recommendations on the following requested...

[Sanguinemetaldawn]

Looking for commentary and feedback from people who own/read/actually used the following...
Please note, the crunch is of questionable value to me; its the background and rules variants that I will find most useful.
Anyway, what do you guys think of..

Ancient Kingdoms: Mesopotamia
vs.
Testament
vs.
Hamunaptra

Skull & Bones
vs
Dead Man's Chest

Witchfire Trilogy

Freeport Trilogy

For these last two, I already own complete sets of the originals, I am trying to get a sense of whether they are worth buying anyway. Thanks for any insight you can give.

 

[Andre]

Witchfire Trilogy

(IMO) Complete, total, railroad. My group played the first module of the trilogy and it quickly became clear that no matter what we did, the module was going to run the same way. The final encounter has to be one of the most memorable experiences of my 30 years of gaming - and not in a good way. The villain(s) have to get away. The party has to fail. The plot must continue, no matter what the characters do. Incredibly bad design.

In part, I feel for the designers of the adventure. It's hard to design multiple adventures that follow one after the other. Too much variability in the early module, and the later ones can be moot. That said, what they should have done is created a situation where the party can accomplish something useful, while the main story arc occurs off-stage. Designing the climactic encounter as an "interactive" cut-scene caused my group to give up on the rest of the series.