Agents of SMERSH

As a huge fan of spy movies and games, Agents of SMERSH instantly caught my interest. It’s marketed as a co-operative story telling game where players work together to defeat an evil organisation. I knew I had to give this game a go!

I was already familiar with the term, SMERSH, used to label a few of the bad guys in James Bond novels. It was only when I read the box art that I found out it’s a combination of two Russian words that translate as “Death to Spies”.

Here, SMERSH is the evil organisation lead by the evil Dr. Lobo. Reminiscent of Bond’s adventures, you and your teammates have the task of stopping SMERSH. To do this, you’ll need to travel the world, find Lobo, and neutralize him before he can carry out his dastardly plan.

Sounds simple enough! Let’s see how it works in practice!

Gameplay

Agents of SMERSH is a game that can be played in a team of up to 4 players, but it can be also enjoyed on your own.

Each player chooses a spy character each with their own unique stats and perks.

Each round, a player can move their character across the world and have encounters. In these encounters, players face off against Dr. Lobo’s minions. These encounters will either help or hinder your mission depending on how they go.

For example, let’s say an encounter involves fighting one of Lobo’s assassins. Successfully subduing an assassin might provide the team with vital intel. But, if you’re unsuccessful might result in an agent getting injured or even killed!

The game comes with a separate encounters book. This is where the cooperative storytelling comes in. Starting an encounter will prompt you to pick up a card. This card will present you with a number, a vague prompt for the encounter and a list of options for you to pursue. Combining these and rolling a dice will lead you to a paragraph in the game’s encounters book. There are over 1,500 encounters to play through, each with their own challenges to overcome.

This is where your stats and perks come in. Someone with strong hand to hand abilities will do great in fighting situations. Someone with hacking gadgets will have an edge in disabling electronics. Success in these encounters depends on successful rolls of the game’s custom dice. Having these advantages will allow you to roll more dice and increase your chance of success.

There are many advantages you can get some successful encounters. These include new gadgets and special skills. These will improve your character’s ability to handle future encounters. But to find Dr. Lobo, what you really need to collect is Intel. As the game goes on, you’ll have to make informed choices as a team. Do you choose to pursue more Intel, improve your characters’ abilities or rest to recover your strength for your next turn?

My Thoughts

This game is full of so much nostalgia for James Bond and other spy stories. The scenarios, the gadgets, the characters, the artwork. They are all reminiscent of classic spy adventures. It has quite a humorous tone that favours whimsical humour over gritty realism.

You may recognise some of the artwork as being like The Resistance and Flash Point. This is because they share the same artist, George Patsouras. The result is in some great looking board art and components to play with. That said, in this second edition, some of the characters could do with a visual update. Whilst it’s nothing too off-putting, they do look like they belong in cutscene from a 10 year-old video game.

The story-telling element of the encounters is my favourite part of the game. There is so much random chance in selecting encounters, meaning the chance of repeats is very low. I love that the game encourages other players to read your encounters to you. This enhances the experience and gives the feel of a choose your own adventure story. The brief you’ll get before you choose how to approach an encounter is usually quite vague. For example, you might get something like “Proceed with mission – Strange and Unusual”. From there you’ll have to decide an action from a list of single word prompts. That’s not a lot to go on when planning your agents’ next move. But, this lack of context does mean you can string encounters together regardless of what you’ve done before. Plus, having a group of good story tellers will give you all the opportunity to fill the gaps.

The game’s rules, varying encounters and character perks make for a satisfying game experience. My recommendation would be to prepare for confusion on your first play through. With patience, things will start making sense and the magic will start happening.

One improvement I would like to see is more scope for player interaction. On a strategic level, it makes sense to discuss how you’re each going to use our moves in a particular round. But, there’s few instances of direct co-operation. Players travel on their own and engage in encounters on their own. It can sometimes feel you’re doing your own thing rather than working together as a team. That said, you and your team are working together to gather intel on Dr. Lobo. A good team will talk tactics about how best to do that before the Doctor’s plans come to fruition!

Summing Up

Agents of SMERSH did what it said on the box art. It provided an engaging spy-themed co-operative adventure. There is so much variance in encounter that each play providing a unique storied experience. The artwork and the writing brought back cheesy spy movie nostalgia. Meanwhile, the game mechanics make for some interesting challenges to tackle solo and as a group. The only shortfalls are the vague encounter briefs and the lack of ways for players to directly help each other. That said, having a creative group who can fill in gaps in the story and discuss tactics will definitely help bring things together.