4 comments about Tomorrow Never Dies: Prima's Official Strategy Guide.

1. This guide is the BEST! I love it. it has all the maps, strategies, everything. the books layout is easy to read and follow. the game is great also!



2. The guide is great. It explains all of bonds arsenal. Everything in the game is on the strategy guide. It has great mission maps and step by step problem solving. Just explains everything. Even gives you cheats. Just great. Prima does it again!



3. This is a great strategy guide! It explains everything about EA's new PSX game in an easy to read format. You never have questions about what to do on the levels you get stuck on. It's GREAT!(Not to mention wonderful, spectacular, stupendous, excellent, and superfralacagalisticexpialadotches! )! This strategy book is top notch and I recomend it to everyone who owns the game or plans to own the game!



4. the hint book is not as good as i thought it would be. i figure amost of the game by myself. but for beginning gamers it is a good guide

1 comments about Hunting Ground: The Rockies (Werewolf: The Forsaken).

1. This book is the signature setting book for the Werewolf the Forsaken role playing game and as such, it offers a wealth of information to this excellent game.
   
   Essentially, Hunting Grounds takes the various abstract concepts introduced in the corebook and puts them into an actual context. You ever wondered what the spiritual struggle for a city looks like? Denver is undergoing exactly that kind of struggle. You ever wondered what an extended family of werewolves looks like? Bingo. You want to see how the various werewolf packs play off each other in terms of politics? It's in here. You want to see exactly how werewolves act like spiritual police to the spirits that they've been assigned to corral? Hunting Grounds explains it all.
   
   Consequently, there is a ton of ideas that weren't mentioned in the core rulebook. For example, even after all of this time, there's still dinosaur spirits hanging around the spiritual wilds of Denver, although they've survived for so long that they're more a collection of sharp teeth and claws than an actual spirit representative of Denver. There's warped parodies of werewolves left over from a confrontation from a Great Old One-like spirit that was destroyed some time ago. There's too much interesting stuff to list, really. It's the kind of thing where you just have to buy the book.
   
   The opening fiction details the Black Moon Extreme pack as they hunt vampires - and they do about as well as you'd expect a pack with the word "extreme" in their names to do. The fiction seems honestly out of place - more tuned to the cartoon rock and roll of Werewolf: The Apocalypse, rather than the subtle, understated horror of the new World of Darkness. I mention this specifically because there's a fight between a werewolf on a motorcycle and an all-black Hummer on a crowded road, which seems somewhat contrary to the spirit of the game. The chapters breaks do an excellent job of portraying this kind of thing - both the traditional horror roots of werewolves, as in an excerpt from the 18th century man being chased by werewolves, and in the modern day, as in a description of the aftermath of a hunt.
   
   Much of the book is taken up with the various packs that occupy the Denver area. The structure of this book borrows a page out of Vampire the Requiem game line, by detailing the local power structure and then offering new werewolf packs ample space to move in and interact with them. And since werewolves don't infight nearly as often as vampires do, there's options provided for each pack that allows the storyteller (GM) to use them as adversaries or as allies, complete with a story hook for each possibility, which is really nicely done.
   
   The local sample packs themselves range from the interesting to the average. For instance, there's a group of survivalist werewolves - the Red Knives - who have their own compound up in the Rockies, and whose members have names like "Phantom" and "Ranger" and "Snap". They're fairly undifferentiated, but they've got a small cult of humans back at their compound who are fully aware of the existence of werewolves - a fascinating idea that seems to merit more explanation than it actually gets. As a werewolf pack, they're kind of uninspired, but imagine the fun that you could have throwing ordinary humans up against them. The Scar Angels are a werewolf biker gang, but with the sole exception of Smoke, the group's "face man" and travelling salesmen, they pretty much look like the picture that you get in your head when you hear the words werewolf bike gang.
   
   A major NPC pack is the Pickering family - a family of Bone Shadow werewolves who seem to embody the ancestral curse aspect of lycanthropy - two sons have already died before seeing their 21st birthdays, and the third is only six months away and terrified. The rest of the family have their own agendas, but all of them wind up in the family crypt, the site of the pack's locus. The Shadow of Smoke and Fire lost one of its members to an attack by the Pure, and is walking wounded until somebody - either the Pure or the PC's - intervene. Black Moon Extreme is a rock band whose members are vampire-hunting werewolves, but the book makes them work. (Part of that is that a lot of the other werewolf packs think that they're kinda goofy too.)
   
