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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4964722" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 149: September 1989part 5/5The role of computers: Curse of the Azure bonds gets 5 star review. Unlike the previous AD&D games, you start off at mid-level straight away, so you won't have to grind through 1st level yet again. You can transfer characters from the previous games, but it'll still be a challenge if you rush through things. It all seems fairly familiar, with the whole range of conversation options, spells directly derived from the game, and elements you'll recognize from the book and module. However, the devil's in the details, and with a plotline that allows you to take plenty of meaningful options and do things in a nonlinear manner, they think it scores highly in this respect. Are they shilling the home company, or was it really that good? Space quest III is also an adventure game, with a sci-fi twist. With plenty of humour, cut scenes, lots of different activities in the course of completing the adventure, and excellent visuals, it also gets pretty decent marks. Now, if only it were a bit longer and harder, so they didn't finish it so quickly. Several other interesting tidbits. A boy and his blob gets mentioned. Now there's a nostalgia triggering name. Atari try and get into the handheld console market. I don't remember that at all. It must have done pretty badly. Anyone remember why? Always amusing to see the future that wasn't. Spock endorses the american cancer society. Eating right is highly logical. At least they're trying to fit in. But it's still bollocks I'd rather not see in this magazine. Man, they'll let anyone in these days if they're wearing a funny hat. Role-playing reviews: Cyberpunk is exactly what it sounds like, Mike Pondsmith's game of the dystopian near future, where the corporations are more powerful than the government, and cybernetic augmentation separates the rich from the poor in a very intrinsic way. Build a character, define their past, gear them up, and try and build a future in the harsh urban environments where life is cheap, and knowledge of computer networking is vital. Fun little business, even if it seems a bit dated now, with the internet even more ubiquitous than imagined. Future shock's a bitch. Still, this is another pleasing reminder of how far I've come now. GURPS autoduel is the roleplaying game version of Car Wars. Seems like evolving board games into full RPG's is a current in thing. This is a relatively grotty future, where things might be a bit run down and resources running out, but there's still more than enough stuff to create finely tuned vehicles and engage in some serious asskicking. With plenty of ongoing support, GURPS is becoming one of Jim's go to systems, as it allows you to easily mix various genres without changing characters. F.R.E.E Lancers mixes near future tech with relatively gritty superheroics using the Top Secret/S.I system. It seems to be rather a toolkit, as while it's default assumptions involve working with the eponymous organisation, you can strip out either the espionage or superheroic elements without too much trouble. It also avoids one of the other problems this kind of game can suffer, that of making the PC's small fry who can never have any influence on their organization or the big picture. Once again, it gets a pretty positive result. Looks like you're spoiled for choice in this area. Unless it's the usual whitewash problem, which is always a possibility. DC heroes gets a new edition. Well, all the cool kids are doing it. D&D, top secret, gamma world, ghostbusters, traveler, runequest. Seems you can't move for all the revisions. Through the looking glass: Some fairly standard miniatures reviews here this month. Unfortunately, for the first time in a while, the photos aren't very well shaded, making some of the bits tricky to make out. I suspect this may be the fault of the people who scanned in the magazines, rather than the original photographers. In any case, it's an irritating lapse in professionalism in a run that's been rather good at that. Anyway, Thunderbolt mountain miniatures give us a trio of elven kings (on hexagonal bases, curiously) and a swan ship for them to ride in. Both have pretty good construction and detail. Scotia micro models contribute a load of marines with pulse rifles. They do have some design problems though, with quite a few of them coming to the reviewer with cracks, and the detail not being brilliant. Still useful if you don't have enough variety in your space marines. Games Workshop have a Blood Bowl pack featured. Star players for each of the 5 main races appear in it. A dwarf with a proton cannon. A cyborg orc. A heavily padded human (he's gonna need it) A high fiving snotling. A spiked shoulder padded halfling. The usual touches of humour are obviously well present and correct. Ral Patha contribute a fairly bog-standard selection of 12 different fighter models. A variety of eras and weaponry are covered, but nothing is exceptionally good or bad. Not a hugely interesting column here. Time marches on: Even a strong issue like this runs out of steam eventually. You always have to pay attention to matters of format, page count, structure. And whenever you have to fit in a strict set of numbers, there's either going to be good stuff cut that people would want to see, or filler that they'd rather skip. So it is here, with one of those little single pagers which says little, simply telling you that one of the biggest plot drivers for a game is giving your world a history. One event leads to another, and next thing you know, it's thousands of years later, and you can follow a (not so) logical chain of action and revenge all the way through, such as in LotR. Not a terrible article, but one of those that says nothing new at all to me. I think it's time for a snooze. Dragonmirth gets disneyfied. Yamara discovers a disturbing fact. A strong issue, with plenty of good articles, and a higher than usual variety in them as well, that doesn't quite sustain it's momentum all the way through. And while the ratio of good stuff to bad seems pretty high at the moment, they don't seem to be producing the truly classic articles like they used too. Are they in danger of losing people through sheer reliability and lack of drama? Tricky to adventure in overpacified lands. Oh well, it's the big one five oh next issue. Maybe they'll have something special saved up to celebrate. For now, toodle-pipski from me.</blockquote>

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