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[Let's Read] ARES Magazine
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<blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6984254" data-attributes="member: 27780"><p><strong><u>Ares 08 - Ragnarok: May 1981</u></strong></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>43 pages. After the schlock fantasy of Loki Hellson 3 issues ago, now it's time for the genuine article to make an appearance, along with the rest of the norse gods. Not that they look particularly godly on the cover, being both too skinny and underdressed for the climate, but oh well, it's what's inside that counts. And since the whole point of Ragnarok is that most of them die in the process, you don't want them too overpowered and infallible. Let's see how this saga follows along with the predictions …… or not, and how much influence you'll have over the outcome as players. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Muse: I've certainly noticed how much effort they put into their customer feedback compared to any other magazine I've read. The editorial is all about that, and reinforces that it does make a difference to them what you say, as many of their game ideas are derived from customer suggestions, and their own ideas still get run through the feedback process to see which are most popular. As usual, emphasising this this makes their ultimate fate seem all the sadder, as putting in the effort to understand your audience should be rewarded. (it certainly was in the 2e > 3e transfer by WotC, after all) I guess no matter how well you market to your existing audience, if you don't bring new people in, attrition and saturation will eventually take their toll. Plus if they market heavily to the people who fill in feedback forms, they will inevitably skew towards the hardcore gamer market, and that in itself can drive some people away. I guess there are no guarantees in life, no matter how hard you try to push the odds in your favor. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ragnarok - The Mythic Story: Completely unsurprisingly, our setting detail this month is a condensed retelling of norse myth for those philistines who don't already know it. (TL<img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" />R, Loki is a dick, and both the source of and solution to everyone's problems until everyone else gets sick of his <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> and locks him up. He escapes, Giants attack, monsters get loose, everything goes to <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" />, but a few survive and maybe the next generation will do better.) It's written by the same person who does the Facts for Fantasy column, and like that, makes these exciting stories far less so in the translation, stripped of their poetry and narrative style. So weirdly enough, this is actually a less entertaining read than most of the original settings for their games, because it's not new enough to be novel to me, or creative enough in it's retelling to put an interesting twist on things. Let's hope the game itself is a little more exciting. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Pandora's Link: An article tying the two BSM Pandora games into a larger whole? Just what I hoped they'd do when I saw the second one. </p><p>This means that you can play Wreck with different starting conditions based on what your characters got in Voyage, giving both more replay value. It also gives them an opportunity to make a whole bunch of little tweaks, some of which are to make them fit together better, and some are simply errata to the individual games that they would have put in the magazine at some point anyway. (but like this, they're more likely to be noticed and implemented) They even include tournament play options for a more multiplayer experience, which again gives you another round of replays before things start to get repetitive. This is indeed pretty nifty, multiplying the usability of their previous articles in only a single page. It's always nice when you can get the benefits of quadratic scaling when combining existing material. I hope we'll see some more of these in the future, but it's hard to see where they'll get the opportunity. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Facts for Fantasy: These columns are still 2 pages each, but split into 4 half pages, with fantasy on top, and sci-fi underneath. They finally get through a whole column without mentioning Herodotus once, which is a relief, and they have material from Russia, India and Japan to broaden our horizons further. Only the one from Ainu myth is unfamiliar to me though, which means I'm still finding this pretty dull going. These ultra compact bits of info just don't have enough meat for me to get my teeth into. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Science for Science Fiction: This column has far fewer, longer topics than it's fantasy counterpart, and is slightly more interesting as a result. The most detailed of all is one on ecological niches, and how creatures evolve convergently to fill them and get displaced and driven to extinction when something better appears elsewhere and spreads. This definitely applies to humanity, which increasingly rolls over the rest of the ecosystem unopposed the further away we get from Africa. The recent occupiers of that niche, Baboons and Gigantopithicus, have lost out pretty badly, illustrating just how dangerous we are even against creatures considerably larger and stronger than us. There's also a greater than usual amount of fantasy crossover, with talk about judaic astronomy, lost continents, and the origins of the unicorn myth. The best stories have enough basis in fact to be plausible, even if the details have been twisted around over time. I think that this once again shows how doing your own primary research can help you make better stories. