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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MGibster" data-source="post: 8398029" data-attributes="member: 4534">Review Part OneLet’s not spend a lot of time on how the book looks. It looks great. The art by Martin Grip, Axel Torvenius, and John R. Mullaney evokes the look of the various movies. The cover art (see above) is absolutely gorgeous and I’d love a framed copy to hang in my office at home. My aging eyes appreciate that the font is easy to read and the book is well organized so I rarely have a hard time hunting down some obscure rule. There’s even an index!Setting information is drawn from all the movies in the franchise, including Prometheus (2012) and Covenant (2017). They even went a bit deeper pulling material from proposed scripts for Alien 3 that were never used such, as the Union of Progressive Peoples and the Arceon space station populated by technophobic monks, and fans of the computer game Alien: Isolation will remember Sevastopol space station which is mentioned. I don’t believe they pulled any setting information from the various Alien comic books published by Dark Horse Comics in the 80s and 90s.The setting information in Alien is rather sparse. There’s a section providing details about what it’s like living in space, including tidbits on religion, entertainment, and law enforcement, and some broad outlines of large corporations like Weyland-Yutania, Seegson, and Lasalle Biotechnical in addition to political entitles like the aforementioned UPP, the Three Worlds Empire, and the United Americas. Ultimately, the setting information is rather sparse but it a way I think this works in the game’s favor. There’s enough setting information to give the GM ideas but not so much that they or their players will feel overwhelmed. If you’ve seen any of the Alien movies you know everything you need to know about the setting to enjoy the game.Character GenerationLet’s start with character creation. Alien uses a point buy system where players select their careers, select their starting attribute levels, their starting skill levels, their career talent, and their gear. There are only four attributes and a total of twelve skills in Alien making character generation very simple. It only takes about ten minutes to create a character.The attributes are fairly straight forward and should be familiar to anyone who has any experience playing an RPG.Strength: Muscle power and brawn.Agility: Speed and motor control.Wits: Sensory perception, intelligence, and sanity.Empathy: Charisma, empathy, and the ability to manipulate others.There are twelve careers each of which has some skills associated with them.Colonial Marine: Key Skills - Close Combat, Stamina, Ranged Combat (Hicks & Hudson from AliensI)Colonial Marshal: Key Skills - Observation, Ranged Combat, Manipulation (Marshal Waits from Alien: Isolation)Company Agent: Key Skills – Comtech, Observation, Manipulation (Carter Burke from Aliens.)Kid: Key Skills – Mobility, Survival, Observation (Newt from Aliens)Medic: Key Skills – Mobility, Observation, Medical Aid (Upworth from Alien: Covenant)Officer: Key Skills – Ranged Combat, Command, Manipulation (Ripley & Dallas from Alien)Pilot: Key Skills – Mobility, Ranged Combat, Comtech (Ferro from Aliens)Roughneck: Key Skills – Heavy Machinery, Stamina, Close Combat (Brett & Parker from Alien)Scientist: Key Skills – Observation, Survival, Comtech (Ash from Alien)There are two types of talents, career talents which are only available to a PC if they are in the right career and general talents which are available for any PC. Talents might affect how a skill is used, it might affect damage, or it might allow a PC to do something that would otherwise be impossible to do. The Officer career has access to a talent called Pull Rank which allows the PC to make Command roll and if successful order another non-officer PC or NPC to follow that order even if it places them in harm’s way. The Pilot has a talent called Reckless allowing him to Push any failed skill roll based on Agility twice (more on Pushing later).And finally, the player may select equipment for their character. The equipment list is rather sparse limited to weapons, tools, and medical gear.While I like all the careers, I feel as though the Pilot doesn’t really fit into the game very well. There are examples of pilots throughout the various movies, but piloting was rarely something the characters spent a lot of time on. Depending on the scenario being run, the character playing the Pilot might not actually have much cause to make a lot of piloting rolls. And nobody likes investing points in a skill that just isn’t used very often.Next Up:  Basic Rules</blockquote>

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