Missile Cards

The reason 2017 has been one of the greatest years in gaming history isn't because of Persona or Zelda, but rather because we've had incredible lineup that covers pretty much every genre you could possibly want. Not to be left out, Missile Cards keeps the momentum going with something that is not only addictive, but also one of the most inventive card games I've ever played.

As the title suggests, this merges the best elements from the old arcade game Missile Command and a competitive card game. The goal is simple enough: You want to protect your base from an onslaught of comets and nuclear weapons. You do this with a deck of 52 cards, which are shuffled with everything from missiles to lasers to computer experts that will keep you from getting hacked. The idea is to place up to four of these cards in your hand and use them any time a projectile comes close to hitting your base.

At first it seems like there's a lot going on, but it all becomes second nature after you've mastered the basics. Every defense card has a number attached to it that you will use to take down one of the numbered comets. For example, you'll need to use a card with at least a 4 in strength to take down a projectile with the number 4. If you don't destroy the object in time, it will hit your base and cause major destruction. If your base takes too much damage, it will be game over and you'll have to reshuffle the deck and start again.

The trick is that you can't just place the weapons in your hand and fire them off right away. Most weapons will take a few turns to charge up, which means you'll need to plan ahead and make sure you'll have enough time to take out the falling objects. You'll also need to juggle action points and cards that fly by on a conveyer belt one move at a time. There will be times when discarding a weapon will make sense, while you may want to let other cards shuffle back into the deck to come in to play later in the game.

Missile Cards does a good job of easing you into the challenge. We start out doing little more than dodging asteroids and shooting missiles, but it won't take long before we're dealing with nukes, solar flares and even hackers looking to take your weapons. Thankfully, the different bases come with their own special equipment, so the game takes a relatively simple premise and expands it in a way that is constantly compelling.

What I love about Missile Cards is how much strategy there is in each game. It's not just matching the numbers on the cards, but also knowing the right time to let an object slip by and destroy one of your buildings. There are other times when you'll want to wait until the very last second to take your turn, since that's when you'll get the most points. And using the special cards to rebuild parts of the base or refill your life is essential. You can even buy upgrades that will let you pull off special moves and add new cards to the deck. After playing for a few hours, I started to feel like a real badass who could take on pretty much anything you could throw at me.

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The fact that I was constantly gaining experience is what kept me glued to the screen and always wanting to play just one more round. It helps that each level not only has three primary objectives, but also three bonus missions that have you trying to earn high scores, go without taking any damage and even playing without firing a single missile. Every time I thought I was done with Missile Cards, I found that I would spend another hour completely addicted to shooting down asteroids. It's that good.

The truth is, I don't have a lot of negative things to say about this game. At worst, my biggest issue is that you'll occasionally have to deal with a bad shuffle and restart the round. That's not a big deal and doesn't take more than a second or two, but that's what you get when playing with random cards. I also wish the game had keyboard shortcuts for some of the more common commands. It's not that using the mouse is difficult, but rather that simply pressing the spacebar to advance a move would be faster and easier. This seems like a game that would be even better on a tablet or system with a touchscreen, like the PS Vita or Nintendo Switch.

As both a card game and a strategy game, Missile Cards is near perfect. It's both accessible to pretty much everybody and complicated enough to be deeper than you might expect. This is the kind of game that is flawlessly executed and hard to put down. All I wanted to do was beg people to give it a shot, but I was too addicted to stop playing. In a year full of incredible video games, Missile Cards is one of the best.