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>DragonNotes is fairly dull this month, as it's comprised entirely of errata. Lots of little rules corrections and clarifications, and an adjustment of the XP system to make advancement a bit quicker, as player feedback has not been favourable on that front. I guess power creep is inevitable, especially when you're planning on releasing supplements as fast as you can write them. Better to start conservative and gradually revise upwards than the other way around, which gets a far more negative reception from the audience. Whatever the system, we see this struggle play out again and again in slightly different forms. The designers try to make the rules work clearly, without ambiguities and loopholes, and the players find new and interesting ways to break them. Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme and all that. Next!</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Designer's Notes: Universe moves a little closer to release, and they give us a little playtest info to whet our appetites. The random generation for both characters and star systems is shaping up nicely, and the sample adventures are proving interestingly lethal in the classic Star Trek fashion. Make sure you generate more characters than you need, so the redshirts can take the brunt of the hazards and the others have a chance at advancement. So they're making it quite clear that they're still designing in an old school competitive way, and you need to be both skilled and lucky if you want to live long and prosper through an extended campaign. Fair enough. As long as that's their intention, and they're not trying to sell the game as something it's not, that's not a bad goal to aim for. Just as with DragonQuest, it's better to start conservatively and then maybe increase the power level in the supplements than the other way around. Just have to hope that's still what the audience wants after several years of brutal dungeon crawling. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ragnarok - Twilight of the Gods: Like the description earlier on, the game of Ragnarok manages to take an interesting topic, and make it bizarrely dull. This is the reason this issue was delayed for months. I'd done all the other articles, but kept looking at this, putting it away, and looking at it again, finding nothing to say, and repeating the process. It's not actively terrible, but the writing is dull and repetitive to the point where I found it indigestible, breaking the rules into subclauses even where they don't really need to be, just to make it clear that the same rules apply to various units. I have no idea if it could be fun in actual play, and particularly doubt I'll get to test this one as I don't think I could explain the rules quickly to a group to get it going. Definitely disappointing, given the idea's epic potential. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>An SF Game Sampler: Over the past year, they've gradually tended towards fewer, more detailed reviews. But games are being released far faster than they can review them, so it's time to roll up our sleeves and play catch-up with a burst of capsule critiques. Who will be the winners and losers this time?</p><p></p><p>Starfall is challenging, with plenty of depth and strategy to reward experienced players, but exploration still has a fair bit of randomness. Since the exploration part is as important as the competition, it works as both a solitaire and multiplayer experience. </p><p></p><p>Dark Stars gets a fairly negative review, mainly for being unrealistic, too simple, and too small in scope for a game of interstellar exploration. It also casts the humans as the clear villains, with no goal other than killing all the aliens, which is a curious design choice considering the target audience. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite7" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue :p" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":p" /> The ideas might not be terrible, but they need serious developing on to make a more satisfying product. </p><p></p><p>Timelag also gets a negative review, for it's unsatisfying portrayal of relativistic travel. It's once again too simple, and the graphics suck. You know, I don't think I've ever seen a good game treatment of relativity, so don't be too hard on yourselves. The human brain just isn't designed to handle it. </p><p></p><p>Warp War gets good review despite probably actually being simpler, because it's a microgame, and so different standards apply. It's all about information density and making the best use of your medium. Their only real complaint is that it doesn't work at all played solitaire, which can be said of many still good games. </p><p></p><p>Starfire is a versatile large scale ship combat game, with s built in sample campaign, but plenty of scope for creating your own, which pleases both their wargaming and roleplaying sides. The main complaint is that the scale is completely off in terms of realistic space distances, which like relativity, is always a headache if you want simple enough rules to be fun. Tracking the realistic orbits of everything in a solar system is a headache even for a computer, let alone pen and paper. They badly need to accept that abstraction is necessary in gaming. </p><p></p><p>Starfire II builds on the original, but is still a stand-alone game in itself with lots of new bits and pieces. It's improved on many details, but the fundamental complaint about unrealistic scale remains. There's always limitations to what you can do with edition changes, as you have to deal with established expectations. </p><p></p><p>Star Fleet Battles is not actually an official licenced star trek game, but the names and scenarios are so obvious that it would be unlikely to stand up in court if challenged. As befits it's source material, it's pretty fun as one-on-one tactical ship combat, but gets unwieldy if you try to control entire fleets. That's what the Star Wars ripoffs are for. