Tagline: The first game designed by Richard Garfield and released to the public, RoboRally shows the intriguing conceptual ideas and addictive game play which have since become Garfield’s stock in trade. Like so many games released by Wizards of the Coast I first picked this product up because the description just sounded too intriguing to miss. Like every product I have ever picked up from the Wizards, I was anything but disappointed.

“Like every product I have ever picked up from the Wizards, I was anything but disappointed.” Ah, 1998. How I miss ye. RoboRally remains one of my favorite games. Unfortunately, my original copy was lost in a move and later turned up in the bottom of a box that was being stored in a pole barn. Although sadly water-damaged, it is still tremendous fun. Anyone know what Richard Garfield is up to these days?

GAME CONCEPT

In the future the widget factories of the world are controlled by the mightiest artificial intelligences ever created by man. Capable of solving any problem which might arise and controlling the entire factory from top to bottom to compensate for any problems and keep production right on schedule, these mighty machines suffered from only a single problem: Boredom.

Then one day a processing robot fried a circuit and went careening onto a conveyor belt, which sent him spinning through the high-powered laser systems and dropped him off just in time for his broken and decaying programming databanks to send him plummeting down a bottomless disposal bit on the factory floor.

The computers were … amused.

Immediately they created the game of RoboRally – each computer controlled a single robot and, using a limited set of data registers, was required to send the robots through a specially converted section of the factory floor.

In the boardgame RoboRally you are the computer, programming your robot to cross the factory floor and reach a set of checkpoints in a specific sequence in order to win the game. In your way are conveyor belts, bottomless pits, gears, crushers, pushers, and laser beams… not to mention the robots of your fellow players.

RULES

The game comes with six gameboards which can be played individually or arranged in any combination you want. The checkpoints you must reach are represented by six counters numbered from 1 to 6 – you can place these counters anywhere on the gameboards you want and in any order you choose. The options are practically infinite.

On each turn you are dealt nine program cards. From these you must select five cards and “program” your robot by assigning one card to each of five programming registers. When all the players have completed programming their robots the turn begins – each register is considered in order and your robot moves.

This sounds simple, but in truth you’ll find yourself making bonehead mistakes – especially when you come in contact with the board elements. “Okay, first I’ll move forward, which will put me on the conveyor belt which will move me there, then I’ll turn left, and the conveyor belt will move me again, turning me as I go, so that when I move backwards on the next phase I’ll end up…” And, of course, you can always be pushed around by the other robots on the board so that your preciously planned sequence of movements will suddenly all be off by one square … and the results cascade through the rest of the turn.

Plus, your robot can take damage and be destroyed by various game elements on the board. Plus, your robot and the robots of the other players are all outfitted with lasers – allowing you to whittle away. What can be worse than getting blasted out of existence and having to start over from the beginning (there is also a way of “archiving” a copy of your robot at certain waypoints on the board)? Well, as you take damage the number of program cards you dealt to select from are decreased. If you take enough damage some of your robot’s programming registers may become locked – meaning that the cards you have assigned to those registers will have to stay the same until you can get your robot repaired.

Finally there are ways of retrofitting your robot with special abilities.

STRENGTHS

This game is a tremendous amount of fun. If you’ve ever played Paranoia and gotten great laughs out of watching your characters getting fried you’ll already understand the appeal this game carries with it – nothing is more hilarious then when one of your fellow players suddenly groans, “Oh nooooo…” and you know he’s made a mistake in his plans and his robot is about to go cascading off-course and into jeopardy.

The game is beautifully designed by Phil Foglio – the cover illustration of a ZIP 550 looking nervously over his shoulder as he enters the factory is absolutely perfect at setting the tone of the game. Foglio also designed the miniatures which come with the game.

WEAKNESSES

The learning curve is pretty simple, but there are some rules which could so with better explanation. Wizards of the Coast has posted the complete rules and a FAQ at their website, and from what I’ve seen they have not fixed these problems.

The confusion over these rules is quickly eliminated however by some practical familiarity with the game. Play your first game on a single board and establish up front that rule interpretations could fluctuate wildly during the course of the game as you figure out some of the nuances.

There are several handy reference sheets and the rulebook is laid out in such a fashion that information is easy to find when you need it. This is not an overwhelming problem, merely one of having to play the game first before you can see what some rules mean.

CONCLUSION

This game is great. The idea is great, the carry-through is great, the rules are great, the entertainment value is great. You simply can’t go wrong.