   There are also a lot of packs dedicated to one of the central plot points of the book - Max Roman's attempt to create a true werewolf nation, as opposed to scattered packs with no central organization. Gurdilag provided a major incentive for werewolves to cooperate, and allowed Max to wield a lot of political power, but now that the central threat is gone, many of the werewolves who joined Max - including a legendary werewolf - see Max's vision as contrary to the basic idea of what werewolves are supposed to be like. Some of the multi-tribal packs are beginning to fragment as they question if Roman's plan is going anywhere at all. At the same time, the Pure werewolves somehow figured out how to coordinate a major attack on Denver in the past, so the choice of whether the werewolves will act as a nation or as separate packs may not be as academic as it sounds. The PCs, if they play their cards right, could be the founders of the Forsaken werewolf nation.
   
   The next chapter describes Denver and its environs, and it's here that we really get the good stuff. Denver's recently been freed from the spiritual domination of Gurdilag, but the resulting power vacuum and absence of hierarchy has basically laid everything to waste. Spirits who would otherwise fill specific needs have been forced to find new ways to survive, merging with their fellow spirits for protection and creating monstrosities in the bargain. The spiritual dogfight that's occurring in Denver is spelled out in remarkably clear terms:
   
   "...spirits up and down the hierarchy are jostling for position and influence over their neighbors, making alliances and consuming those weaker than themselves. Spirits of buildings fight one another over who will become the spirit of the block, the winner then vies with other blocks to become the spirit of the neighborhood - at which point new building-spirits fight over who will fill the vacant position of spirit of the block."
   
   The core book may have given general examples of how spirits interact with each other, but this makes it nice and specific - providing an actual illustration of how it clicks together.
   
   The next chapter develops information on the Pure tribes who reside in the local area. We find out more about what the Pure are like - motivations, plans, goals. We get two sample packs - Howl to Mock the Dead, which ripped up the Shadows of Smoke and Fire, and the Guardians of Mountain Pass, responsible for guarding the mountain pass that winds through the Rocky Mountains. We also get the Bale Hounds described, but not as fully as I'd like. Their black and white morality seem rather radically out of joint in comparison to the much grayer world around them, and the suggested activities for Bale Hounds - using a human sex club for worship of the dark Lust spirit. Great stuff.
   
   The Su'ur are werewolves who were radically warped by Gurdilag, usually resulting from when Gurdilag took a spirit and mashed it up against the werewolf without really thinking the result through. The resulting tragic hybrids make much better rivals for Werewolf: The Forsaken than the Bale Hounds do, as they're not entirely at fault for their condition - but they have to be killed. (Not that their new powers make that easy.) There's even a guy who's able to borrow the skills and powers of the werewolves that he eats, which shades into the Skin Changers of the early years of Werewolf: The Apocalypse. While the spirit responsible for creating the Su'ur in the Denver area has been - supposedly - destroyed, it's easy enough to say that all of the idigam who are returning to Earth from their long sleep are starting to pull the same trick.
   
   The book closes with storytelling tips, including a recap of the various roles that the various werewolf tribes play within the Denver area and a general fleshing out of the main themes of the book. There's also a short adventure whose new totem is actually a corrupted spirit masquerading as a catamount - a mountain lion - which is slowly corrupting them. The story involves them investigating the weird afflictions affecting regional loci, then meet up with a dying Pureborn werewolf who fingers the affected pack as the ones responsible.
   
   The artwork in the book really varies. The packs are all illustrated by the same artist, which offers continuity throughout the book.
   
   Overall Hunting Grounds basically follows through on the promise made by the original game, expanding and explaining what the game's actually supposed to be about, predators who hunt. This setting book is a must-buy for anybody who's got Werewolf: The Forsaken.

1 comments about Freeport: Denizens Of Freeport.