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite7" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue :p" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":p" /></p><p></p><p>Star Fleet Battles Expansion I incorporates a load of errata, and adds new equipment and scenarios, including ones that aren't complete ripoffs. And given the nature of the system, there's room for plenty more if this one sells well. Being prepared for success as well as failure is important from a commercial point of view. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Games: Quirks is a lighthearted game of evolution and mutation, in which players compete to evolve creatures that fill as many ecological niches as possible. It has a fair bit of randomness, as you'd expect from the theme, and the possibility of last minute reversals even when it looks like one player is about to win, but those just add to the fun, as creature traits pile up in increasingly weird combinations. The biggest complaint is that it doesn't support too many replays before getting repetitive, but thankfully, there are several expansions adding new cards to make up for that. Still probably can't quite catch up to the strangeness if reality though. </p><p></p><p>Dark Stars gets a second, slightly longer review here too. It's slightly more positive, and recommends it in particular for PbP gaming, but still points out much the same flaws. As ever, peoples desire for simple or complex games varies widely, and what's suitable for a group of regular gamers would put off a more casual pickup audience, so you can't take one reviewer's word as god. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Film & Television: Scanners gets a very positive review indeed, for being both an excellent horror story, and relatively hard science fiction as well. It's atmospheric, the effects are interestingly gruesome, and the plot doesn't dumb itself down for the audience. I think this one has sufficiently passed the test of time, even if it would look very different if remade today. (the thalidomide baby part of the metaphor in particular is thankfully no longer topical) Well worth a rewatch. </p><p></p><p>Hanger 18, on the other hand, gets a very mixed one, giving with one hand, and then taking with the other several times over the course of the review, leaving me more than a little nonplussed. Sometimes a writers attempts at being witty winds up obscuring their overall judgement rather than illuminating, and that seems to be the case here. </p><p></p><p>Starblazers gets one of their context heavy reviews, talking about the general differences between western and japanese animation, and giving anime a good deal of praise for containing adult storylines, continuity between episodes, character development, and all those things we take for granted today, but were practically nonexistent in cartoons back then. Another of those cases where nostalgia definitely isn't what it used to be, as we have so much more choice in media from around the world to enjoy, and no longer have to watch it at a set broadcast time. Most households back then didn't even have VHS yet. It's nice to not be so dependent on the whims of the network, dictating to us and underestimating the intelligence of it's viewers. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Media: This column is also as intelligent and analytical as ever, talking about the details of the trailer system used to promote upcoming films. This once again makes it clear how things have both changed and stayed the same since then. Cleverly edited good trailers for bad films, trailers that spoil the entire plot and make seeing the movie virtually redundant, trailers that contain material that's not even in the final cut of the film, these still seem all too familiar complaints today. The details about the costs of making and printing trailers, and the weird secondary market for those prints after films are actually released and the trailers are no longer needed seems like another world though, since these days you'd just download them off youtube if you did for some reason want to keep a copy for yourself. (also illustrating just how much easier and more taken for granted piracy is these days. ) It's all very interesting, and pretty informative too, despite not being a particularly large article. When you're learning from materials written in the time you're studying, it's a very different experience to history books. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Books: Myth Conceptions by Robert Asprin is fantasy with a fair bit of humour in it. (as you could probably guess from the pun title) It puts it's heroes in a no-win situation, which of course they find their way out of in an entertaining way. Since there's not enough people around filling the lighthearted fantasy niche, the reviewer is glad someone's doing it, as ploughing through epic darkness all the time gets very tedious.