There are also several expansion sets for the game (Armed and Dangerous, Grand Prix, and (coming later in 1998) Radioactive). I hope to own and review both these and the second make of this game in the near future here on RPGNet.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Author: Richard Garfield
Company/Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Cost: $34.95
Page count: n/a
ISBN: 1-57530-088-5
Originally Published: 1998/06/19

[ This is a review of the first make of the RoboRally game. The second make of the game (which I do not yet own), slightly altered the lay-out of the rules and changed the design of the miniatures included with the game. However, to my knowledge, game play was not affected to any serious degree. The ISBN product code above refers to the second make of RoboRally, as that is the one which you can still order from Wizards of the Coast. ]

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Apocalypse World is both a roleplaying game and a really intense primer on D. Vincent Baker’s approach to GMing a campaign. In fact, the primer is so intense that it’s been baked right into the ruleset at a really primal level.

First, it says this about what a roleplaying game is all about:

Roleplaying is a conversation. You and the other players go back and forth, talking about these fictional characters in their fictional circumstances doing whatever it is that they do. Like any conversation, you take turns, but it’s not like taking turns, right? Sometimes you talk over each other, interrupt, build on each others’ ideas, monopolize. All fine.

This is one of the better and most evocative explanations of how you play an RPG.

And then Baker tells you that the rules of Apocalypse World are going to “mediate the conversation”:

The particular things that make these rules kick in are called moves. The rule for moves is to do it, do it. In order for it to be a move and for the player to roll dice, the character has to do something that counts as that move; and whenever the character does something that counts as a move, it’s the move and the player rolls the dice.

Usually its unambiguous, but there are two ways that sometimes they don’t line up, and it’s your job as MC to deal with them.

First is when a player says only that her character makes a move, without having her character actually take any such action. For instance: “I go aggro on him.” Your answer should be “cool, what do you do?” “I seize the radio by force.” “Cool, what do you do?” “I try to seduce him.” “Cool, what do you do?”

Second is when a player has her character take action that counts as a move, but doesn’t realize it, or doesn’t intend it to be a move. For instance: “I shove him out of my way.” Your answer then should be “cool, you’re going aggro?” “I pout. ‘Well if you really don’t like me…'” “Cool, you’re trying to manipulate him?” “I squeeze way back between the tractor and the wall so they don’t see me.” “Cool, you’re acting under fire?” The rule for moves is if you do it, you do it, so make with the dice.”

This really got under my skin (in a good way) because it forced me to look at RPG mechanics from a fresh perspective. What Baker is describing is not radically different from the way I’ve always played RPGs: We have a conversation about the characters and the world they’re living in, and when it’s appropriate we interpret the actions of the characters mechanically and use the mechanics of the game to resolve the outcome of those actions.

But what Baker puts front and center is this: You play a game by making moves. And here are the moves that you can make in this game. Bam.

MASTER OF CEREMONIES

It’s a subtle shift in perspective. But where Apocalypse World really gets up in your face about it is when Baker gets to the rules for the Game Master (which Apocalypse World refers to as the Master of Ceremonies): He gives the MC a specific list of moves. And then he tells the MC that this is all he’s allowed to do.

Wait… what?

Yup. He gives you this list of moves:

• Separate them
• Capture someone
• Put someone in a spot
• Trade harm for harm (as established)
• Announce off-screen badness
• Announce future badness
• Inflict harm (as established)
• Take away their stuff
• Make them buy
• Activate their stuff’s downside
• Tell them the possible consequences and ask
• Offer an opportunity, with or without cost
• Turn their move back on them
• Make a threat move (from one of your fronts)
• After every move: “What do you do?”

And then he says, “Whenever there’s a pause in the conversation and everyone looks to you to say something, choose one of these things and say it. They aren’t technical terms or jargon: “announce future badness”, for instance, means think of something bad that’s probably going to happen in the future and announce it. “Make them buy” means the thing they want? They’re looking to you to tell them they can have it? If they want it, they have to buy it. And so on.”

If you’ve got a lot of experience GMing, this may prove tough for you. (Since it’s likely to be a departure from your normal methods of GMing.) It was tough for me. But I really, strongly encourage you to give it a try. Not because you need to completely change the way you normally GM (although you might end up doing that), but because this is what will make Apocalypse World sing for you.

In general, Baker is pushing two things here: First, make whatever the PCs are doing interesting. Second, use aggressive pacing.

