2 comments about Classic Battletech: Master Rules (FPR35000).

1. Unless you're an extremely casual Battletech player (as in maybe play once a year and with interest in playing outside family), skip the Classic Battletech Boxed Set and go straight here, do not pass Go. The Classic 'Tech box contains the very minimum to play, but to really get rolling as well as use any of the 'Mechs in the Technical Readouts, this is the book to go with. Includes all the rules to play any game up to tournament level, including miniature scale play, create your own 'Mechs or use 'Mechs from the Record Sheets or Technical Readouts. Literally a must-have for playing Battletech.



2. This is exactly what it says. It's the classic battletech core book. Other than the starter box set, which you may need to play, the core book is what you really need. This is the main rule book with optional combat rules and construction rules. It also has rules for vehicles, naval, infantry, battle armor, and the new protomechs. This book is a step into the open door of the Battletech universe. Have fun gaming.

1 comments about En Garde!.

1. This is a great roleplaying game-I discovered it in the 70"s and am cuurently running a game. Its got a following in England ant this rule reprint comes from there.

No comments about Island of the Lizard King (Fighting Fantasy).

5 comments about Dragonball Z: The Anime Adventure Game.

1. I personaly like the book.It has the most oraginal and ostanding ideas i have ever seen.The book is good for all Dragon Ball Z/Gt fans.(I woulden't recommened it to new comers though)You have to get into the book and know at least part of the story line.When the book arrived i was over joyed and started reading it right away.If you have qusetions about the book contact me at THESUBLAW2@aol.com.The book is somewhat hard to get a hold of.You can get it here,Barens and noble or Comic Heven.I hope this helps you if not just e-mail me and i will try to help.



2. The overall idea of a DBZ RPG is good, and the system posited here works pretty well. However, the rules listed in this book are full of contradictions and many things are left unexplained. Currently, the book is most useful as a reference to the English version of DBZ as it gives info on all the characters (major and minor) in the Saiyan Saga (which is before trip to Namek). The game itself needs some work, so don't buy this if you expect to learn it quickly. Your best bet is to wait for the Frieza Saga book coming out soon, which hopefully will have rules errata for the main game (or maybe rewrite the whole thing).



3. The game is great,but you will have to read the instructions 3 or 4 times to fully memorize the rules the authors are geniouses and I cant wait for the freeza saga.DBZ fans will be amazed while RPG fans will have loads of fun.



4. They lacked in a few areas. I understood everything in the first read. I have found that over all, this is a near-perfect game... therefore I gave it a near-perfect score.Thankfully they made some revisions in the Frieza Saga book. I can't wait for the Trunks book to be out (Supposedly last week of September).



5. Introduction: Firstly let me begin by saying I only recently got the book, so I haven't really had time to read everything in extreme detail. Now for a review, not hard, overall its a good book with potential. But I'll explain in more detail ...
   
   How does the book span out? The book like other anime based role-playing books starts by explaining parts of the anime bit by bit before moving on into actual game rules and mechanics. This will be quite helpful if your planning on using the base characters and locations from the series, otherwise it might just end up a base for creating you own. It could end up as a reference more than anything else.
   
   The book only really gets into the main mechanics around half way through, it starts with combat and how that works and goes to other things like powers and training. After its done with the bulk of the rules (which you will need to read more than once) it then moves onto some nice pointer tactics for battle situation, and even a short demo battle to give you a taste of what it's like during combat. This part of the book is good, not many faults on first glance.
   
   A good thing about this book is it ends with some help on creating your own sagas and making campaigns, as well as some rules you might want to use in your games to keep them going smoothly. It really does try and help you create your enemies and settings as much as possible. This is something other game systems might try selling that as a separate book (not going to name and names).
   
   Good points with the book: The strongest part of the book is really how well its been done. The makers could have gotten this very wrong, dull rules or unneeded complicatations but it seems it hasn't. The rules are faithful to the series and allow you to have the right Dragonball Z feel to your game. All this on my first read, several reviews make the same point and I now understand why.
   
   Also the obvious reason why the book is good; its Dragonball Z in proper role-playing form!
   