</p><p></p><p>Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn is a set of short stories in the same universe, edited by Robert Asprin. It shows a fairly tight editorial hand, sequencing the stories to build upon one another despite having different authors and maintaining the humorous tone throughout. it's good to be able to share the load, even discounting all the cross-promotion benefits in doing so. </p><p></p><p>Expanded Universe by Robert Heinlein is a collection of short stories and essays intended to give you more insight into both his fictional multiverse, and his real-life political views. Since this is Heinlein we're talking about, they're interesting, but more than a little problematic by modern standards. Wether they're still worth learning from is very much a matter of opinion, and this reviewer doesn't think they are at book prices back then. I'm inclined to agree. </p><p></p><p>Dragon's Egg by Robert L Forward is one of those odd novels that's more interesting for it's theoretical ideas than the actual story, like A Space Odyssey or the Long Earth series. That said, the work on creating a plausible way life could exist on a neutron star, made from degenerate matter, and operating at a timescale a million times faster than human perception is pretty damn cool, and it would be interesting if this is one sci-fi prediction that would be borne out by reality. But I guess it'll be a very long time indeed before we can get anywhere near a neutron star and get a better idea of what goes on down there. Like the martian canals, the truth probably won't be what we expect. </p><p></p><p>Transfigurations by Michael Bishop gets a mixed review for demonstrating that what works in a short story may not be so effective when stretched out to novel length. That said, it's not exactly negative, just disappointed. Building a sustainable career on creativity is hard work, and even most big authors fall into formulas over time. </p><p></p><p>Songs from the Stars by Norman Spinrad gets a mixed review in a different way. There's a lot to like, but also some little things that bug them persistently, and by focusing on those, they may wind up seeming more negative than they actually are. Nitpicking the things you're a fan of because you care of is a classic geek issue, and it's amusing to see that hasn't changed with time either. </p><p></p><p>The Spellcoats by Diana Wynne Jones, on the other hand, gets an unreserved two thumbs up, working as both story and worldbuilding of magical physics. Not arguing with that one. She fully deserves both critical and commercial success. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Feedback introduces several strange new questions amongst the now familiar selection. The first is an incredibly specific counting of exactly how much you play boardgames and RPG's, in both hours and percentages of your time. The second asks which of their existing games would be most easily converted to solitaire play, which indicates that there might well be more follow-up articles on the way. The pitches for new games bit also starts including deluxe editions of their existing ones, as well as introducing quite a few more supplement ideas for DragonQuest, and also pitches a boardgame idea for Dragon's Egg, which I very much wish they'd got around to doing. So continuity is very definitely on the up here, and they'd like to build upon their existing works to create something with a little more depth. As usual when I see these hints of what could have been if they had more time and money, it makes me sad. Still, I suppose it's better to have an ambition that outreaches your resources than the other way around, which we're seeing with 5e these days. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, that wasn't a bad issue overall, but the seriously boring centrepiece bogged the rest of it down, making the historical information on media far more interesting than the gaming material. It's a testament to how presentation is important, as if you're too boring, you wind up driving people away no matter how good your intentions are. Oh well. Let's see what direction the next issue goes in, and if it'll be any easier to digest.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="(un)reason, post: 6984254, member: 27780"] [B][U]Ares 08 - Ragnarok: May 1981[/U][/B] 43 pages. After the schlock fantasy of Loki Hellson 3 issues ago, now it's time for the genuine article to make an appearance, along with the rest of the norse gods. Not that they look particularly godly on the cover, being both too skinny and underdressed for the climate, but oh well, it's what's inside that counts. And since the whole point of Ragnarok is that most of them die in the process, you don't want them too overpowered and infallible. Let's see how this saga follows along with the predictions …… or not, and how much influence you'll have over the outcome as players. Muse: I've certainly noticed how much effort they put into their customer feedback compared to any other magazine I've read. The editorial is all about that, and reinforces that it does make a difference to them what you say, as many of their game ideas are derived from customer suggestions, and their own ideas still get run through the feedback process to see which are most popular. As usual, emphasising this this makes their ultimate fate seem all the sadder, as putting in the effort to understand your audience should be rewarded. (it certainly was in the 2e > 3e transfer by WotC, after all) I guess no matter how well you market to your existing audience, if you don't bring new people in, attrition and saturation will eventually take their toll. Plus if they market heavily to the people who fill in feedback forms, they will inevitably skew towards the hardcore gamer market, and that in itself can drive some people away. I guess there are no guarantees in life, no matter how hard you try to push the odds in your favor. Ragnarok - The Mythic Story: Completely unsurprisingly, our setting detail this month is a condensed retelling of norse myth for those philistines who don't already know it. (TL:DR, Loki is a dick, and both the source of and solution to everyone's problems until everyone else gets sick of his :):):):) and locks him