Product– Pathfinder Player Companion- Champions of Balance

Producer-Paizo

Price– $20 or $13 for PDR

System– Pathfinder

TL;DR– Slight story concerns, but awesome character options.93%

 

Basics– Time for the epic battle of good vs. neutral!  Champions of Balance covers the hows and whys of neutral characters.  The first section covers the types of neutral characters (LN, N, and CN).  Next the book discusses neutral countries and organizations.  From here, the book introduces new character options from new subdomains, ninja tricks, feats, spells, orders, archetypes, magic items, and a prestige class.

 

Fluff or Theme– I liked and didn’t like this one.  The story and backgrounds of neutral characters is well written, but it didn’t hook me.  I didn’t hate reading it, but neutral characters have an uphill battle for getting me as a motivation.  What I saw was well done, but it just isn’t what I want in a character.  And I think many other readers will have the same problem. 4/5

 

Crunch or Mechanics– This was really well done!  There is an amazing amount of stuff in this book.  Almost all the classes get a bit of stuff even more than most of the player companion line.  Even if you don’t care about neutral characters, this one is worth a look for the plethora of options alone.  5/5

 

Execution– This one is as well done as any of the other player option book.  Lots of art and well done layouts make this a pleasure to read.  Well done. 5/5

 

Summary– This book might not have hooked me on story, but everything else is amazing.  If you play or want to play a neutral character, then you need this to make a well done and flesh out character.  Even if you want some character option, this is an excellent book. 93%

Game– Eclipse

Producer-Asmodee

Price– ~$100 !

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 50min/play (2-6 players)

TL;DR– Some minor issues, but a great game. 90%

 

Basics– Eclipse is a four X game (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate).  Players take the role of different races or group as they explore the galaxy following the fall of the “galactic UN.”  Each turn, players use influence disks to dictate which action they will take.  These actions range from moving ships, building ships, exploring, researching new technology, upgrading their fleets, or moving influences disks on the main board.  When you explore you can also move influence disks to the board and colonize planets.  Colonizing planets allows you to move population cubes from your player board to main board increasing your resources which are research (upgrades), money (actions), or materials (ships).  Players may take as many turns as they want, BUT each action costs more money.  At the end of a turn if you don’t have enough money or resources to exchange for money you have to remove influence disks from the main board which also removes any population resource production cubes you have on the main board planets too.  Combat is quick.  Each player rolls six sided dice adding and subtracting numbers based on the type of weapons, computers, and shield the ships may have.  If you have a six after math or a natural six, you hit the enemy.  Different weapons do different types of damage causing either one, two, or four damage on a hit.  The game continues for nine rounds.  At the end of the ninth round players score points for space sections controlled, research, battles, diplomatic relations, and discoveries.  The player with the most victory points has led their civilization to victory across the galaxy!

 

Mechanics- This game looks complex, but it’s actually pretty simple. Action selection is done very simply by moving discs on your player board.  However, that is deceptively simple.  You can take as many actions as you want, but balancing growing your society and paying off your debts.  I like that aspect of the game.  Also, it’s amazingly fun to build up your ships via research and upgrades, throw lots of plastic ships on the board, and then destroy your opponents in war!  However, the game walks a bit of a fine line playing like a Eurogame AND an American Style Game.  Players randomly explore a galaxy, receive technologies, and get ancient technology, but randomness sometimes can really hurt a good strategy.  That can put a few players off.  Also, once you explore all the available tiles, the game inevitably turns to conflict.  The galaxy of infinite, but the play space isn’t.  The last turn is always build some ships then destroy the others guys ships.  That predictability kind of hurts the experience. 4/5

 

Theme- The game does have a solid theme.  I do feel like a space faring race exploring the galaxy.  Also, the different powers of each race do make the game feel that much more like different creatures.  The “borg” have cheap ships while one alien is a plant that spreads quickly across the galaxy.  The instructions give a nice run down on each alien race too.  I’d like a bit more, but it’s not bad.  4.5/5

 

Instructions- As I said before, the game is pretty simple, but the designers had to work hard to make the simple show through.  It would be easy to confuse the players with this many options.  However, the instructions are well done and even dedicate several pages to a turn by turn walkthrough of the game.  There are LOTS of pictures to help explain things as well as several breaks in text.  The instructions are 32 pages, but you can easily read through them in 30 minutes and understand the game.  Well done! 5/5

 

Execution- This one is an uphill battle.  The retail price of the game is $100!  That’s a lot of money for a game, but this game has lots of stuff in the box.  It’s a heavy box full of lots of cardboard and plastic.  The pieces are well done and the cardboard is nice and chunky.  Hard the shuffle, but for 100 bucks, I expect something pretty substantial.  The colors are nice and the iconography works well once you read the rules.  I like what I see, but I still think 100 is a bit high.  If you can get this at a con for $70, then do it!  4.5/5

 

Summary- This is a fun way to spend an evening with some friends.  It will take you about 15 minutes to get the rules down pat, and you can take off right away.  You do feel like different races fighting one another for dominance, but beware of the late game fights and randomness.  If you know it’s coming, then you can prepare for it! 90%

