Ogre/G.E.V........fine future wargaming ruleset reprinted
Written: Sep 06 '04 (Updated Sep 06 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: High value reprint of two entire classic game rulesets and maps and pieces
Cons: Far too much value to find cons with
The Bottom Line: Get this excellent reprint set to discover (or rediscover) the best wargaming rulesets of the seventies!
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| snpmurray's Full Review: Ogre/G.E.V. Books |
This is the 2000 re-release of one of the most popular allowance-priced yet highly complex board game rule sets of the nineteen seventies and eighties.
When Ogre was first released in 1977 its popularity amongst the war gaming populace probably did not surprise those who had vigorously play-tested its rule set. It was a product of the fecund company Steve Jackson Games, whose other popular games included such hits as "Car Wars" and "Illuminati" (also in the inexpensive plastic-cased humble paper and cardboard format.) What marked the games with distinction was their complexity, their play testing and the imagination of the group of people who were consuming them.
Ogre’s internal dynamics are obvious only upon trying to play through a few rounds of the game on the humble paper map and cardboard cut-out pieces accompanying the rules. One player takes possession of a force of conventional armor and infantry pieces, and the other player has at his disposal only one counter, a chip representing a heavily armored, heavily armed and unmanned supertank known as an ogre.
Taking turns to move their chits on the play board which represents a barren near-future landscape, the rules describe the conditions for movement, combat, victory and defeat in this battle of essentially equal but utterly different forces. The winner will be solely decided by the player who most skillfully marshals the resources at their disposal, and knows best the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. Though the roll of the dice is involved, the odds resultant really should have little bearing on winner and loser.
Like many excellent games, the rules are simple. Like everything in this set, boxed like the original in a slender and pocket-sized plastic case, the rules are honed down and presented in a manner taking up as little space, as few resources, and as little time as is absolutely necessary. Like a good novelette, what is not said is as vivid to the fruitful imagination of the player as what is laid down in detail. We players of Ogre over the last quarter century have built up our own set of extended scenarios, new rules, future histories and banks of artwork to represent the universe in which Ogre is set. To see Ogre in the rest of its glory after this introduction via the rules themselves, you might wish to invest in The Ogre Book
You may be wondering at this stage, if I have spiked your interest sufficiently, what the G.E.V. part of the Ogre/G.E.V. title means.
Ogre was popular enough in sales and fan reaction to spawn a sequel. G.E.V. (Ground Effect Vehicle) was (and still is) an extended rule set for the basic Ogre war game. In G.E.V. refinements are made to the manner in which combats of different types are resolved on the (still humble folded pieces of color printed paper) maps of play. Additional (still humble cardboard cut-out) armor pieces are added to the game which increase exponentially the already complex dynamics of play. All of this was vigorously play tested by the same extremely intelligent people responsible for the original Ogre game.
While it would be unfeasible to write an extension of the Ogre rule set which did not accommodate rules for Ogres, G.E.V. was meant to be played most frequently by all the armor pieces of Ogre excluding ogres themselves. It had come to the attention of the publishers by this time that their skillful play testing crew had written a particularly effective set of rules for future-simulating war gaming, and G.E.V. was presented to make the most of that for eager gamers.
Both Ogre and G.E.V. rules are included in full in this re-release of the Ogre rule sets, back to back , exact duplicates of the original releases. Also included, folded flat, are the original full color paper board maps for both games, and also the many cardboard chits required the play on these boards. This double rules set is excellent value for money, as these games always were, and I hope for many more re-releases from Steve Jackson Games!
More Ogre Links:
Steve Jackson Games Ogre site….Official home of Ogre:
http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/
“Pyramid” online gaming magazine
www.sjgames.com/pyramid
The Ogre Gamebox: Over-internet Ogre gameplay with Cyberboard
http://surf.to/hawkmoon
Cyberboard: A Windows program providing a framework for Windows based war gaming including Ogre
http://www.norsesoft.com/cyberboard.html
Recommended:
Yes
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