1. Denizens of Freeport is a 96 page softcover sourcebook from Green Ronin, priced at $18.95 (I got mine on ebay for the remarkably low price of $5 + $3.50 S&H). It's an NPC book, that is a book full of characters, complete with stats and background. Generally speaking, I like books like this, because they are very useful when you need to come up with an NPC to populate someplace. And not being a very creative person, most of the NPCs I come up with are either based on people I know or characters from movies or books.

   There are a lot of NPCs in this book. More than 60s, the back cover claims, and as there is no easy way to count them, I'll take their word for it. Each entry is generally the same. The name at the top, followed by the stats, then entries on "Background", "Personality", "Physical Description", and "Hooks", the latter being what sort of hook they like to wear (Sorry, pirate humor. It's actually more like adventure seeds or ideas)

   I thought the best NPCs in this book are the more mundane ones. For instance, a locksmith. A street vendor, a brewer, a lawyer, a tailor. Unfortunately, there are only a few of these.

   This book gets a bit silly (like I thought the Freeport: City of Adventure book did) when it comes to anachoristic NPCs. For instance, drug dealing/growing Hippies named "The Blooms". Get it? Yuk yuk. Or a police detective and a forensic scientist. (CSI: Freeport anyone? Bah). Still, these sort of NPCs aren't too common. Some of the names are again similar to real world people. An actor named "Rikard Burbage" (Richard Burton), a disease carrier is named "Mary" (like "Typhoid Mary"). Things like that ratchet up the dorkiness factor and ratchet down the suspension of belief and believability of the character and setting, at least for me. But again, it only happens in a few cases.

   Some of the NPC groups from Freeport: City of Adventure are fleshed out. For instance, in that book there was a group of rich women who were bored and so became thieves and would bully inn owners (picture a bunch of Jennifer Lopezs, I guess). A couple of them are detailed here. One of the closest things to a Thieves' Guild in Freeport is "Finn's Syndicate", which is a halfling protection racket - an assassin from it is detailed here. And that annoying tabloid newspaperman is detailed, too.

   As you might guess from the nature of Freeport, there are a number of Pirate characters. One is a mind flayer (whose inclusion has probably doomed this book to never being reprinted, as mind flayers are not in the officially released System Reference Document), one a viking lady, one a halfing, another a lady half-elf, and one just a human woman. Not quite the usual pirate demographics.

   There's a lot of interesting other NPCs. A womanizing Paladin, a goblin fireman (with a protection racket), a couple really nice examples of how half-orcs can be productive members of society, a halfling version of Sally Struthers (as Jabba the Hutt). There are some misses: Mungo & his amazing monkeys, most of the villains (they're dorky rather than scary), Harcourt Horkel (a swindler, presumably named after Harcourt Fenton Mudd of Star Trek), "The Hat", a secret agent (it's also impossible for anyone who is a South Park fan, like myself, to use, as it's too close to "Mr. Hat"). Most of the 'urchins' are also really annoying, but that generally can't be helped. One of the most unbelievable characters is an assassin who kills people while shaving them. Um, in a small town (Freeport is something like 10,000 people, if that), just how often would that work? Once. Similarly, there is a halfling who is a child impersonator, who works the same area. Uh, wouldn't the people there catch on after a week or two?

   Each NPC is illustrated, which is great, as it gives you a picture you can show your players, rather than having to describe them. Most of the artwork is excellent, and is in a variety of styles, from the fairly realistic to the impressionistic. The only exception is one woman on page 34, whose breasts apparently start at her neck. (Talk about a push up bra.). There's also one picture (of a laywer) that seems to have gotten the sex wrong, though it's a bit hard to tell.

   Besides the usually excellent Toren Atkinson, the artist whose work really stands out is Chris Martinez (though he doesn't have many, I think just 3 pictures). There are a couple others I like, but I can't tell who did it (not all the art is signed).

   The typeface used for the is the same as in the Freeport: City of Adventure book, and like there, I found it a bit problematic when it comes to telling the difference between some letters (most notably a 'u' and 'v'). The normal typeface used is fine, and there's a lot of text in the book - margins are small, and the overall layout is good. The only real oddity is that stats for the characters are given first, with the description afterwards. Usually it's the other way around (but is not a problem once you get used to it).