In other words, don’t rush the players or cut them off. But if they’re trying to do something and need feedback from the game world to make it happen, then it’s the MC’s responsibility to make that feedback interesting. (They’re trying to sneak into a building? Put them on the spot. They’re trying to find directions to the Blue Lagoon? Make ’em buy.) And, similarly, if the players have run out of things they want to do (i.e., things they find interesting), then the MC’s job is to aggressively introduce something interesting (either by bringing something interesting onscreen or by fast-forwarding to the next interesting bit).

By limiting the MC’s input to this specific list of moves, Baker is not only making them explicitly another player at the table (with a specific role to play just like all the other players have their specific roles to play); he’s also forcing the MC to make PC actions interesting and to aggressively pace the session.

Baker also introduces a list of Principles which the MC is to follow, and which end up coloring how the MC uses their moves. Most of these Principles are rock solid GMing advice, but there are a couple key ones that factor heavily in understanding how Apocalypse World is supposed to be played:

• Make your move, but never speak its name.
• Make your move, but misdirect.
• Look through crosshairs.

“Make your move, but never speak its name” is fundamentally similar to the guidelines Baker gives for player moves: You don’t take your moves in Apocalypse World by saying the name of the move; you describe what happens in the game world.

“Make your move, but misdirect” builds on this principle. The effect of the move doesn’t occur because you chose the move; the effect is caused by something in the game world. (For example, the MC may choose the move “separate them”. But as far as the players are concerned, their characters have been separated because the plane they were flying in has just been chopped in two and they’re stuck in opposite halves.)

“Look through the crosshairs” basically makes it clear that you need to keep the stakes high and the pace intense. As Baker describes it: “Whenever your attention lands on someone or something that you own — an NPC or a feature of the landscape, material or social — consider first killing it, overthrowing it, burning it down, blowing it up, or burying it in the poisoned ground. An individual NPC, a faction of NPCs, some arrangement between NPCs, even an entire rival holding and its NPC warlord: crosshairs. It’s one of the game’s slogans: There are no status quos in Apocalypse World.”

DIGGING DEEPER

What really makes Apocalypse World tick, though, is that everything I’ve written here is a vast simplification. Or, rather, it’s merely the core of the game.

For example, every player will be playing a specific character type. And each character type has their own list of custom moves (expanding what they can do while also focusing their gameplay).

Similarly, the MC creates fronts (representing various forms of active and passive opposition in the game world). And each of these fronts, just like the character types, have their own custom moves which also expand the MC’s list of available moves at any given time (while also focusing gameplay).

There are rules for your crap, rules for crafting, rules for psychic brain-fuckery, rules for ruling settlements, rules for running gangs… Rules for all kinds of stuff. And it’s all evocative and provoking and awesome.

Baker says this towards the beginning:

The game takes quite a few sessions to play, so choose friends with space in their schedules for a commitment. I don’t figure it’s much of a game until 6 sessions, and it can go much longer.

And that’s pretty much true. It’s a fun little game for a one-shot; but it seems to be shaping up for a very slick campaign. (Although I’m less sure about “friends with space in their schedules for a commitment”. I think it might be interesting to let the game loose at an open table: Most of the characters are drifters anyway, so it shouldn’t be too hard to aggressively frame a given session so that it focuses on just the characters present.)

In case I’m being unclear: I’m saying you should check this one out. It’s one of the best bundles of GMing advice I’ve read in a long time, and it packs that advice right into a really intense (and really fun) game system.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Tagline: Ghost Dancers details the Indian societies and tribal beliefs of the Weird West. An above-average supplement, it is highly recommended for any GM running a Deadlands game and will prove useful to anyone playing an Indian character.

If I recall correctly, Ghost Dancers was the first time I received a review copy of a book. (At the time, RPGNet maintained a Wish List function for people who had posted reviews on the site. They probably still do. Here’s a document somewhat contemporary to this review describing their review policy.) Getting that review copy was terribly exciting for me at the time. I kept meaning to go back and write a review of the core Deadlands game, but for one reason and another it never happened. The half-finished file still lurks on my hard drive as a poor derelict.

Ghost Dancers is the sourcebook for the Indians of the Weird West. It does it’s job well – giving a highly effective overview of Indian political, cultural, and religious life. Those of you familiar with the Deadlands game will know that many of the crucial events which lead to the development of the Weird West (instead of our historical Wild West) are the result of various Indian factions – as a result this book is a crucial key to understanding some of the background to the world itself. Since it also details the Hunting Grounds in great detail, this book is a must for any Deadlands GM.

