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I remember when I was the first among my friends to watch Babylon 5 and be stunned by its massive story arc and engaging episodes. I also thought at the time that an RPG based off of the show would be a good thing. Chameleon Eclectic and Wireframe came close.

The good thing about The Babylon Project is that it captures the feel and look of the show. Everything is basically there (assuming you followed the show) for you to get a campaign going. Even a guy in my group who had never seen the show, managed to play a Membari fairly well after skimming the book.

The game engine has some oddities to it. The character creation system works fine and you can have a pretty well visualized character done in a few minutes. Mine was a Psi Corps intelligence officer would was a mole in Earth Force Security who goes rogue after becoming friends with a group of Earth FOrce officers on a similar mission. That being said, I took pencil to paper and had a character ready to go and did not force the rest of the group to wait. Skills are doled out well (a primary, secondary, etc) and balanced out well.

The biggest hit to the characters is that there are just certain skills that are way too importnant not to have. Many characters deeply resemble each other, when you ignore their backgrounds.

The combat engine really resembles a watered down version of Millenium's End (that is not a shocker), while it is realistic it is also confusing and counter intuitive as presented in charts and rules. Once you get the hang of it it starts to flow alright, but this could have been done better.

The funny thing lef tout of The Babylon Project was a was to resolve ship to ship encounters. This got better with the Earthforce supplement, but until that point it was much role playing and ad-hock dice rolling. Which leads too the dice rolling.

Basically all results are determined by rolling 2d6 plus skill/stat/nothing and hoping to get a target number based off of the difficulty of the action. One die is positive and the other is negative. The higher die is the result, which is either a tie or 2-5. Mot much variety in dice rolling. The engine would have been better suited with at least a pair of d10's used for the random numbers.

The interior of The Babylon Project is great and in full color. The art is sometimes varying in quality, but that is not surprise given the artists they used. It is reasonably well laid out and I never had a problem finding what I needed.

There is enough world information to do just about anything in the Babylon 5 setting, regardless if you play Membari, Centauri or Narn. But the emphasis is definitely on humans and their portion of the galaxy. You are definitey not anchored to Babylon 5 for a campaign. Heck we played for nearly four months and went to B5 maybe twice in route to somewhere else.

To sum up, the game is almost great. The engine could have been better designed with less arbitrary complexity and perhaps character's better diferenciated. But don't let any of that stop you, it delivers the goods (even if it was terribly late getting onto shelves).

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 3 (Average)

The Babylon Project
Author: Joseph Cochrane Category: game Company/Publisher: Chamelion Eclectic Line: The Babylon Project Capsule Review by Wes Johnson on 08/29/99. Genre tags: Science_fiction	I remember when I was the first among my friends to watch Babylon 5 and be stunned by its massive story arc and engaging episodes. I also thought at the time that an RPG based off of the show would be a good thing. Chameleon Eclectic and Wireframe came close. The good thing about The Babylon Project is that it captures the feel and look of the show. Everything is basically there (assuming you followed the show) for you to get a campaign going. Even a guy in my group who had never seen the show, managed to play a Membari fairly well after skimming the book. The game engine has some oddities to it. The character creation system works fine and you can have a pretty well visualized character done in a few minutes. Mine was a Psi Corps intelligence officer would was a mole in Earth Force Security who goes rogue after becoming friends with a group of Earth FOrce officers on a similar mission. That being said, I took pencil to paper and had a character ready to go and did not force the rest of the group to wait. Skills are doled out well (a primary, secondary, etc) and balanced out well. The biggest hit to the characters is that there are just certain skills that are way too importnant not to have. Many characters deeply resemble each other, when you ignore their backgrounds. The combat engine really resembles a watered down version of Millenium's End (that is not a shocker), while it is realistic it is also confusing and counter intuitive as presented in charts and rules. Once you get the hang of it it starts to flow alright, but this could have been done better. The funny thing lef tout of The Babylon Project was a was to resolve ship to ship encounters. This got better with the Earthforce supplement, but until that point it was much role playing and ad-hock dice rolling. Which leads too the dice rolling. Basically all results are determined by rolling 2d6 plus skill/stat/nothing and hoping to get a target number based off of the difficulty of the action. One die is positive and the other is negative. The higher die is the result, which is either a tie or 2-5. Mot much variety in dice rolling. The engine would have been better suited with at least a pair of d10's used for the random numbers. The interior of The Babylon Project is great and in full color. The art is sometimes varying in quality, but that is not surprise given the artists they used. It is reasonably well laid out and I never had a problem finding what I needed. There is enough world information to do just about anything in the Babylon 5 setting, regardless if you play Membari, Centauri or Narn. But the emphasis is definitely on humans and their portion of the galaxy. You are definitey not anchored to Babylon 5 for a campaign. Heck we played for nearly four months and went to B5 maybe twice in route to somewhere else. To sum up, the game is almost great. The engine could have been better designed with less arbitrary complexity and perhaps character's better diferenciated. But don't let any of that stop you, it delivers the goods (even if it was terribly late getting onto shelves). Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 3 (Average)