For starters is $39.99 - too much money. At least I got it for my birthday.
The interior art is bad. On a scale of 1 to 10 it's a 3.5
And by the chapter:
Chapter One (introduction): No complaints
Chapter Two (steam age): They totally overdid it with the technology! Give me a break. They have computers that are WAY to advanced for a pulp setting, it doesn't matter how rare they are. There is a GPS system in place (Chernovs Map). Celestial Elevators - basically a space plane; take it into orbit, wait for the earth to turn beneath you, come back down on the other side of the world and only hours have passed. And all of this prior to AD 1900.
Chapter Three (tesla time): More genre-busting technology with an uninspired backstory. An anti-gravity city hovering above Niagara falls, built by Nicola Tesla. Microwave Ovens. A team of super-agents working for Tesla... you know these are the people your players are "supposed" to be for the world. Instead you find an ecclectic group of advanced and experienced adventurers who have "been there - done that"; I think the designers should have saved the homage to characters that were obviously plucked from their own ranks and let the readers (Players and GMs) invent the "best heroes" in the world. World-wide wireless communication by 1910 and a Global News Network owned by William Randolph Hearst, called... you guess it GNN. <-- all of the aforementions items were prior to World War One.
Chapter Four (nazi thugs): A 100mph mag-lev train in common use in England - 1935. Holograms - 1934. Laser targeting systems. Yet a strange non-use of the previously detailed feats of science. This chapter is a boring read too.
Chapter Five (characters): This chapter is alright.
Chapter Six (new rules, skills, and feats): Did I mention that the art in this book is bad? Well it is, but for a few pieces that the layout guys screwed up by; cutting them in half, placing the left side of the picture on the left margin of the left page, and placing the right half on the right margin of the right page. Bad effect. Automobile chase/combat rules. Holy crap, these are WAY overcomplicated. I thought pulp was supposed to be fast and furious? 9 pages of rules for this - complete with a Reaction Times table, and a Distance to stop from fixed speed table.
Chapter Seven (prestige classes): Again, an alright chapter.
Chapter Eight (magic): I confess, I couldn't read it. I was frantically looking for something redeeming at this point.
Chapter Nine (weird science): 3 pages. And really 1 whole page of that is taken up with illustrations. Weird Science? More like wierd game design. Very little of this meshes with the previously described "scientific advances" mentioned previously in the book.
Chapter Ten (equipment): Pretty basic.
Chapter Eleven (firearms): 12 pages of RULES for creating your own guns. Gimme a break, just give me 2 pages of available firearms and save the geek-speak. 3 pages and 1 table for Wierd Science compared to 12 pages with 8 tables for making guns.
Chapter Twelve (martial arts): I admit that I didn't read this chapter or either of the following (and final two) chapters. By this time I was tired of the book and put it on the shelf... where it sat until I brought it out for this little rant.
Chapter Thirteen (psionics):
Chapter Fourteen (villains and monsters):
If you love the game, good for you. I think it sucks. That's my opinion.
Throughout the design of the setting there seems to be a philosophy of "early concepts" of technology that break the setting. We have people in low Earth Orbit by 1900, cellular phones by 1910, and an entire city levitating but World War Two is esentially fought just like plain old WW2. Is it just me or does this strike other people as being very poorly thought out? It's too much too soon and just not enough balance.
benedict
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