I also suggest, but not quite so highly, this book for any player with an Indian character who feels that the main rulebook isn’t giving him enough flavor or options for his character. If you are generally unfamiliar with Indian belief and culture, this book will also give you a good one-point stopping place for learning more. (Of course you should beware of taking things in this book as absolute historical fact – the designer himself is careful to point out that not only is the book simplifying many things about Indian culture, the Weird West is not an historical place by any stretch of the imagination.)

The book follows the traditional (and extremely advantageous) breakdown of all Deadlands material: a section for the players (Posse Territory), material that the GM should know and reveal only to select players (No Man’s Land), and material for the GM’s eyes only (Marshal’s Handbook). In Ghost Dancers, however, this has been changed to The War Party, Sacred Grounds, and The Chief’s Words – because “those white guys at Pinnacle Entertainment mistitled the sections in the previous books.” (Any product with the ability to look at itself humorously earns high points with me.) This lay-out is very nice – too often source material is only useful for the GM or reveals world secrets to the players because it lumps all the information about organizations and locations together. Nor have I seen this lay-out lead to useless regurgitation of the same information in each section. Pinnacle always seems to be careful in giving the GM just the extra information, without restating what has been said 50 pages earlier.

STYLE AND LAYOUT

My one persistent problem with Deadlands products is that the graphical presentation of the books fails to do anything for me. It is clearly meant to be evocative, but it just sits like a lump of clay for me. The cover art of Ghost Dancers, like all Deadlands products I’ve seen is a high-quality, excellent piece of work. The interior art, on the other hand, varies wildly from just slightly above average to pathetically horrid. The special font they use for headings is supposed to be mood-setting I suppose, but I’m pretty much indifferent. They have, however, solved one of my big problems with the main Deadlands rulebook – the type font is a nicely readable size, as opposed to the unnecessarily huge size used earlier.

One last minor complaint. Deadlands products use a nice referencing system to take you from one section of the book to another (for example, if you’re reading a section on the Sioux Nations in the War Party section you might get a page reference indicating that more material on this subject can be found in the Chief’s Words section). For this referencing system they use three miniature pictures – a gun and hatchet for the War Party, a holy symbol for the Sacred Ground, and a chief’s head and headdress for the Chief’s Words. These three pictures are then repeated on the title pages of each of the three sections. The problem comes because they apparently created these images at the thumbnail size for the referencing system and then just blew them up for a full-page presentation on the title pages. Anyone who has done this will know that you end up with a fuzzy image at the larger scale – and that’s precisely what you get in Deadlands products. Suggestion: Compose the pictures at the larger scale and then shrink them down to the smaller scale.

None of these are serious problems in my opinion, they just don’t click with me properly. A quick flip-through of the book should be enough for you to judge whether or not you agree with me.

Indeed, these problems are inconsequential. The lay-out of the product is excellent. Material is laid out in an intuitive and consistent fashion and a detailed table of contents will make it easy to find what you’re looking for. You won’t find any weird placement of information – such as sticking a section on weapon damage in the equipment section rather than the combat section with the rest of the weapon damage information – that seems to be trendy with certain companies.

So, to sum up: Externally this product is visually fantastic. Internally, it is visually boring. The lay-out is useful, productive, and easy-to-use however – and that’s the most important thing. It is only my aesthetic sense which is offended.

THE WAR PARTY

The first section of the book serves both as a reference for players and as a general introduction to the book. The first chapter (“Welcome to the Lodge”), serves as that general introduction.

Chapter Two (“Indian Country”) gives a broad overview of Indian history, as well as comprehensive look at the major tribes and organization of Indian society. Chapter Three (“Making an Indian”) provides details on modifying the basic character creation rules found in the main rulebook for Indian characters – including your role in Indian society, the selection of your Guardian Spirit, and new aptitudes, edges, hindrances, knacks, and gear. The section of the book also contains new archetypes for use by the GM and players both.

Chapter Four (“Guardian Spirits”) details the workings of Guardian Spirits, while Chapter Five (“Strange Medicine”) expands and improves upon the medicine rules found in the main rulebook, providing more options and details.

SACRED GROUND

Chapter Six (“Objects Sacred and Profane”) detail the rules for creating and using ‘medicine objects’ (magical items). This is an exceptionally useful resource for the GM, as is the next chapter (Chapter Seven – “The Hunting Grounds”) which details the extradimensional realm of the Hunting Grounds.