up. He escapes, Giants attack, monsters get loose, everything goes to :):):):), but a few survive and maybe the next generation will do better.) It's written by the same person who does the Facts for Fantasy column, and like that, makes these exciting stories far less so in the translation, stripped of their poetry and narrative style. So weirdly enough, this is actually a less entertaining read than most of the original settings for their games, because it's not new enough to be novel to me, or creative enough in it's retelling to put an interesting twist on things. Let's hope the game itself is a little more exciting. Pandora's Link: An article tying the two BSM Pandora games into a larger whole? Just what I hoped they'd do when I saw the second one. This means that you can play Wreck with different starting conditions based on what your characters got in Voyage, giving both more replay value. It also gives them an opportunity to make a whole bunch of little tweaks, some of which are to make them fit together better, and some are simply errata to the individual games that they would have put in the magazine at some point anyway. (but like this, they're more likely to be noticed and implemented) They even include tournament play options for a more multiplayer experience, which again gives you another round of replays before things start to get repetitive. This is indeed pretty nifty, multiplying the usability of their previous articles in only a single page. It's always nice when you can get the benefits of quadratic scaling when combining existing material. I hope we'll see some more of these in the future, but it's hard to see where they'll get the opportunity. Facts for Fantasy: These columns are still 2 pages each, but split into 4 half pages, with fantasy on top, and sci-fi underneath. They finally get through a whole column without mentioning Herodotus once, which is a relief, and they have material from Russia, India and Japan to broaden our horizons further. Only the one from Ainu myth is unfamiliar to me though, which means I'm still finding this pretty dull going. These ultra compact bits of info just don't have enough meat for me to get my teeth into. Science for Science Fiction: This column has far fewer, longer topics than it's fantasy counterpart, and is slightly more interesting as a result. The most detailed of all is one on ecological niches, and how creatures evolve convergently to fill them and get displaced and driven to extinction when something better appears elsewhere and spreads. This definitely applies to humanity, which increasingly rolls over the rest of the ecosystem unopposed the further away we get from Africa. The recent occupiers of that niche, Baboons and Gigantopithicus, have lost out pretty badly, illustrating just how dangerous we are even against creatures considerably larger and stronger than us. There's also a greater than usual amount of fantasy crossover, with talk about judaic astronomy, lost continents, and the origins of the unicorn myth. The best stories have enough basis in fact to be plausible, even if the details have been twisted around over time. I think that this once again shows how doing your own primary research can help you make better stories. DragonNotes is fairly dull this month, as it's comprised entirely of errata. Lots of little rules corrections and clarifications, and an adjustment of the XP system to make advancement a bit quicker, as player feedback has not been favourable on that front. I guess power creep is inevitable, especially when you're planning on releasing supplements as fast as you can write them. Better to start conservative and gradually revise upwards than the other way around, which gets a far more negative reception from the audience. Whatever the system, we see this struggle play out again and again in slightly different forms. The designers try to make the rules work clearly, without ambiguities and loopholes, and the players find new and interesting ways to break them. Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme and all that. Next! Designer's Notes: Universe moves a little closer to release, and they give us a little playtest info to whet our appetites. The random generation for both characters and star systems is shaping up nicely, and the sample adventures are proving interestingly lethal in the classic Star Trek fashion. Make sure you generate more characters than you need, so the redshirts can take the brunt of the hazards and the others have a chance at advancement. So they're making it quite clear that they're still designing in an old school competitive way, and you need to be both skilled and lucky if you want to live long and prosper through an extended campaign. Fair enough. As long as that's their intention, and they're not trying to sell the game as something it's not, that's not a bad goal to aim for. Just as with DragonQuest, it's better to start conservatively and then maybe increase the power level in the supplements than the other way around. Just have to hope that's still what the audience wants after several years of brutal dungeon crawling. Ragnarok - Twilight of the Gods: Like the description earlier on, the game of Ragnarok manages to take an interesting topic, and make it bizarrely dull. This is the reason this issue was delayed for months. I'd done all the other articles, but kept looking at this, putting it away, and looking at it again, finding nothing to say, and repeating the process. It's not actively terrible, but the writing is dull and repetitive to the point where I found it indigestible, breaking the rules into subclauses even where they don't really need to be, just to make it clear that the same rules apply to various units. I have no idea if it could be fun in actual play, and particularly