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 | The Landing |  | |||||||||||
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 Game type: RPG, Supplement from Anime Squared for R. Talsorian's "Teenagers from Outer Space"Publisher: Anime Squared Writer: Michael Cox Medium: Paperback Price: $16.95 Reviewer: Robert Blanton Rather than a game rules book, this is a setting (an intergalactic shopping mall) with some optional rules additions featured. It adds five new races, some new gadgets, and a glimpse of The Original Galactic Federation. I rated the playability average because there are occasional problems with the explanations of some entries. They do not give some enough detail to give a clear idea of what they are for, some have deceptive names, some are duplicated (for unknown reasons), and the map does not match the text. There is no combat system. There is section on new gadgets, all of which are highly suitable for TFOS, and the new races have some special abilities (and some for humans) that are also quite good. There is a section on the new races that includes them as 'racial templates', and gives good instructions on how they work. However, it also promises information on creation of new templates. Either they omitted this, or it is the same as the instructions for the defined templates. Setting is what this book is all about. It represents a reworked shopping mall in a medium sized American city ("Majestic City"), which becomes an arrival beacon/area for new aliens, and a haven for the teeners of the area. The idea is excellent, but how much detail and the usefulness of that detail vary considerably. They have so vaguely described many stores that one has no idea what they intended. Some have misleading names ("Get Outa Here" for a pawn shop?), some have remarkably silly names ("Fix-A-Boo-Boo" for a mall clinic . . . ), and several have dull names ("Towels"). There are the requisite jokes and references to various anime, science fiction, and even fantasy shows and films, even some sitcoms. There are awful puns on existing company names ("The Fap"). Not to mention the probable assortment of in-jokes that only the writers, editors, and play testers understand. The presentation is the best part of this book. The cover art, interior art, and graphics range from decent to excellent. In the back of the book are a Landing character sheet, Majestic High I.D. Card, and new TFOS money. These are all wonderful. I have only one quibble with the general layout of the book: the store numbers are placed near the spine of the book, making it hard to read them at times. My major frustration is with the prevalence of typographic and grammatical errors. Let me send a plea to those who write and edit gaming materials: Please do not rely solely on spell checkers! Have real people proofread your texts before sending to the printer. Some errors here are glaring (the intro text says that the main description will follow clockwise around the mall [to the right, they make sure to point out), while the map and actual descriptions of stores go counterclockwise. The page numbers shown on the map are all two pages off. I don't know whether to count that as one typo, or about 150. That is just one page. Ratings (out of 5): | |||||||||||||
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