I slacked on my own game review duties at Nuketown this week (though I did pitch a review to a new market) but thankfully others remained on the ball, yielding a number of new reviews.
There are two more Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition reviews out this week. The Geek Gazette offers some initial thoughts on the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide and rants about the necessity of buying both a campaign guide and a player’s guide. This is undoubtedly great for WotC’s bottom line, he argues, but no so great for players.
My understanding is that Wizards is scaling back its campaign offerings, so these may be the only two FR books you get this year. I have to think they’ll publish additional Forgotten Realms source books in 2009, but at the same time they’ve been pretty upfront about releasing books for one campaign setting a year (FR this year, Eberron next, maybe Dark Sun after that).
I think the bigger question could end up being not “is this too much?” but “is it enough?”
RPG.net has a favorable review of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Reviewer Eric Christian Berg liked the ease of building encounters and the dynamic nature of combat.
Also at RPG.net is a review of Monsters of Myth. The book is a monster manual for the OSRIC old-school remake of 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons. Reviewer Matt Slepin enjoyed the book’s treatment of the faerie, but wasn’t thrilled by its selection of “giant” versions of mundane creatures. All in all, he liked the book.
Living Dice provides an quick look review of Aces and Eights: Shattered Frontier by Kenzerco, discussing the book’s fine production values and unique combat system. The reviewer notes that the game isn’t for everyone; combat is exceedingly deadly, which means people are really going to have to focus on role-playing their way through many encounters.
HeroPress has a review of The Gamers – Dorkness Rising, the loose sequel to the original The Gamers flick. Like the first movie, this one features the story of a game master attempting to run his players through an adventure. The point of view switches between the players at the gaming table, and then in character in the fantasy world. General sentiment: amusing, but not brilliant, with better production values and a better ending than the initial outing.
The Accidental Survivors podcast has a review of the True20 Revised Edition by Green Ronin in Episode #35. They also talk about Burn Notice and the idea of running a Burn Notice modern campaign.
Gaming Report reviews Elric: Magic Of The Young Kingdoms, and finds it a tome that doesn’t go nearly deep enough into it’s subject matter. The book presents a broad overview of magic in the Young Kingdom’s, but doesn’t delve deep enough into any one area.