Specter Ops - A beautiful dress on an old concept. A board game review by The King of Meeples. | The Cult Of The New (2024)

For starters, the production quality was absolutely top notch for Specter Ops with a slick board showing a painted nighttime urban scene from a city right out of cyberpunk where the corporate overlords hire agents in the form of beastly werewolves and cybernetic puppets to roam the streets hunting down spies and other "criminals" that dare to challenge their would be masters. Champions of the status quo.

The components, theme, and art are not the only things that gave this game promise and drew my attention. After all, this wasn't my first Shadowrun (5th Edition). While Specter Ops is not founded on an original mechanic, the hidden movement and deductive mechanisms that are the puppet master's hands moving this game in its macabre dance are derived from a solid pedigree of notable ancestors like The Fury of Dracula and Scotland Yard which alluded to a possibly old and rarely seen paring of deduction and hidden movement mechanisms brought into a revitalized and modern setting.

As I sat at the table surrounded by my tribe at Gen Con 2015, I was full of anticipation. Then, I played the game...

It wasn't long before the dark luster and pretty look gave way to the reality of the game. Which is to say, all the pluses quickly moved to minuses on my mental balance sheet for the games assessment.

While the appearance of the game and promise were strong, at the end of the day when the rubber hit the road the game was so much air. Yes the mechanics were minimal and while at times that means they are not in the way of the game in this circ*mstance they also showed how little there was to the game. This was also reflected in the scant 8 or so pages of the rule book.

One player, sometimes more, act as the agents and secretly record their movements on a note pad. Only if they end up crossing a hunters line of site do they place a last seen token where they were viewed or if they end up within a orthogonal line of site (diagonal does not count) are they revealed. They have some smattering of equipment such as flash bangs and special abilities that add flavor to the situation should they be spotted but other than that the only things players in this roll must be aware of is to not cheat (kind of an honor system here unless you plan on completely auditing the notepads after each game) and to, "tag" a certain number of bases on the board and then escape off of one of several designated exits.

Eventually, the game ends either because you are told the runners escaped or if you are good/lucky, because you killed the criminals (did not happen either time I played) and you come to realize that you spent a hour or so playing a combination of hide and seek and battle ship where no one spoke very much and little tension was realized. In fact, to the contrary, I found myself in a more relaxed state after playing both times than an excited one so complete was the lack of tension and interaction in this game's experience for me.

In the end, I would say that Specter Ops did do what it was designed to do and that this game may appeal to those interested in what it does. However, what it does isn't that interesting to me. Specter Ops came across as a dated concept with a pair of game mechanics who's age shown through even the most beautifully designed of disguises. In my humble opinion, this game was just a beautiful but empty reminder of why some game concepts and mechanics should remain in the past.