In The Crew, our team travelled through space in search of the ninth planet. On the way, we encountered all sorts of dangers to be faced, without being allowed to communicate with each other. In space, no one can hear you scream. In The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, we are not exploring the dark world of the universe, but the dark and chilly world underwater. The sea holds a wealth of undiscovered secrets. During our mission, we might even find temples of ancient, lost civilisations!
Like its predecessor, The Crew: Mission Deep Sea is a cooperative trick taking game. In trick taking games, such as Wizard, players must win tricks by playing the highest card of a certain colour. The starting player of a battle starts by playing a card of a specific colour. The other players must “follow suit”. If the other players can, they must play a card in the same colour as the starting player. The player with the highest card in the starting player’s colour, in principle wins the battle. Often the above is accompanied by a certain bluff, gambling element or special powers for the necessary variation. How does a cooperative battle game work? In The Crew, players work together. They have to work together to ensure that the right player wins the right tricks at the right time. However, their ability to communicate with each other is limited.
The original The Crew is a very fun variation on the concept of a trick taking game. The original Crew features a 50-game campaign where players play an exciting story together. Each contains a new element and introduces new rules. This keeps the game refreshing. The campaign can be played as often as you like and new campaigns are also available online (for free). The small handy box therefore contains a lot of fun.
What new things does Mission Deep Sea offer? Again, there is a booklet with a story and a set of missions. However, the missions have been changed compared to the first part, which makes this game element work a lot more intuitively than in the first part. The game contains a large stack of mission cards with different difficulty levels. Each mission card indicates how difficult the mission is. Players now take as many cards as they need to meet this exact difficulty level. These are now the missions that players must complete during the game.
The first The Crew was a complete surprise and rightly voted best game of the year. Mission Deep Sea is perhaps not so surprising, but it is a clear improvement over the first game, due to the new mission cards. The question arises whether it could not have been an expansion of the base game. Perhaps, but the theme of Mission Deep Sea appeals more to us personally and the eye also wants something. The new missions and mission cards also make Mission Deep Sea a must-have.
