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(I suspect the product would have been called "Gatecrashers" but there was a small SF&F RPG once that went by the name 'gatecrashers' and perhaps posthuman studio was concerned about a copyright issue.)
Gatecrashing reads much like well written, leading edge, hard SF such as one might get from Greg Benford, Alastair Reynolds, Greg Bear, et al. There's a definite feeling of professional writing in all aspects of the product: The rules, the sidebars, the discussions and the fiction all shine. This is one very well done product in production terms. The art is quite nice too, but I'm glad that the PDF gives me the option of not printing all of it out.
The core of gatecrashing consists of rules for using the pandora gates to travel to other worlds, a list of worlds currently chartered/explored/settled by transhumanity and rules/guidelines for creating worlds and other destinations for GMs to send their vict....players to.
The game has some suggestions for creating planets and solar systems, but nothing like the massive amount of data given in products like "Gurps Space 4e", but it gives enough, and doesn't waste pages with things like calculating an objects "black body radiation" or "albedo". Various possible star systems are discussed and the details are left to the GM. If you want/need more detail, other SF games like "Traveller" have detailed system generation rules you can get, but I doubt most GMs will need more scientific detail that gatecrashing provides.
I'd have to say that gatecrashing is definitely a mature product. If it were a movie or book it's definitely be rated "R" due to the wide use of the F bomb, including a variant on it I'd never even heard before. In particular there's an obscenity soaked tirade starting on page 86 that almost left me agog. But in fairness the language was used in character and was appropriate to the setting. It was describing a "scum" settlement that was based on unlimited hedonism and ultimate sensuality. In other words, people literally pleasured themselves to death, resleeved and did it again, and again, and again.
Using the term "agog" reminded me that there's a reference to "Lady Gaga" in gatecrashing, implying she's still alive and unchanged in the EP era.
After seeing some of the extreme language used in gatecrashing, it was quite a change of pace to see a new biomorph based on a "cute, furry little alien animal" that reminded me a lot of a Pikachu in one illustration.
I noticed a hidden gamer in-joke on pg. 99 that I won't spoil. Find it yourself.
Gatecrashing adds some new biomorphs for exploring uncharted exoplanets. There are flying and aquatic biomorphs, high gravity biomorphs and even "spare" synthamorphs designed as cheap replacement bodies for dead explorers to have their cortical stacks put into.
It also adds new equipment and gear. Most of it was quite reasonable, but one piece of gear left me feeling a little incredulous. It was a personal nuclear power system that supposedly allowed a living body to power itself thru nuclear energy provided by a radioactive isotope, reducing the need to eat to a very bare minimum. I'm a little skeptical about the feasibility of this in a setting that strives to be hard SF.
On the plus side of the nuclear power issue, gatecrashing elaborates on the "nuclear batteries" that were mentioned in the EP corebook and that I had some quibbles with. It explains and expands on them, making them perfectly acceptable in hard SF terms as miniature radiothermal generators hooked up to storage batteries.
Gatecrashing maintains the air of mystery and menace that permeates the Eclipse Phase universe, with the occasional references to TITAN relics being found on exoplanets, mysterious alien cultures that disappeared and a few alien artifacts that seem to imply the pandora gates themselves may be a grave menace.
Speaking of alien intelligences, one exoplanet allows you the chance to talk with them, in real time with no lightspeed delay, but with some serious limits on what data can be exchanged.
In sum, Gatecrashing is an excellent hard SF product and a valuable addition to the EP gameline. I give it highest recommendations, including the comment that if I could afford it I'd buy a hardback version.
To put it in culinary terms, buying the Gatecrashers PDF for 10$ is like paying for a happy meal and getting a cordon bleu prepared fillet Mignon dinner with all the trimmings plus fine wine on genuine china with real silver cutlery.
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