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The Way of the Samurai presents options for making your Shadowrun game more inclusive of Street Samurai. If you run campaigns like I do and find that the majority of your players shy away from cyberware and bioware in favor of having physical adepts, it really provides some nice new benefits. I'm a fan of seeing Boosted Reflexes again, though their high essence cost and lower performance makes them pretty soundly budget-grade cyberware rather than a low-Essence cost solution for a mage who wants another initiative pass like their role often was in prior editions.
As far as the new qualities go, they're heavily focused on giving characters a bonus for a sort of archetype; they require certain cyberware but give a benefit to certain abilities in return in addition to the user's already augmented abilities. Unfortunately, a lot of these have except-if clauses with a lot of cyberware enhancements, so they tend to go unused (fortunately, the most egregious of these have alternate options so someone who buys one for one of the two reasons still can choose something for the other).
All-in-all, the fluff and art was great, and the content had some interesting decisions. I'm not entirely sold on some of the new cyberware packs, but they still provide a good baseline for newbies trying to figure out what they want who weren't satisfied with previous options.
There's some iffy decisions here, in my opinion, but nothing that goes from the realm of slightly redundant (for instance, 2 box pain resistance unless someone already has pain editors-for the tank-style quality bonus for an augmented person seems likely to be of little use; or effects that duplicate the Krav Maga martial art to the point of referencing it) into the realm of actually problematic. Personally, as an avid gamer, I loved the fluff section where Slamm-O introduces the stuff, but that may be a subjective judgment. Some of the qualities have unique functions not found anywhere else, but that somewhat endanger balance (such as the Sharpshooter, who gets a Take Aim enhancement that could redefine the way players approach things in a good or bad way).
In short; good, not quite stellar, some of the qualities could leave players wanting something more than what they can get elsewhere, the minimum essence requirements seem redundant with the need for two pieces of appropriate cyberware on most of the new qualities,
| Wertung: | | [4 von 5 Sternen!] |
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I like Edge of Space a lot because it shows a lot of analysis and design. That said, it has some major issues, one of which being that it's so minimalistic that it's actually suffering for it, while there's some really, really good stuff there in terms of what could be expanded upon, it just doesn't do it and it kinda hurts. I recognize that there's something to be said for a game that can fit on just a few small pages, and if this were an entry for, say, Game Chef, it would be phenomenal. It's still a good game, but I'm just not feeling the pocket mod format, since it provides two formats it could very well be made with an examples and description "fluff" rich version and it would be a lot better, since at its short length (about 1300 words), it feels very good but still lacks some of the things that I'd like to see, namely at least some description of the alien menace, since as is it's not terribly engaging.
| Wertung: | | [4 von 5 Sternen!] |
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Antwort des Verlags: |
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Thank you for the review and your honesty. We are looking at your suggestion to expand the full size version of the game with more details on the setting and the aliens. We hope to have an expanded version completed soon. Thank you for the suggestion! |
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Now, I'll confess that I'd never really read Fading Suns before this, so I'm looking at it from a different perspective than someone who is familiar with older editions (basically, I'm treating this as all new content).
For the most part, I like the setting and writing; there's a good amount of stuff here and the setting's pretty nice. There's a lot of content, and it avoids going on tangents. My only complaint is that there are a ton of typos, and you can see places that reference stuff not referenced elsewhere, probably from edition incompatibility. The art is all set in frames, which means it has a nice professional look to it, but the lack of any background images or the like on pages means that they feel pretty boring, though not necessarily horribly so. There's a lot of bookmarks, though like pretty much every PDF ever the index isn't linked (though it could be pretty easily).
I do have some gripes that there's not very much in the ways of provided setting; we get mentions and name drops of a couple planets, but for the most part it is up to the GM to provide planets, jump lanes, and the like, which is perhaps a little lackluster for a production of this scale.
Going to a much more positive side, I love the mechanics provided with the game. The system they use allows a really quick resolution that rewards high skills and tactical thinking without requiring too much complexity, which means that it's really good for newbies as well as those who understand the system.
All-in-all, Fading Suns isn't quite to the grade I expected from FASA, but it's still a well-put together volume, though I feel that it could have benefited from another run by the editor.
| Wertung: | | [4 von 5 Sternen!] |
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The GM's Companion serves as a handy addition to Outbreak: Undead that really does add a new degree of complexity to the risk and reward of missions in the zombie apocalypse. While it's not exactly going to turn your game upside down with a ton of new and unexpected things, it provides a good guide of what you can expect to be doing in the zombie apocalypse and things that can be put into play that won't beat the players' characters to a pulp in seconds.