doubt I'll get to test this one as I don't think I could explain the rules quickly to a group to get it going. Definitely disappointing, given the idea's epic potential. An SF Game Sampler: Over the past year, they've gradually tended towards fewer, more detailed reviews. But games are being released far faster than they can review them, so it's time to roll up our sleeves and play catch-up with a burst of capsule critiques. Who will be the winners and losers this time? Starfall is challenging, with plenty of depth and strategy to reward experienced players, but exploration still has a fair bit of randomness. Since the exploration part is as important as the competition, it works as both a solitaire and multiplayer experience. Dark Stars gets a fairly negative review, mainly for being unrealistic, too simple, and too small in scope for a game of interstellar exploration. It also casts the humans as the clear villains, with no goal other than killing all the aliens, which is a curious design choice considering the target audience. :p The ideas might not be terrible, but they need serious developing on to make a more satisfying product. Timelag also gets a negative review, for it's unsatisfying portrayal of relativistic travel. It's once again too simple, and the graphics suck. You know, I don't think I've ever seen a good game treatment of relativity, so don't be too hard on yourselves. The human brain just isn't designed to handle it. Warp War gets good review despite probably actually being simpler, because it's a microgame, and so different standards apply. It's all about information density and making the best use of your medium. Their only real complaint is that it doesn't work at all played solitaire, which can be said of many still good games. Starfire is a versatile large scale ship combat game, with s built in sample campaign, but plenty of scope for creating your own, which pleases both their wargaming and roleplaying sides. The main complaint is that the scale is completely off in terms of realistic space distances, which like relativity, is always a headache if you want simple enough rules to be fun. Tracking the realistic orbits of everything in a solar system is a headache even for a computer, let alone pen and paper. They badly need to accept that abstraction is necessary in gaming. Starfire II builds on the original, but is still a stand-alone game in itself with lots of new bits and pieces. It's improved on many details, but the fundamental complaint about unrealistic scale remains. There's always limitations to what you can do with edition changes, as you have to deal with established expectations. Star Fleet Battles is not actually an official licenced star trek game, but the names and scenarios are so obvious that it would be unlikely to stand up in court if challenged. As befits it's source material, it's pretty fun as one-on-one tactical ship combat, but gets unwieldy if you try to control entire fleets. That's what the Star Wars ripoffs are for. :p Star Fleet Battles Expansion I incorporates a load of errata, and adds new equipment and scenarios, including ones that aren't complete ripoffs. And given the nature of the system, there's room for plenty more if this one sells well. Being prepared for success as well as failure is important from a commercial point of view. Games: Quirks is a lighthearted game of evolution and mutation, in which players compete to evolve creatures that fill as many ecological niches as possible. It has a fair bit of randomness, as you'd expect from the theme, and the possibility of last minute reversals even when it looks like one player is about to win, but those just add to the fun, as creature traits pile up in increasingly weird combinations. The biggest complaint is that it doesn't support too many replays before getting repetitive, but thankfully, there are several expansions adding new cards to make up for that. Still probably can't quite catch up to the strangeness if reality though. Dark Stars gets a second, slightly longer review here too. It's slightly more positive, and recommends it in particular for PbP gaming, but still points out much the same flaws. As ever, peoples desire for simple or complex games varies widely, and what's suitable for a group of regular gamers would put off a more casual pickup audience, so you can't take one reviewer's word as god. Film & Television: Scanners gets a very positive review indeed, for being both an excellent horror story, and relatively hard science fiction as well. It's atmospheric, the effects are interestingly gruesome, and the plot doesn't dumb itself down for the audience. I think this one has sufficiently passed the test of time, even if it would look very different if remade today. (the thalidomide baby part of the metaphor in particular is thankfully no longer topical) Well worth a rewatch. Hanger 18, on the other hand, gets a very mixed one, giving with one hand, and then taking with the other several times over the course of the review, leaving me more than a little nonplussed. Sometimes a writers attempts at being witty winds up obscuring their overall judgement rather than illuminating, and that seems to be the case here. Starblazers gets one of their context heavy reviews, talking about the general differences between western and japanese animation, and giving anime a good deal of praise for containing adult storylines, continuity between episodes, character development, and all those things we take for granted today, but were practically nonexistent in cartoons back then. Another of those cases where nostalgia definitely isn't what it used to be, as we have so much more choice in media from around the world to enjoy, and no longer have to watch it at a set broadcast time. Most households back then