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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5406534" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 215: March 1995part 4/8Rumblings: Only a few arrivals and departures this month. Jeff Grubb is leaving TSR and jumping on the CCG bandwagon. He didn't need to leave to do that. TSR is having great fun with this. In fact, it seems demand for the Blood Wars game is considerably higher than anticipated, and they've already sold out. Now, will they overprint the second run, and be stuck with a load of stock from that? Hard to say, isn't it. Other departures and arrivals include Ken Whitman as TSR's convention co-ordinator, Carl Sargent & Tom Baxa being recruited by FASA, and Grenadier's lead sculptor being poached by Heartbreaker Miniatures. Seems like we're losing more people than we're gaining at the moment, which makes sense. Eye of the monitor: Inferno gets a rather mixed review, with our two reviewers trading off between each other well to cover both the good and bad points. It has good visuals, but tricky controls, and plenty of space combat action once you get the hang of it. Only one of them did though, so only pick this one up if you already like the genre. Wyatt Earp's Old West has both reviewers yawning. This isn't a proper game, it's an educational multimedia point and click program. The game elements are on the same kind of level as Mario is Missing. No challenge at all, save remembering the information you learned earlier in the game. Spacekids is also more entertaining for the banter between Jay and Dee than for the actual game, as they go on about the dumbness of trying to make toys "educational" all the time. It may make parents buy them, but kids are generally not fooled by crap like that, and will abandon them for games that are actually fun. This is another one where one ends up liking it, and the other doesn't. What does this say about them? Different maturity levels, perceptions or expectations? It's good to have more than one view, in any case. Dream Web is another fail result, with buggy interface, confusing graphics, little discernable plot, and a serious lack of clues as to what you're supposed to be doing. Cool atmosphere and music does not a good game make. Seems to be a real problem around this era, as graphics improve so rapidly, and far too many designers fall into the trap of style over substance to get sales. Speaking of which, they also preview Wing Commander III, with it's extravagant budget, full video, starring real actors. Oh boy. Now that's a story for another time. I'll stock up on the large hams in anticipation. The role of books: The sherwood game by Esther Friesner sets things around a VR robin hood game, and the trials of it's programmer. as first his company tries to shut down development, and then the characters escape into the real world. A theme this ridiculous obviously has a certain degree of comedy, but she still manages to tackle some serious topics and handle them sensitively.  It's all pleasingly versatile. Arena by William R Forstchen is a Magic: the Gathering novel. As the first one, it has a hard job to do figuring out the setting from the cards. And indeed, it sticks to what they know, by focusing on the duelling wizards and fast paced action with a bit of intrigue. It does have rather poor naming conventions, and the characters are worryingly powerful, but hey, you work with what you've got. Whispering woods by Clayton Emery manages to show a little more of the ground level setting detail of dominiana, but shows that their editorial control on this line isn't great, with details being inconsistent with the other book, and not particularly well justified. As with RPG fiction, this has the flavour of stuff churned out to make a quick buck, with consistency and continuity not great priorities. Future writers'd better improve on this if they want the line to last. The hallelujah trail by Bill Gullick isn't a new book, but it's just been reprinted, and John seizes the opportunity to recommend it to another generation of readers. Technically, it's a western, but it certainly doesn't fall into the lone desperado cliches, with a large and complex cast, plenty of politics, and a decent helping of wit to leaven the cake. Even if you're not a fan of westerns in general, you might find something to like here. Merlin's bones by Fred Saberhagen jumps back and forth in time between merlin's young reincarnation, the present day, and other points in time. Thankfully, the plot is presented in a linear, easily understood manner despite the time shifts, and it manages to take the lore and do some rather different things with it. Exactly where they'll go from here is uncertain, but I think John would rather like to find out. The diamond age by Neal Stephenson defies easy description by the reviewer, but does get plenty of praise. It's sci-fi, but has retro elements, and lots of interesting structural shifts and setting details. Even the flaws make it more worth talking about rather than really detracting from it, which is one of those tricks most authors never manage. This is one I definitely ought to check out, as I've heard good things about it from other sources too. Dragon Moon by Chris Claremont & Beth Fleisher gets a fail due to lack of substance backing up the basic idea. It's too short, the politics and personalities don't add up, and the supernatural elements are poorly handled. Off to comics land with you. They have lower standards of what counts as decent continuity and world-building over there. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Elminster: The making of a mage finally reveals the early history of our frequent plane-hopper and 4th wall breaker. In the process he's made even more scary, for he now has low level dual-classing as a fighter & thief retconned in. Typical Ed helpings of cheese aside, the plot flows pretty well, and Elminster distinguishes himself from the average archmage in training handily.</blockquote>

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