Basically, the GM's Companion serves as a guide to what you want to do to keep a game smooth and on track, and allows you to use random generation to figure out stuff to put in if you lose track of where things should be going. It's not giant, but it's got enough stuff in there to be worth noting as a valuable aid.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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The classic Earthdawn is back. With what I consider to be one of the best systems of all tabletop games and an intriguing and unique setting, this venerable title once again sees the light of day with the resurrection of FASA as a company, and it's great news.
The pen-and-paper branch of FASA actually went defunct before I started playing tabletop games, but it quickly earned my affection as I discovered Shadowrun, Earthdawn, and MechWarrior as some of my favorite settings and systems, so I am far from impartial, but I will say this: Earthdawn is just as good as I remember when I discovered it for the first time with a battered old hardcover that I still keep stashed away with all my favorite books.
Now Earthdawn comes back again, with a Revised Edition that builds on years and years of editing and improvements to provide what I feel is one of the best games I've ever seen, built around a well-designed mathematically grounded system and allowing an incredible amount of exploration and adventure in a truly fantastic realm. Throw in the classic elements that I loved from my old copy (including, for instance, some of the high-quality art and the short story that introduces the setting), and I have to say that I'm excited about Earthdawn's future once again.
I'll wrap this up quickly and simply: Earthdawn is just as amazing again as it was when I discovered it in high school, and I'm looking forward to many more adventures in Barsaive.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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Radiance is a game with a ton of things going for it; it uses a tried and true d20 base with an analytical look at how the core mechanics work in order to create a system that combines the familiarity and simplicity of the d20 system with a more flexible character handling system that not only reduces the difficulty of learning the system but also allows some pretty neat other things.
As far as the Players Guide goes, it has very high quality; it has more art and a more coherent design than an average free PDF, but it also has superb writing and contains a great amount of content. Its sleek and streamlined rules allow for a book that isn't terribly gigantic but still contains a ton of stuff for players to handle all sorts of situations, and provides an interesting insight to the setting, even though there's not a terribly high amount of connection to a setting within the book.
All in all, for a free game, Radiance is definitely stellar, and I'm seriously considering picking up a hard copy to have laying around should I have to run a game session without my laptop handy.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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This is actually a rather good product, but there are a couple glaring issues.
While the textures are of decent quality, there are a couple places where they don't really work, and there are a couple places where there are glaring blue blocks that could just as well be a glitch rather than an intentional decision.
My main gripe with the map, though, is the amount of busy additions there are. Rather than being a true blank slate with entirely user-driven customization, there are a few vehicles added, which are placed in the middle of the street in a way that could be pretty awkward to explain away to players mid car-chase or whatnot. In addition, there's a degree of noise added by what appears to be randomly placed debris, but this is notably absent from the bottom left sections of road, as well as a couple other sections. In addition, the roads on the bottom left don't have lines painted, which also sorta kills the immersion.
I hate to scourge it so heavily on a couple of errors; technically, there's a really good product here, but the built in vehicles kinda kill some of the versatility, and those blue boxes just don't mesh with the map. If they were removed, I'd have fewer qualms with giving this a perfect rating.
| Wertung: | | [4 von 5 Sternen!] |
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Yeah, I'm a major fan of Eclipse Phase, so this shouldn't come as a shock to anyone, but Rimward is absolutely amazing. It lives up to my expectations, delivering Posthuman Studios' high quality and insightful transhuman setting in a simple package.
Rimward is 90% setting, and about 10% numbers, but when you actually look at it it's well worth it-everything is written in such a way as to detail the universe of Eclipse Phase and be a great asset to players and game masters, even if it's not a list of numbers on a page. It's actually a joy to read, with a boatload of new content.
All-in-all, I'd say Rimward is the perfect supplement to Sunward, and makes Eclipse Phase that much better as a game-my normal caution about Eclipse Phase not being for the kiddies still applies, but other than that it's a top-notch product I recommend to anyone who likes Eclipse Phase.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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I'll admit to loving every second I read this. The art, the writing, and the setting all reminded me of the old Shadowrun, my first tabletop game, and it was pure gamer bliss.
However, I have to be objective here. For me, this book was pure awesome and amazing, but how likely am I to really use it in play? Very. The only problem with it is that I already used everything it included in my campaigns; I just homebrewed it. While it's nice to have a book that does it all, it's really not necessary for me to go back from something I lived by for a long time and still run a campaign for with an additional book, and the book primarily targets those players.
That said, the production values are top-notch, which I have to give Catalyst props for. As I mentioned, the entire book was perfect, and with Shadowrun Returns coming out soon with its accompanying Fluff and Smoke webseries I've spent most of this week with most of my free time being immersed into Shadowrun.