didn't even have VHS yet. It's nice to not be so dependent on the whims of the network, dictating to us and underestimating the intelligence of it's viewers. Media: This column is also as intelligent and analytical as ever, talking about the details of the trailer system used to promote upcoming films. This once again makes it clear how things have both changed and stayed the same since then. Cleverly edited good trailers for bad films, trailers that spoil the entire plot and make seeing the movie virtually redundant, trailers that contain material that's not even in the final cut of the film, these still seem all too familiar complaints today. The details about the costs of making and printing trailers, and the weird secondary market for those prints after films are actually released and the trailers are no longer needed seems like another world though, since these days you'd just download them off youtube if you did for some reason want to keep a copy for yourself. (also illustrating just how much easier and more taken for granted piracy is these days. ) It's all very interesting, and pretty informative too, despite not being a particularly large article. When you're learning from materials written in the time you're studying, it's a very different experience to history books. Books: Myth Conceptions by Robert Asprin is fantasy with a fair bit of humour in it. (as you could probably guess from the pun title) It puts it's heroes in a no-win situation, which of course they find their way out of in an entertaining way. Since there's not enough people around filling the lighthearted fantasy niche, the reviewer is glad someone's doing it, as ploughing through epic darkness all the time gets very tedious. Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn is a set of short stories in the same universe, edited by Robert Asprin. It shows a fairly tight editorial hand, sequencing the stories to build upon one another despite having different authors and maintaining the humorous tone throughout. it's good to be able to share the load, even discounting all the cross-promotion benefits in doing so. Expanded Universe by Robert Heinlein is a collection of short stories and essays intended to give you more insight into both his fictional multiverse, and his real-life political views. Since this is Heinlein we're talking about, they're interesting, but more than a little problematic by modern standards. Wether they're still worth learning from is very much a matter of opinion, and this reviewer doesn't think they are at book prices back then. I'm inclined to agree. Dragon's Egg by Robert L Forward is one of those odd novels that's more interesting for it's theoretical ideas than the actual story, like A Space Odyssey or the Long Earth series. That said, the work on creating a plausible way life could exist on a neutron star, made from degenerate matter, and operating at a timescale a million times faster than human perception is pretty damn cool, and it would be interesting if this is one sci-fi prediction that would be borne out by reality. But I guess it'll be a very long time indeed before we can get anywhere near a neutron star and get a better idea of what goes on down there. Like the martian canals, the truth probably won't be what we expect. Transfigurations by Michael Bishop gets a mixed review for demonstrating that what works in a short story may not be so effective when stretched out to novel length. That said, it's not exactly negative, just disappointed. Building a sustainable career on creativity is hard work, and even most big authors fall into formulas over time. Songs from the Stars by Norman Spinrad gets a mixed review in a different way. There's a lot to like, but also some little things that bug them persistently, and by focusing on those, they may wind up seeming more negative than they actually are. Nitpicking the things you're a fan of because you care of is a classic geek issue, and it's amusing to see that hasn't changed with time either. The Spellcoats by Diana Wynne Jones, on the other hand, gets an unreserved two thumbs up, working as both story and worldbuilding of magical physics. Not arguing with that one. She fully deserves both critical and commercial success. Feedback introduces several strange new questions amongst the now familiar selection. The first is an incredibly specific counting of exactly how much you play boardgames and RPG's, in both hours and percentages of your time. The second asks which of their existing games would be most easily converted to solitaire play, which indicates that there might well be more follow-up articles on the way. The pitches for new games bit also starts including deluxe editions of their existing ones, as well as introducing quite a few more supplement ideas for DragonQuest, and also pitches a boardgame idea for Dragon's Egg, which I very much wish they'd got around to doing. So continuity is very definitely on the up here, and they'd like to build upon their existing works to create something with a little more depth. As usual when I see these hints of what could have been if they had more time and money, it makes me sad. Still, I suppose it's better to have an ambition that outreaches your resources than the other way around, which we're seeing with 5e these days. Well, that wasn't a bad issue overall, but the seriously boring centrepiece bogged the rest of it down, making the historical information on media far more interesting than the gaming material. It's a testament to how presentation is important, as if you're too boring, you wind up driving people away no matter how good your intentions are. Oh well. Let's see what direction the next issue goes in, and if it'll be any easier to digest. [/QUOTE]
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