   It really could have used a table of contents, but presumably there wasn't room. A tiny map of freeport keyed to where every NPC hangs out would also have been helpful, but again, the book is absolutely crammed as it is - not wasted space at all, so it wouldn't fit.

   Is this worth buying? Well, definitely, if you're a Freeport fan. This product goes a long way towards filling up Freeport with people and making it a more complete city (one of my complaints about the City of Adventure book was it was kind of skimpy on info about Freeport itself.)

   If you're not a Freeport fan, obviously this will be less appealing, but it does give you a number of NPCs that can be used in almost any enviroment, and all but a handful can be used in a generic pirate or port town.

   B. If not for the hippies and some of the other sillier characters, I would be inclined to give it a higher score. But I really hate hippies. Much like NRA meetings and showers are, fantasy settings should be hippie free.

No comments about *OP MET: Book of the Wyrm (Mind's Eye Theatre).

No comments about Liber Ka (Nephilim).

5 comments about Star Wars Rebel Alliance Sourcebook.

1. There was some good information in it, but it was hidden buy too much tiresome, useless information. The book was a slow-progressing one. The book was no fun. It was all work and no play. There were no color pictures, no jokes, none of the flare that the Starwars Roleplaying Book had. It was bland.



2. The Rebel Alliance Sourcebook gave me a whole lot of information on the Rebel Alliance, which has proven very useful in my gaming experience.



3. I found it very useful, specifically all the info on Intelligence and Special Forces.



4. This book is horrible, it is all about the dreaded rebel alliance. If you want to get a good book, get the Empire version.



5. I bought this book a few months ago, figuring it would make a perfect addition to my old-school WEG Star Wars RPG collection (1st edition of course, the ONLY edition worth buying, in my opinion).
   
   Anyway, the book was, sadly, slightly disappointing. It mostly deals with military unit types, like rebel commandos and the like, along with military structure/rankings, equipment (none of which is particularly interesting or creative), and the like.
   
   It definitely doesn't ring with the "magic" of Star Wars the way you might be hoping, but it's not terrible either. I gave it a 3 out of 5.

1 comments about Rifts Dimension Book 10 Hades (Rifts).

1. 
   The tenth volume in the 'Rifts Dimension' gaming series from Palladium Books, "Hades, Pits of Hell" is also the first title in a new multi-part series called the 'Minion War' which will span the Palladium Megaverse and can be played across many of Palladium's existing game lines. Written by Carl Gleba, "Hades, Pits of Hell" maps out Hades, its society and its demon hierarch, features new demons, sub-demons, netherbeasts, a demon high priest, other monsters, and a great deal more. Enhanced with addition text by rift creator Kevin Siembieda, "Hades, Pits of Hell"offers hours of high-quality, 'user friendly', and highly recommended role-play gaming. Those new to the Palladium Megaverse are encouraged to visit the Palladium Books website for a complete listing of their available gaming titles.

3 comments about GURPS WWII: Iron Cross.

1. "GURPS: World War Two: Iron Cross" is the first large sized supplement to Steve Jackson Games' attempt to bring the battles of WWII to life for gamers.

   There are six chapters in this book again - but there is quite a bit of additional detail in these chapters. Starting with "Germany At War", this chapter covers German history in a capsule format again. The detail about the course of the war for Germany and the Germans can even be appreciated by non-gamers for its attention to even how German families were affected by World War Two. "The German Army" chapter gives a comprehensive section on the Armies of the Fatherland. This additional info on the German Army adds richness to the background promised in GURPS WWII. "Characters" gives you everything you need to create German PC's and NPC's for a WWII campaign. The characters section adds more to what is already known by WWII GM's, and includes 4 more sample characters. The additional character templates in this section give GM's a look at the finer details of German characters and life. The "German Armoury" chapter gives GM's a more detailed look at German armament and vehicles. Almost every weapon and most vehicles used by the Germans is in this section. "Inside the Third Reich" looks at socialism, the courts, and life while under the Reich. There's even a look at the POW camps and concentration camps inside the Third Reich. In "Campaigns" there's campaigning info for players and GM's. This campaign info includes style and substance info, and several alternate timelines and histories to explore for creative GM's.