Video Game– Grant Theft Auto 5

Producer– Rockstar Games

Price– ~$50

TL;DR– Slight story issues, but a fun ride! 93%

 

Basics– Time to go back to the GTA universe again!  GTA5 is the newest game in the GTA series, and this one pulls out all the stops.  For the first time, players play as three different characters.  First players are introduced to Franklin, a black man trying to find success in a world against him.  Over the course of a repossession scheme, he meets Michael, a former bank robber who is living under the protection of the Federal Investigation Bureau.  Michael starts to mentor Franklin as Michael resents his retirement.  Together they piss off the local mob leading to Michael having to go back to his old bank robbing ways.  This tips off Trevor, Michael’s former bank robbing partner and all around sociopath, that Michael is alive.  Trevor begins to look for Michael causing all kinds of hell along the way.  Together these three are drawn into a web of the FIB, the agency, Chinese drug cartels, movie stars, and local hoods as they deal with success, money, and life.

 

Story- I wouldn’t call this game the story of the year, but it’s not just stupid shooting either.  The character have a life of their own are well executed.  Even Trevor, who kills someone in his opening cut scene, ends up somewhat likeable.  They all have their own, well-defined personalities.  You will have your favorite, but all of them are good additions to the story.  The story has some issues with purpose as the characters only motivation at some points is to deal with the world around them instead of their own goals.  I would put this more akin to Oceans 12 as it’s a heist story, but motivated by the villain instead of the characters.  Not bad, but not Oceans 11. 4/5

 

Mechanics and Play- Rockstar did an awesome job with this one.  It’s easy to get lost in the world.  There are several radio stations each with their own personalities.  There is a whole aspect of the stock market where characters can make millions.  Even the missions where its go to X and steal Y are not that boring as the missions have enough variety to make it interesting.  Speaking of missions, the game has bite size chunks of story in its missions, so if you just want to spend only an hour playing, you can!  Heck even the story is delivered via driving.  The game has cut scenes, but more often than not, two characters will drive through the country and talk.  You control the car, so it’s not a boring monolog between two characters.  It feels organic, and you feel involved.  In addition, you get to play in the air, on the land, and in the sea.  YOU GET TO SWIM! 5/5

 

Delivery and Execution- Again Rockstar hits a home run.  This game has so many small touches you will lose count.  Road sounds when you drift out of lane, the internet, the cell phones, the noises a car makes when you turn it off.  You feel like you’re in a different world.  Very little is left out when the crafted this world.  Heck, it’s even a multimedia experience as you can download a real app to your physical phone and train a dog!  The net result is the world and these characters feel like something you could be part of even after killing five people with a stolen car.  The newest part is heists.  In heists, you decide on two different ways to perform a robbery, choose the team, and then assemble the parts.  It’s a fun change from the go here, kill a guy/steal a thing, drive away formula.  I really enjoyed it! 5/5

 

Summary- I liked this one.  It might not be true love, but man is it fun.  I really enjoyed this game and its subtle world.  It’s got some deeper themes then you would expect from a game about killing people for money, but that’s part of its charm.  It’s a worthwhile way to spend your time even if it’s just to figure out how the stock market works! 93%

Product- Injecting the Weird

Producer- Monte Cook games

Price- ~$5 at drivethroughrpg.com

System- Numenera

TL;DR-  A Good product to make things fit into the ninth world. 90%

 

Basics-  Let’s get weird!  Injecting the weird is a source book for Numenera that focuses on adding strangeness to your Numenera game.  The book discusses what weird fiction is and how to add it to your game.  Then the book has lots of tables to give some different weird aspects to locations, the wild, or the people you meet in the ninth world.  The book even has some character options in its last few pages.

 

Story or Fluff-  For a book that is mostly tables, this is a pretty fluff heavy book.  The purpose of all the tables is to give more randomness and weirdness to your games.  And at that it succeeds.  The one line of strangeness in the tables really does give an impressive amount of options for what could be happening in your world.  I was surprised that this book had character options too.  5/5

 

Mechanics or Crunch- For a book that is full of tables, this isn’t a mechanics heavy book.  Since the purpose of this book is setting building, mechanics take a back seat to the theme.  There are sidebars for items which honestly surprised.  The character options also provide some new mechanics too.  But, going in to this, don’t expect some new way to play the game.  4/5

 

Execution- I liked the layout and art as they enforced the ideas of weird and make it a pleasure to read.  The price is ~ok.  I think it’s a bit high, but it’s in line with most other current RPG products.  Heck, there isn’t even the standard practice of the glimmers of reusing one piece of art a bunch.  This one is full of smaller art pictures.  One thing I did notice is a strange gap in one of the pages, but other than that, I liked the physical aspects of this product. 4.5/5

 

Summary- This is a good product.  It’s not one that every player needs, but having one of these around the table will make the game that much better.  I think helping GMs inject a bit more weird into their games will make things that much more numenera.  And, that will make the games that much better. 90%