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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5327924" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 201: January 1994part 4/6Eye of the monitor: The 7th Saga is a somewhat FFish looking console RPG. Overhead map stuff, 3D fight scenes, you know the drill, although it's fairly new at this point. It also has tons and tons of side quests, which is another thing that's definitely on the up these days. Fashion come, fashion go. Might & Magic: The World of Xeen are a duo of adventures which link up into a bigger one. It gets a so-so review. There's plenty of cool features, but also a few clunky and outdated ones. I believe this is the kind of situation they invented the word meh for. Faceball 2000 does not get a very good review. It would have seemed impressive in the days of pac-man, but these days, endless maze-wandering palls rapidly, and the 3D aspect seems tacked on. Flicker and slowdown do not help things either. Dragon Strike bogarts the centre pages with one of those double page, full colour spreads that so grab people's attention. Role-playing reviews: Underground shows us what you can do with desktop publishing, becoming an obvious precursor to the modern age, where even books with tiny print runs like RPG's can be glossy and professional looking as long as they have a sufficiently dedicated designer. The game is quite interesting too, although it looks a bit dated now, being very much in the same paradigm as white wolf games, where your characters may have cool supernatural powers, but a lot of emphasis is put on the psychological effects of this, and the dark humour that often results. Still, government created superheroes who turn against their creators because they seem like the closest thing to 4-color villains out there? That seems more relevant than ever. Whatever happened to this game? Magic: The gathering is greeted with great enthusiasm. Oh shiiiiiiiit. Allen loved the game, even before he knew it was going to be a huge hit. As a result, this review comes in two sections, written several months apart, as he discovered the world catching up with him with frightening speed. Not that it doesn't seem to deserve it, with Wizards of the Coast showing a dedication to customer service and pursuing new technology that makes TSR look positively moribund. A Challenger Appears! In a situation like this, where we know this is a significant historical step, we want plenty of context, and Allen does not disappoint, talking about the designers, the failed attempts to get something like this going in the past, and the social dynamics that are evolving around the TCG scene. It's all absolutely fascinating, if a bit scary. Just as notable is that White Wolf has already jumped on board, with the Jyhad cardcame in development as we speak. You can bet TSR is already planning their own attempts to break into this market. Watch this space! The role of books: Ahh, double spacing. My eyes! Ok, I exaggerate a little, but seriously guys, this is a stupid formatting change. I hope you drop it soon. Anyway. The well-favored man by Elizabeth Willey is a swashbuckler with surprisingly little actual buckling of swash, but plenty of fun storytelling regardless. Just as you can have an RPG with very little roleplaying, you can have a swashbuckler with little swashbuckling, and still have it work as an experience. The black gryphon by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon gets a pretty good review, with some cool dogfighting between the titular gryphon riders, and well-defined characters who interact together well. The robin and the kestrel by Mercedes Lackey on her own doesn't do nearly as well, with poor pacing and an overdose of monologues, exposition and setting building rather than actual story advancement. The difference is so striking that John seriously wonders how much merit her creative input has. Maybe she's been casting protection from editors too much lately, so it's up to her husband to keep her in check. Bruce Coville's book of monsters is a playful little anthology that's aimed at younger readers, but still has plenty of scares for our adult reviewer. The kind of thing to read to your kids with a flashlight and lots of overdramatic voices. The dark moon legacy series by Cynthia Blair gets a good picking apart for the inaccuracies in it's real world details. Native americans aren't some homogenous um how shamanistic morass. And Oregon doesn't have a mountain range right next to the sea. This is lazy cash-in writing, trying to make a werewolf equivalent to the vampire diaries. Ah yes, what goes around, gets mediocre copies. Funny to encounter that, just as paranormal romance has got to the floods of lazy cash-in books stage again. The rising of the moon by Flynn Connolly gets compliments for it's plotting and characters, but loses marks for bad sci-fi. He is in a niggly mood today. The wizard's apprentice by S P Somtow also seems fairly familiar, juxtaposing modern media magic with the real thing. This results in an interesting mix of optimism and cynicism, as befits it's hollywood setting. The result seems fun but not too weighty.</blockquote>

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