   Problems with the book: The first is really the amount of actual game content, or rather the lack of content. The book itself seems rather short (around 144 pages) and considering about half are filled with information rather than rules this lets the book down slightly. Adding to this the book only covers the Saiyan Saga (which might put some people off if you like the higher powered Sagas). This is ultimately going to irritate you, and that leads you onto the next problem; once you get this book you WILL want the others. "That's not a bad thing ..." I hear you say? - It is when it means forking out even more money for the books, and the hardest part; finding them. Yes, the other books (two others right now) as I found are quite hard to find. I eventually found them, but not for a cheap price.
   
   Apart from than that my only problem is the obvious; bugs in the system. Like every role-playing system this one has it's problems, not that I have noticed any yet, but from reviews of the book I have seen suggest this book has some teething issues that are later sorted in further editions of the game. Another reason why you will want and possibly need to get the further editions to the game.
   
   Conclusion: I know it might look like I'm being pretty negative, the bad points are a lot bigger than the good in my review but despite that I stand by saying the book is a great role-playing game. Not without it's problems, and yes it had more potential and I'm sure it will reach this when I receive the other books and read through them all. Right now I'm happy with the book, It's got a lot of great features and interesting possibilities and it`s looking to be a lot of fun, keeping in mind it's bad point I strongly recommend this to any keen role-players that are interested in Dragonball Z looking for something new and fun.

1 comments about BESM Revolutionary Girl utena: The Rose Collection.

1. This book and it's follow upBESM Revolutionary Girl Utena: Book 2 The Black Rose Collection (there was supposedly a 3rd but, I've never seen it available) Are intended to be used as RPG manuals. Which is great if you're into playing the BESM RPG's but, that doesn't apply to most Utena fans. But, A compendium of detailed character and story information alongside many lovely stills from the TV series is a bit More interesting to most fans. These books delivery exactly that and are a completely wonderful resource for Utena fans! They contain detailed information on the episodes (this book contains episodes 1-13), on the places around Ohtori academy, about the characters and the symbolic imagery used in the show!
   Written for intelligent well informed fans of the show these are wonderful, Must-have resources for any Utena fan.

1 comments about BESM Revolutionary Girl Utena: Book 2 The Black Rose Collection.

1. This book and it's prdecessor, BESM Revolutionary Girl Utena: Book 2 The Black Rose Collection (there was supposedly a 3rd but, I've never seen it available) Are intended to be used as RPG manuals. Which is great if you're into playing the BESM RPG's but, that doesn't apply to most Utena fans. But, A compendium of detailed character and story information alongside many lovely stills from the TV series is a bit More interesting to most fans. These books delivery exactly that and are a completely wonderful resource for Utena fans! They contain detailed information on the episodes (this book contains episodes 1-13), on the places around Ohtori academy, about the characters and the symbolic imagery used in the show!
   Written for intelligent well informed fans of the show these are wonderful, Must-have resources for any Utena fan.

No comments about Tooniversal Tour Guide (Toons).

No comments about Axis & Allies Miniatures Game Expanded Rules Guide.

1 comments about Path of Magic: A Character Resource for Bards, Sorcerers, and Wizards (Legends & Lairs, d20 System) (Legends & Lairs).

1. This is a great supplement for anyone playing a wizard, bard or sorceror. It is also a great supplement if you'd like to make Magic a more interesting part of your campaign.

   The prestige classes are, for the most part, pretty good and the inclusion of whole organizations behind them amkes them even better. The Feats are also good even though there are similarities with feats in existing products (independent development by the looks of it). They are well thought out and balanced well enough to avoid being either worthless or indispensible.

   The best parts of the book though are the extended rules for bardic performances and the magical traditions. The extended rules allow for bards performing in modes other than music (like dance or poetry) and there are also rules for allowing the quality of performance to influence the bard's effects. With the new rules bards are finally more than wizards who happen to play guitar (or lute).

   The magical traditions are similar to those in Path of the Sword (also by FFG) and allow arcane characters to acquire some feat-like bonuses to skills and abilities at the cost of some experience points. The traditions are a great way to make your wizard different than the wizard next to you.

   The true measure of a book like this is excitement. As a player, I'm excited about the new options available to my favorite wizard (as soon as I convince my GM to let us use them). As a GM, I'm definitely going to include the traditions, feats, and bard rules in my next campaign. Some of the prestige classes will make it too.

1 comments about Starship Troopers RPG: The Arachnid Empire (Starship Troopers).