   This book is a fine addition to the WWII info started in GURPS: World War Two. This book answers the challenge of bringing some depth to the already rich campaign available for World War Two. There are other books already printed continuing the series, and more forthcoming. I can't recommend "GURPS World War Two: Iron Cross" highly enough for GM's wanting to "fill in the blanks". This book is a great addition to the GURPS library and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to try an adventure or a whole campaign set in this time of peril. One would hope that similar detail will be also be present in the forthcoming GURPS: World War II: "Japanese" book.




2. Fails to provide a good set of character roles to play, especially for women. Also lacks for scenerios. Supporting information also lacking.
   
   Complete disapointment. Needs more research and better development.



3. Then here it is - play the Germans during WWII. The book gives you everything you need - the history of the war from the German point of view, details about the Wehrmacht, how to design characters and details about the weapons. Also chapters about the home front, the front line and how to run a campaign. You can be realistic or add superweapons to give the German side a chance. GURPS Basic Set or GURPS WWII is required to use this supplement.

3 comments about Orpheus.

1. this game is so awesome. I cant believe how good it was. First off, there is alot of spelling mistakes, and it also has alot of printing errors. You might want to wait to get the erratisized book.
   This really is a great game. Dont go with Mage, Vampire, or Werewolf, go for orpheus, exalted or changeling.



2. Picking up where Wraith left off, Orpheus introduces a new path for mortals to follow in the World of Darkness, that off a projector - someone who can project their soul from their body and interact with spirits as a ghost themselves. Players also have the option of being actual spirits, tethered to the physical plane until their tasks are fulfilled.

   This system corrects for a lot of the flaws I found in the Wraith system, primarily the difficulty in interacting with the physical world and the sense of detachment that wraiths seemed to encounter.

   If you like the setting of the world of darkness, and want to try something new without having to worry about the Mages, Mummies, Werewolves, and Vampires, but concentrate on the mortal world, this is a great game.




3. This game is White Wolf at its finest. Orpheus is a world of technology blurring the lines between even the living and the dead, of vast conspiracies and monsters hiding in the shadows.
   It combines both the gritty, realistic feel they've taken years to fine-tune, as well as having a game system that is actually relatively effortless to get play with.

   I've often had a difficult time forcing myself to sit all the way through a White-Wolf corebook, but I was surprised to actually find myself wanting to read more of Orpheus. Everything makes sense the first time you read it, an experience I've not had with the other White Wolf games, and you really don't need anything else to run an Orpheus game if you decide you don't want to follow the story they are unfolding. They don't wuss out and "forget" to mention anything about how things work in this game, or assume that the reader has already read half a dozen other supplements.
   I've bought the second book in the short series as well, and so far the story arc they provide is compelling, and rather chilling. I can't wait for the next one in the series to come out.
   I definitely recommend taking a look at this book.

2 comments about Classic Battletech: Guide to Covert Ops (FPR35008).

1. This book mostly deals with the intelligence and paramilitary organizations (both government-sanctioned and anti-government) of the many Battletech houses, but does not deal with special forces units. Furthermore, the equipment section is scant, with only a half-dozen items--though these are mostly electronic infiltration and information-extracting aids instead of weapons, specialty uniforms, and the like (let alone specialty 'Mechs/battlearmor). That said, the information they do give is quite exhaustive and thorough, but I was more interested in the things that they ended up leaving out when I bought this book.



2. Good background on most of the IS intelligence agencies, however, the life path section leaves much to be desired. Some lifepaths are missing and it's painful to try to put the pieces together when large gaps are left in the lifepath system. This of course is the problem with lifepaths. It's BASIC (the programming language), for character creation but when 10 can't go to 20, or Free Skye Affiliations can't go to Rebel Operative (the required next path), the whole system comes to a screeching halt.
   
   Since I purchased this product for it's integration with the Classic Battletech RPG, the flaws seriously disappoint. If you are looking for a generic source book on intel agencies, this might work for you. If you are looking for specific lifepaths and MW3/CBT:RPG info, wait for the errata to come out.
   
   PS: I've heard that a new life paths system is in the works, which may correct these errors. Hopefully that will be released soon. At that point, I'll update my review.