ameriTrashing out Alien Frontiers - AF Upgrade Pack Review

One of my favorite games that I have played over the last year has to be Alien Frontiers. I love this bad boy. Space, Dice, and wooden cubes...does it get much better, when it comes to gaming? The design of this game is just great, and the components have always been something I loved. I loved how you have a space theme that has an Ameritrash feel. Then, you add wooden cubes and discs as your currency, and you found little colonies with wooden ellipses of some sort. It is a beautiful thing. Then, something even greater happened. The folks over at CleverMojo released a couple expansions and an upgrade kit. That's right a kit to make the game even more beautiful.

Overview
The upgrade kit is not very big, however, there are some cool things in it. First, you get five plastic space ships/rockets--one in each color. These are used to keep score instead of the colony pieces that came in the base game. I believe some of the later printing included these ships with the game, but if you didn't get them, this is how you get them now. Secondly, you received 3 plastic minis to replace the 3 cardboard discs that you can place on people's colonies. And finally, the upgrade pack includes replacements for those wooden ellipses used as colonies. Now, you get small plastic minis that look like cities, and covered by a clear plastic dome. These domes can then be removed, and if you so desire you can paint these bad boys. Which is a cool idea, for those so inclined to do so--I am not so inclined.

Review
I think this upgrade pack is great. It gives your game a more thematic feel. Anything that adds to the theme of a game is a plus for me. The plastic minis and colonies are beautiful. The only thing that could make them better would be if they came painted or they were die-cast, but then the upgrade pack would cost as much as the game. The rockets didn't do much for me except give me some extra ones, since my set already had the rockets included. If you really want to embrace the theme of Alien Frontiers and get people excited about playing it, I don't think you can go wrong with this upgrade pack. However, you play with a Eurogame crowd, who enjoys pushing wooden bits around, you will be just fine with the original base game. Either way, for me the upgrade pack is a nice edition to my Alien Frontiers set.

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