So I'll end this review with recommendations: If you're one of the people who hopped onto Shadowrun in Fourth Edition, this could be the book for you if you want to play a more classic cyberpunk feel. If you love the new system, want a standard conversion of old gear, and pretty much just want a book to bring stuff from the old books into the Fourth Edition ruleset while getting a blast from the past, this is also a good book for you. If you're still an older-edition player, you may want to just stick to the classics, though, since while it's a more than satisfactory conversion, there's nothing new or particularly exciting other than the fact that it brings proper-name gear into the Fourth Edition package. If you want a primer for the old setting, it's also a good catch; even to the relatively veteran Shadowrun fan I am the content didn't get boring or repetitive, despite the fact that I've had issues staying awake through some other attempts to recap on the setting's evolutions through the years. It's all a question of whether or not you can shoulder the price tag.
| Wertung: | | [4 von 5 Sternen!] |
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SteamCraft is a wonderful game for its purpose, though it is not entirely without its flaws.
It manages to create a great framework for adventures. The rules are relatively simple and easy to grasp, plus they're not so incredibly boring or predictable you may as well skip rolling for stuff. It's well-written and laced with flavor and other things, though it doesn't get too heavy with this to the point of bogging things down.
On the other hand, there are some major issues. Maybe it's just on my end, but text that has a picture bumping into it (even the transparent areas around it) winds up turning out incredibly pixelated. I'm not sure what causes these issues-all the other PDF's I've tested work fine, even things I've thrown together explicitly to test this seem to have no result, so I'm thinking it's an error with the software on their end; it's not a gamebreaker but it's a little annoying. There's several typos littered throughout the document, which could be a turn-off for some.
Ultimately, my largest gripe with this game is its price-its system is pretty simple and it'd be none too difficult to create a homebrew system that could do everything contained within (though to be totally honest, percentile-based systems have very little room to stand out without becoming gimmicky; which means you could say this about a lot of things) and it could stand a couple more layers of polish and revisions to really command a $20 price.
| Wertung: | | [4 von 5 Sternen!] |
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Antwort des Verlags: |
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My pdf looks fine, but you are having problems so I want to make sure it gets resolved. Could you please email me more detail explaining the text pixelating issue around pictures so I can look into it? steamcraft@perilousjourneys.com |
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The pixelation issue should now be fixed and an updated file is now available for download. |
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Only War does a good job at being a WH40k game of great quality, even in its beta state; there are a lot of people who gripe about something or other in terms of how the beta is being handled, but as a product, I've seen full games less polished than this, and the high-quality rating and what art is already in here is of absolutely top-notch quality.
Just as a game, Only War is pretty spectacular, using FFG's polished percentile-based rules, with pretty much all the rules you would need to play through military campaigns and the like. It's got simple rules when simple rules are required and there is an obvious eye to detail when it comes to the mechanics; covering everything from ascending cliff faces to requisitioning supplies without becoming needlessly bloated.
Basically, if you're on the edge of the fence when it comes to getting this game, hop on over; the Imperial Guardsman setting is absolutely awesome when it comes to playing within the 40k Universe, especially if you follow some of the novels.
I'd say that if you're at all skeptical, don't worry about the $20 cost; you get the game as-is early, plus a coupon for $20 off the final edition.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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Posthuman Studios' translation of Degenesis is as stunning and stellar as one would expect from the makers of Eclipse Phase. The book is beautiful and presents a wonderful and insightful look at a post-apocalyptic setting, with a richness of character and setting that is often missing in many games.
The mechanics are very solid, with a two-fold difficulty and skill rating that creates an interesting curve that allows a lot of possibilities.
The game itself isn't one for the kiddies-it's violent, there's some swearing, and there's at least a couple images with things you wouldn't necessarily want a young kid seeing, but it's not terribly crude like some games get when they're taking license with a more mature audience.
That said, even though it's not exactly a family-friendly game, Degenesis provides a great mechanical backdrop for an in-depth setting, and it's definitely worth a look; it's a great price for the amount of content you get, and you support indie gaming.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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Hazard Pay is a wonderful supplement for Shadowrun 4th Edition, with a ton of text that will prove invaluable for anyone trying to run a Shadowrun game in an extreme environment while staying within the boundaries of strict canon.
It is very well written, but the editing is a bit of a disappointment; I've always looked to Catalyst Game Labs for every high quality products, but whoever was doing editing on this reminded me of what happens when I keep my laptop's trackpad on when I'm typing- there are a ton of typos and there are often places where it becomes clear that a sentence was being edited, then whoever was editing skipped to the wrong place. This doesn't detract from a reader's ability to understand the work for the most part, and I'd still recommend the book, but I get the feeling there was a little lack of the usual polish.