1. For fans of the d20 Starship Troopers roleplaying game, this volume was very much anticipated. Sadly, like most situations where you wait and wait and the anticpation builds for a certain product, the end result is usually disappointing, which was the case with this book.
   
   Whilst I appreciate that the writer(s) did not want to prescribe too much detail, thereby limiting creative GM's games, the book tries to tackle an immense and extremely important topic and then condense it down to 160 pages. What results is a middle of the road offering that ultimately poses far more questions than answers.
   
   The book is broken down six chapters: 1 - The Arachnid War, 2 - Planets, 3 - Warfare, 4 - Society & Physiology, 5 - Sub Species and 6 - Bug Central Charlie Victor.
   
   Chapter One doesn't offer anything that a fan of the game doesn't already know; although it does give a nice blow-by-blow account of the Klendathu invasion.
   
   Chapter Two describes the planets that make up the Arachnid Quarrantine Zone - but only in the most superficial manner and this for me was the most disappointing part of the whole book, especially since this is the essence of the entire book. Additionally, the map provided bears no relation to the one provided in the base rule book and clearly shows only a small portion of the AQZ (again very frustrating!). Why this is so important is due to the fact that mankind supposedly first encountered the Bugs on Pluto in the Sol system. Given the Arachanids apparently haphazard colonisation process, described in a later chapter, logic would dictate that this would mean that there would be a trail of colonies from the Alpha Hydrae system (Arachnid homeworld system) all the way to Pluto. However, the writer has decided that the Arachnids are in nicely enclosed little corner of space...which begs so many questions, such as if they are enclosed in a nice little corner of space, why did they travel tens of thousands of light years to the Sol system to populate a freezing plantetoid on the fringes of the system?
   
   Chapter Three describes how the Arachnids conduct warfare across all three dimensions, all environments and takes special note of how the arachnids handle various MI incursions into their territory. Again, some interesting points, but its mostly been covered in previous publications.
   
   Chapter Four describes the history of the arachnid species, life-cycles, society etc. This is an interesting chapter, because most of this stuff is only hinted at in previous publications. I think the only glarring omission here is the fact that there is no discussion on the 'Arachnid Empire', is there a Queen of Queens that directs the Arachnid colonisation process and direction? The book states that new colonies generally only occur when an existing colony gets to big and so Arachnid spawn is fired off into space...and yet somehow in this chaotic and seemingly random process some spawn managed to reach Pluto??? (re my point about no coherent trail of colonies from the AQZ to Pluto) - it's these sorts of inconsistencies that ultimately make the book very ho-hum instead of WOW!
   
   Chapter Five details the myrid sub-species of Arachnids and goes to great length to show how adaptable the Arachnids are. This is generally a 'crunchy' chapter with lots of game stats for the various bugs. There is only one silly entry, which is the 'Control Bug'. These bugs are supposedly meant to latch onto the back of a target's neck and inject their proboscis into the character's brain thereby controlling the target's action. Nice concept. Then it comes unravelled. Firstly, the picture shows the control bug to be about as tall as a standard human's mid calf and has a length of about a standard size 10 human foot. Under the bio report it is described as having a weight of 25 Kgs! Can you imagine a 25kg bug the size of half a human leg going unnoticed as it controlled the actions of a MI Trooper (ignoring for the moment of the impracticality of it hanging off the back of the neck)??!?! Again, simple silly stuff that really detracts from the book. Then there's the transport bug, which takes silliness to a new level...
   
   The final chapter showcases what is meant to be an entire bug colony! Wow, that would be cool....except it goes nowhere acheiving this lofty goal. Instead we get a two-dimensional schematic of PART of a standard bug colony, with the warning that due to the size of bug colony's it's impossible to show it in its entirety! But isn't that what was advertised? This gripe aside, the text for this chapter is actually pretty good - it details the main parts of a standard colony and then shows what kind of resistance a MI unit can expect in each part and level of alert that the colony is at.
   
   The book then finishes off with a range of new missions, that are generic in nature. Players familiar with the base rule book missions will find these missions familiar in their layout. The beauty of these missions is that (except for the first one) are all lethal and make for some great game sessions!
   
   Overall the book barely scrapes in at three stars - but there is enough in it to make it worth purchasing.
   
   Enjoy.