The Inside Scoop on Gaming

The last, best chance for SF roleplaying?

I picked up a copy of The Babylon Project from my local game store on Saturday, where it was clearly one of the weekend's hottest properties. BP is 192 pages, with color illustrations throughout, and high production values ($25 Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment/Wireframe Productions). BP provides a good overview of the universe of the 23d century, as portrayed on Babylon 5, and of the principal races: Humans, Minbari, Centauri, Narn.

I really wanted to give BP a positive review, but as I struggled with the exposition laden text, my impatience grew. I completely lost it, though, when after reading the upteenth reference to the magnificance of Earthforce's Star Furies, I paged through the game and realized that IT HAS NO RULES FOR STARFIGHTERS OR ANY OTHER STARSHIPS. Sensing an upcoming "essential" sourcebook and another $20 debit, my cynicism kicked into gear (Do you know of any other space game without ANY rules or descriptions for starships?). I wouldn't have been as upset by the absence of the starfighter rules, if the BP didn't keep repeating the importance of starfighters in the context of the BP universe.

Still wanting to give the game a fair chance, I built some characters. Since I didn't photocopy the nigh essential character design sheet, I had to read through the text on character creation in order to creat my own outline of the rules for designing characters. BP does have a simple and straightforward skill system that does a good job of duplicating the action, diplomacy, and intrigue that is such a distinguishing feature of the Babylon 5 series. However, the skill system is complemented by a group of 12 basic attributes and 3 calculated attributes (plus psionics). Although referred to in the text in three categories (physical, cultural, and mental), the attributes are not organized into these groups on the character sheet for use during play. Characters are also defined by characteristics which establish some physical, mental, or cultural trait (e.g. curious, attractive, handicapped, authority, latent telepath, etc.). Overall, the attribute and character creation system reminds me of something from the mid-80's. After creating a character, though, I had even less interest in playing the game.

The game is also presented in a descriptive and lengthy manner that is geared to neophyte gamers and that leads you slowly through each aspect of the game. While I recognize that this is a particularly crucial aspect for licensed games such as the BP, as an experienced gamer, I got increasingly aggravated reading through the lenghty introductions of character generation, skills, and combat in order to figure out how the game mechanics work. It's particularly frustrating because we have seen other game companies handle this issue with far more skill and sophistication (e.g. Star Wars) (Bet you never thought that you'd see "Star Wars" and "sophistication" in the same sentence). The BP text does not give you a sense of the excited of gaming in this universe.

Bottom-line, The Babylon Project probably works better as a sourcebook than as a game. Particularly considering the number of homebrewed conversion kits for Babylon 5 using Star Wars, Gurps, and other systems that are available on the Net (I'd probably use Aftermath).

And, I've saved the worst for last: the art in BP is a mix of illustrations and computer generated images from the TV series. The computer images are of ships, exteriors, and locations within the station. There are no photographs of actors from the series (principals or extras). The illustrations are universially poor, with a weak grasp of how to portray facial expressions. This is particularly unfortunate because your first impression of the game is "What's with the art?" (I'd love for someone to tell me what the Mimbaris illustrated on page 151 are doing.) Also, there are descriptions and illustrations of other alien races but there is no referencing between the illustrations and pictures so I am left to search my memory of the TV series to sort out which race is which. (Caveat - I was apparently luck to get a copy in which the art was not smudged. There have been several reports on-line of people purchasing copies of BP where the ink had smudged.)

That's my two cents.

Jeb

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Babylon Project
Author: Joseph Cochran Category: game Company/Publisher: Chameleon Eclectic / Wireframe Productions Reviewed by Jeb Boyt on 04/13/97. Genre tags: none	The last, best chance for SF roleplaying? I picked up a copy of The Babylon Project from my local game store on Saturday, where it was clearly one of the weekend's hottest properties. BP is 192 pages, with color illustrations throughout, and high production values ($25 Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment/Wireframe Productions). BP provides a good overview of the universe of the 23d century, as portrayed on Babylon 5, and of the principal races: Humans, Minbari, Centauri, Narn. I really wanted to give BP a positive review, but as I struggled with the exposition laden text, my impatience grew. I completely lost it, though, when after reading the upteenth reference to the magnificance of Earthforce's Star Furies, I paged through the game and realized that IT HAS NO RULES FOR STARFIGHTERS OR ANY OTHER STARSHIPS. Sensing an upcoming "essential" sourcebook and another $20 debit, my cynicism kicked into gear (Do you know of any other space game without ANY rules or descriptions for starships?). I wouldn't have been as upset by the absence of the starfighter rules, if the BP didn't keep repeating the importance of starfighters in the context of the BP universe. Still wanting to give the game a fair chance, I built some characters. Since I didn't photocopy the nigh essential character design sheet, I had to read through the text on character creation in order to creat my own outline of the rules for designing characters. BP does have a simple and straightforward skill system that does a good job of duplicating the action, diplomacy, and intrigue that is such a distinguishing feature of the Babylon 5 series. However, the skill system is complemented by a group of 12 basic attributes and 3 calculated attributes (plus psionics). Although referred to in the text in three categories (physical, cultural, and mental), the attributes are not organized into these groups on the character sheet for use during play. Characters are also defined by characteristics which establish some physical, mental, or cultural trait (e.g. curious, attractive, handicapped, authority, latent telepath, etc.). Overall, the attribute and character creation system reminds me of something from the mid-80's. After creating a character, though, I had even less interest in playing the game. The game is also presented in a descriptive and lengthy manner that is geared to neophyte gamers and that leads you slowly through each aspect of the game. While I recognize that this is a particularly crucial aspect for licensed games such as the BP, as an experienced gamer, I got increasingly aggravated reading through the lenghty introductions of character generation, skills, and combat in order to figure out how the game mechanics work. It's particularly frustrating because we have seen other game companies handle this issue with far more skill and sophistication (e.g. Star Wars) (Bet you never thought that you'd see "Star Wars" and "sophistication" in the same sentence). The BP text does not give you a sense of the excited of gaming in this universe. Bottom-line, The Babylon Project probably works better as a sourcebook than as a game. Particularly considering the number of homebrewed conversion kits for Babylon 5 using Star Wars, Gurps, and other systems that are available on the Net (I'd probably use Aftermath). And, I've saved the worst for last: the art in BP is a mix of illustrations and computer generated images from the TV series. The computer images are of ships, exteriors, and locations within the station. There are no photographs of actors from the series (principals or extras). The illustrations are universially poor, with a weak grasp of how to portray facial expressions. This is particularly unfortunate because your first impression of the game is "What's with the art?" (I'd love for someone to tell me what the Mimbaris illustrated on page 151 are doing.) Also, there are descriptions and illustrations of other alien races but there is no referencing between the illustrations and pictures so I am left to search my memory of the TV series to sort out which race is which. (Caveat - I was apparently luck to get a copy in which the art was not smudged. There have been several reports on-line of people purchasing copies of BP where the ink had smudged.) That's my two cents. Jeb Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 2 (Sparse)