are the cards you’ll use to both defend and attack. All playable cards have a fanbase number attached to them in the top right, which is important in ways you’ll see described below.

Console Wars suggests that this game is best played between 2-5 people, with a match lasting around 30-45 minutes. Starting each game involves setting up the global events, giving each player five cards and a perk card, and choosing who begins the game. There’s a fun suggestion to make this choice based on who owns the most retro console, but admittedly I always win that designation in my group.

Playing Console Wars is simple enough at the beginning, but I did have some trouble interpreting some rules and instructions. The cards do have good instructions printed on them – I rarely had trouble knowing what to do with the action cards. That said, the fanbase cards and their use stumped me. Thankfully, XboxEra does have a QR code to videos available that will help you understand what to do next, along with a full playthrough which adds context.

Buy – Console Wars

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Fanbase is essentially a defense mechanism used to pay up when action cards or fanbase increase cards demand it, so it’s good to have these in your portfolio. You can also put nearly any other card in your fanbase bank given they have fanbase numbers at the top right. Something my group had trouble understanding was how you paid your debts. If I only have a 100 million fanbase card and the action card asks for 50 million, how can I get fanbase back? You can’t. You have to pay with the cards you have, which is how you keep these games in the 30-45 minute duration. If you have infinite counters, eventually no one will win.

This brutal outlook changed how I played in my next outing. Instead of trying to figure out using fanbase increase cards – which request fanbase based on a specific genre I have in my portfolio – I was using them to attack my opponents in hopes of bankrupting their fanbase. At this point, you get the best rewards: their genre cards. This is how you are able to build your genre sets when you aren’t drawing them; putting your opponents in debt to the point they have to give you their genre cards.

Action cards make up the other versions of your play, and these give other avenues of stealing fanbase, genre cards, and more. They’re also hilarious in their references to video game industry tropes. For instance, I had a buddy who played a “Port-Begging” card against me, which should have resulted in my having to swap one of my genre cards with his. Instead, I played a “Cancelled” card, which I could play instantaneously (thank you good card instructions), and kept him from making a play that would hurt my genre set.

While it all may sound simple, I like the ease of play because it allows you to pull in even people who don’t engage in the video game industry discourse. There are a few rules that seem left up to interpretation – we read about genre sets being unbreakable but there might be a bit of leeway, and of course my initial fanbase query. XboxEra is working towards explaining certain aspects of the rules more clearly, but I think some are better when you just go with house rules and have fun.

I do wonder if this game would work as well for people who aren’t involved with video games in the slightest. My group loves gaming, so we appreciated a lot of these jokes. If you put this in front of a crew that only played the occasional card game, they might not enjoy what Console Wars is about. They may also bemoan the simplistic elements of the gameplay, even if I think it’s well constructed. Console Wars isn’t too complex, but has strategy involved that can allow seasoned players to gain advantages, and if a player falls off early from lack of interest, they’ll miss out on that.

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