C23

Alright. It's that time of the week again. This week I actually have more than one game to review. I know some of you must have been dissappointed when I put up a filler article about the mystery box. In my own defense, I had a busy week.

This week I will start off with a little ghost from gaming's past. This gem was released by Wizard of the Coast in 1998 (it seems they are responsible for a lot of the dead games floating around), and was actually one of three games that used the exact same system, the Arc System (the others being xena and Hercules). So this is going to be more of a review of the system with some bits from C23 scattered throughout.

Lets start off with me noting the purpopse of the game. Your goal is to destroy the opposing army. This is represented by your opponent's deck. Whenever one or your "Characters" attacks your opponent and remains unblocked, the amount of damage done is how many cards your opponent discards from the top of their deck.

Now that I have gotten that little mechanic out of the way, let's continue. The cards in C23 are broken down into four basic types. These are: "Resources", "Characters", "Actions", and "Combat". The cards are also broken down into three colors: red, blue, and green each representing a diferent faction fighting for control of the C23 world.

The way resources are used is similar to any other game. You place one per turn and when it comes to paying for a card, only one of the resources used has to match the color of the card. It is just that simple.

Actions and combat cards are pretty similar. You can play actions at anytime on your turn and you can play comat cards on any players turn when you attack or are attacked. This can add a level of strategy to the game that is needed to keep things interesting.

Finally there are the character cards. These make or break any game. Though some have effects that happen when they come into play, many of the characters in C23 have only one stat (excluding the cost to play that is). That stat is strength. In combat, the character with the lowest strength is discarded. If they are tied both are discarded. If a character remains unblocked, then the player that was attacked discards cards from the top of their deck equal to the total strength of all of the characters that were unblocked. Once again, very simple.

If there is one thing that C23 and the Arc system had going for them is ease of use and game speed. You can sit down and olay a game in a matter of minutes. Isn't that what CCGs are all about? Sadly most of us who play CCGs no longer think so. I personally love putting mind boggling strategy into my decks, and I have not seen much of this in the C23 cards that I have seen, though I was impressed with the card that made your opponent discard their top 10 cards. I also like the fact that the three games can be played together, and I would like to build a deck using all three games in it. For that reason I am not going to flame the game just yet.

Also, any game that makes damage reduce your deck size makes me a little wary. I have however heard that there is a game that got it right. Sadly it is not in english. That will not stop me though.

If you would like to try C23 or any of the Arc system games for yourself, try eBay.