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Here’s the setup for my review—I had NO IDEA who or what Metabarons was when I picked it up. It’s actually a comic, with a full and diverse universe with a great deal of potential for role-playing on multiple levels—from “let’s kill them and take their stuff” to “man, am I angsty”.
This is not a review for those of you who love the comics. This is a review for everyone else, wondering if they should buy this thing, even though they have no idea of the world…
STYLE First, let’s talk about style. This game book sets the bar for RPG Corebooks anymore. The book is full—284 pages full—of full-color art, with detailed and color-coded borders for each section of the book. Even the character sheet has used its precious space to give you a jeweled, ornate sheet to look at while you’re waiting to see if you’ve died or not.
The nice part about making a game based on a comic book—you’ve got plenty of art to work with. Comic art graces about every third page, and the rest of the book is filled with original art that blends pretty well into the rest of the book, with ornate sidebars and example sections. It’s bold, it’s bright, it’s detailed—it’s a pretty book.
This is all held in a detailed book cover, with our heroic Metabaron in the middle of just about everybody else in the universe—with a bunch of explosions, suns, weird mutants, mage-like psychics, ships, and even a dragon. It quickly catches your eye, and was one of the reasons I decided to buy it.
The only problem, style-wise, with the book? It’s tall. It’s about 14” high, about as big as that massive dictionary you never use. This isn’t a problem, and helps get the feel that this book is different, but it might not fit with the rest of your books, depending on your shelf size. This is, obviously, a trifle of a problem.
SET UP All right, you old timers. Go get that old, beat-up copy of West End Games “Star Wars”. You know, the first ed. The hardcover, with the little Red Band at the top. I’ll wait…
Why am I asking you to get that book? Because the setup for Metabarons is the exact same thing. I don’t mean similar, I mean THE SAME. For those of you that don’t have it, follow along:
Opening fiction. Introduction to Role-playing. “Choose your own Adventure” solo intro, with the exact same character. Player section with similar rules and skills, GM section, small world section, Starships, fighting in space, Hyperspace rules, Equipment section, Opening adventure, charts and graphs, PC sheet, Index
OK, so it’s not DEAD on. But it’s close—too close. There’s mystical force—er, psychic powers that use the same system, sub light and hyperspace are used frequently, an evil empire, a few folks fighting the good fight, and even a “Dark Side” you can give into—although it’s apathy this time, it still uses the same system as Dark Side points.
There’s good stuff, of course. Each chapter is introduced by a “character” from that world, and the writing’s very simple and intuitive. But it just feels like they did a quick scan-and-replace job on a game that’s over 10 years old.
ROLLING THE BONES So, what’s the system like? It’s West End Games, which means D6. Seven Attributes, ranked 2D to 4D for starting characters, which you roll and add up. Skills add to the roll, either dice or ‘pips’, which are +1, +2, +3. There’s a ‘Wild Die’ you roll to see if you really did well or really did poorly if you roll a 1 or a 6. Damage is based on how much damage over your character’s strength attribute they take.
It’s very simple, and very clear how the rules work—probably because West End has been using this system, with minimal changes, for over a decade. The system also includes a lot of examples, which is nice, and a detailed system for vehicle and ship fighting.
A LONG TIME AGO… The game’s biggest weakness, I think, is that it tends to be a little weak in explaining the Universe. I know, this is like me complaining that an X-Men game didn’t have all 50 years of comic history. But, at the same time, I get a brief explanation that, perhaps due to the writing, gives me a very ‘bleh’ view of the universe. There’s an empire that’s not good, there’s an evil corporation and an evil religion that loves technology, aliens enslaved, etc. etc.
The writing kind of sapped the world for me. I mean, there’s a planet with anti-grav liquid flowing deep in the core, and the leader of the galaxy’s androgynous! There’s war and strife everywhere…but it just feels like it was left out. It feels like the designers were too prepared to have people already know the world—not exactly a mortal sin when working with another media, but I’ve seen other games that try to help you know the world, or give you more detail (Marvel, LoTR, The Star Wars Franchise, Star Trek…). Because of the somewhat blasé descriptions, and the very first game rules I ever used all over again, it makes this world—full of original and amazing ideas—feel like a Euro-version of Star Wars. The Hyperspace section reads exactly like it did a decade ago, in another game, in another universe. It seems the Metabaron could easily help Chewie with a hydro spanner…
Take the Necro-Dream, a state where people stop caring about anything but themselves and their own pleasure. No more drives, no more goals, just TV and drugs and rock n’ roll. Soul death by apathy. See—that’s a great idea! Your characters are struggling against it all, fighting for their souls against TV!
But…still, it felt like you HAD to read the comics to understand this. A core concept of the game, and it felt rushed over. It’s like if the Star Wars game warned you about the Dark Side, but didn’t give you examples of it—instead asking you to go watch the movies. Frankly, I think the writers had the Necro-dream…
IN THE END I haven’t read much Metabarons, but what I’ve seen is very good. A nice, detailed world of action and adventure, with a great possibility for games. I’d recommend if you’re at all interested in sci-fi to grab some of the comics and take a gander.
As for the game itself, it suffers from a feeling that the writers thought they were aimed ONLY at people who read Metabarons. They do all right, but it doesn’t quite give me the real sense of “feeling” from the world, instead coming off as another Sci-Fi/Fantasy game with great art. I think a slightly better use of space for the world would be better—a shorter equipment or monster section, or even (gasp) less art? Just ten more pages, and this would have been fantastic.
It didn’t help that it felt exactly like the very first game I bought, Star Wars—without as much direction. From the rules to the book setup, very little has changed. It felt like an old ex-girlfriend that had gotten really dressed up and looked great, but I found nothing changed on the inside. Not sad, just a bit disappointing…
If you’ve read Metabarons, you probably already know if you want this or not. If you haven’t, read some before you buy, because otherwise the game feels a bit flat.
STYLE: 5: Fantastic looking book, great art, easy on the eyes. SUBSTANCE: 3: Fairly standard world and ideas. Which is sad.