The art used to punctuate the writing is all great by any standards and serves to increase the immersion; some of it comes at a different point in the book than where I would have put it, but I'm not an expert designer and it still contributes to the work while providing awesome illustrations and examples.
The book also comes punctuated with short stories of varying length-these are all pretty well written, and introduce us to the characters who are narrating each section.
There's not a whole lot of crunch in the book, in terms of new rules, but there's plenty of new spells and a small bit of new gear, plus vehicles for most of the situations out there.
I really thought the Arctic section was the best, and part of this is due to the fact that it's the least touched on by other material, at least as far as I can tell. That said, the fact that a lot of creatures, say, mentioned in the Desert section, are available from only Parazoology means that in order for the reader to actually find the creatures is somewhat frustrating especially considering that no reference to the sourcebook is made. For instance, the Mongolian Death Worm is found in Parazoology, but without a reference to that book my primary resource for a critter would be Running Wild, rather than the substantially shorter Parazoology. In addition, while gear is duplicated in the Game Information section, critters are not, meaning I have to guess at where in the Arctic section I'll be grabbing that Spirit Bear to ambush my runners, which is far from impossible but is still a pain. A good index at the end of the PDF would help this a good deal, but to the best of my knowledge such an item is missing, and the PDF's built in bookmarks, which usually would do for such a task, have this on a third layer, making it near impossible for someone unfamiliar with the book to find this quickly without resorting to the PDF search function. In short, it feels like someone got lazy and didn't want to do a full table of contents (I've been guilty of doing the same), but when you're referencing between books it is really important to have such a thing. At the very least, a index for critters, magic, and gear of interest in other books could have been appended to the end of each section to point out where things are.
Ultimately, if you feel the need to take your campaign somewhere outside of traditional sprawls and want to give them the full Shadowrun hurt I'd suggest this to anyone, but be forewarned that it's not of CGL's usual quality.
Quick Summary:
Content: 5/5 (I'm content that the amount of content provided could make any group totally sick and tired of the settings within, and since there's a lot of stuff here it's pretty good.)
Art/Typesetting: 5/5 (Catalyst Game Labs remains as good as always about providing a book that doesn't make your eyes bleed but has plenty of stuff to focus on. I'm not a giant fan of the short-story font, but it's pretty good all around)
Writing: 4/5 (Very well written in terms of content, but there's some typos that could have been caught by giving it to a second editor or giving it another run through on the editing end)
Awesome Factor: 5/5 (Shadowrun in Space! Shadowrun in Antarctica! Shadowrun at sea! There's plenty of stuff to be had here for some really crazy and awesome scenarios.)
Interest: 5/5 (It's made exclusively for people who want an out-of-the-usual feel, and it provides that very well, at least if you're looking for the places that kill you quicker than the bad guys you're after thing)
Maturity: 16+ (Not terribly violent, but includes a good chunk of swearing)
Value: 3/5 (For $25, it tends to leave out a ton of content that I feel could be easily duplicated within, and it just isn't up to the usual standards of quality I expect from Catalyst)
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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Free Taiwan was my first time actually using a pre-written mission for Fourth Edition Shadowrun, because my group wanted a game and it looked like it would work with them pretty well. It did.
It's great, and my players absolutely loved it! The hand-to-hand combat specialist felt a little left out, but in a party where everyone else is packing an automatic or longarm and all you do is whip things that's a pretty frequent complaint.
The mission itself is fairly short to mid-length in a good way-it took about a hour and a half for my group to complete it (partly because they were getting distracted by internet videos on the background-my main gripe with going digital) and setting up took only about fifteen minutes. It did, however, achieve its goals handsomely and the group enjoyed it.
I mean, it's a free mission. It's also of good quality-the typesetting and included art were great, and there wasn't any time where I was scratching my head having run into a dead end, the players went along with it without having to be coerced, and it was memorable.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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Street Legends: Home Edition is a little taste of Shadowrun goodness that presents "Street Legends" that most long-time Shadowrunners are familiar with; the characters that really shouldn't exist but yet they do.
My favorite thing about it is its blunt honesty-Street Legends: Home Edition isn't the big budget presentation by Catalyst Game Labs but rather a collection of the things you see around the table and cry yourself to sleep after (namely, when your player pulls out a character sheet with one of these characters on it). Mind you, not all these characters are outright "bad", but they all highlight the things that players run amok do.
It's not the most serious product, but it is free, and if you can get past the somewhat mature content in some areas you'll recognize characters straight from "that one player" in your group.
| Wertung: | | [5 von 5 Sternen!] |
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