Well let's begin with a look at the Palladium house system, simply put its AD&D on crack, it uses similar attributes, with a similar scale,and adds skills. Nothing much wonderful or new. Heroes Unlimited Revised Second Edition is nothing brilliant or new from the Palladium Crew.
Rules:
Toss 3d6 for each attribute from IQ to Speed (8 in all) and add each die up if the total is 16 or higher roll another d6 and add it in is well--a poor idea in my opinion, your simply letting the fortunate few who roll well have more of an advantage over those that roll poorly. Then one selects a "class" which is in effect both the pc's origin, and what is referred to as 'source of powers' from Alien to Mutant Animal to what have you--this is yet where another flaw rears it's ugly head, you can tell which types are Mr Siembieda's and crew's favorites since many of these classes are powered disparetly when copared to each other. This new improved version adds a Mega Hero which doesn't even really work for some hero types (a Mega Hero Psi, or Mage gets very little in exchange for doubling his Experience point costs)
Format:
Get a layout person. Palladium Books are as a whole consistently the POOREST organized books on the market. They just are are at least consistent in the fact that they are poorly layed out somewhat similarly.
Binding&Art:
The books as a whole are sturdy but being bound as they are with the same cover materials you can expect the covers to peel off the book eventually--they are well made its just the type of materials used aren't the best in the industry but they are far from being the worst.
Play:
The game runs well enough if a bit under powered for a superhero game, unfrotunatly not ever character type is underpowered just certain combinations and classes, this makes the game interesting is that it tries not to be too high end and yet some pc types simply are: Body of Metal for example in a Mutant, as Compared to a Stage Magician who doesn't get any real powers. It's not that the game is unlplayable. Far from it it just takes a huge amount og work for the GM to rebalance the PC's if he wants them to ahve compareable power levels.
Recommendation: Its a big book with lots of material for a nice price of 24.95 if you aren't adverse to quirky systems with classes and levels and Hit Points and a host of other First Generation game mechanics its a decent buy. If you are bothered by any of the above move along and be happy. Its not Champions, it's not Blood of Heroes, it's not Marvel Saga, and unfortunatly has non of the good things from those games, on a positive note for 24.95 you get the whole game any supplements they put out won't be necessary to run the game.
Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)