If there is one reason above all others to buy this book it is the material found in Chapter Seven. With amazing grace the designers allow the Hunting Grounds to be not only something of significance and importance to Indians, but to all religious groups. In the Weird West the magical forces which have been interpreted through the faith and religion of humanity are all too real – and it was the release of those forces from what the Indians call the Hunting Grounds (and Christians would call Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell) during the Reckoning that created the alternate history which Deadlands details.

In my mind, therefore, understanding and being able to use the Hunting Grounds in a Deadlands campaign is extremely important – and this book is the key to allowing that. As a result, every Marshal/Chief/GM should own a copy of Ghost Dancers.

THE CHIEF’S WORDS

Chapter Eight (“The Chief’s Guide”) provides everything about the Indians of the Weird West that the players just aren’t supposed to know. I won’t go into details here, because there are probably several players reading this review, but some of the stuff you uncover here is truly exciting and made me want to go out and start writing adventures.

Chapter Nine (“Secret Societies”) details the Ghost Dance (from which the book gets its name) and the Raven Cult. The Ghost Dance is a ritual revealed to the Paiute tribe – it preaches of peace and tolerance, and foretells of a time when the white man will be driven from his lands and the red man shall return to power. A time which shall be prophesied in the birth of a pure white buffalo calf.

The Raven Cult — as anyone whose familiar with the Deadlands game knows – is responsible for the Reckoning. They, too, foretell a future where the white man has been driven from the lands of the Indians – but they see the way to this future as one paved in blood and violence.

The GM will learn everything he needs to know about these two secret societies. Once again this is important information and mandates buying this sourcebook. The information on the Raven Cult is important because of the role in the origins of the Weird West setting. The Ghost Dance is important because they are clearly going to become important in the future of the Weird West.

SUMMARY

This book is an excellent and required resource for the GM of a Deadlands game, but only of mild interest to a player (even if the player happens to have an Indian character). I suggest that only one copy is really necessary for any gaming group, but that one copy is necessary for any long-term campaigns set in the Weird West.

Style: 3
Substance: 4

Author: Paul Beakley
Company/Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Cost: $20.00
Page count: 128
ISBN: 1-889546-20-8
Originally Posted: 1998/06/19

Tagline: Wizards of the Coast and the Bourbaki card game design team strike again in this surprisingly fascinating and addictive card game, the first in a line of non-collectible games meant to provide competition with games like Uno and Skip-Bo.

Thirteen years later, Twitch remains one of my favorite card games. My review speaks highly of it, but a game with that kind of staying power deserves special attention. Sadly, it is long out of print and virtually unattainable as I write this. If you get a chance, though, I recommend you grab a copy ASAP.

The premise of the game is simple: Someone plays a card. The cards tells you who goes next. If it’s you, you’ve got to play another card before someone challenges you and you have to take the entire stack of cards. If it’s not you, you’ve got to figure out who it is and challenge them before they can play. Be careful, if you play or challenge wrong you’ll end up taking those cards.

Simple, right? Right.

Until you start playing the game, that is. Then what seems so simple on the surface suddenly seems to be the most complicated thing you’ve ever done.

The basic game centers around eight different cards. The four basic cards are Left, Right, 2 Left and 2 Right. These cards tell you who goes next (the player to your left, your right, two seats to your left, and two seats to your right – respectively). In addition the card Ditto means that the last card’s effect is repeated, the card Back At Ya! sends the turn back to the last player to play a card. The last trick is that all players are given a color card, and a duplicate of this card is place in the play deck. When that color card is played the person to who it belongs must play next. Finally there are the challenge cards – these cards are keyed to the colors of the players. If a player is too slow or if they make a mistake, you can challenge them with the challenge card corresponding to their color.

The name of the game is speed, and once you’re into the heat of the chase you’re going to find that these simple rules are more than challenge enough.

Now let’s take another step, into the Advanced Game. At this point we add three more cards: Pick a Color, Rotate Colors, and Left to Right. These are called “Pause Cards”, when they are played gameplay temporarily stops while their results are gauged. Pick a Color means that the person who just played the card picks the color of another player, and then that player plays a card (resuming play). Rotate colors means that everyone takes their color card (indicating what color they are) and hand them to the player on their left – this causes confusion regarding what color to use to challenge which players and what color you are when the color cards come up during gameplay. Finally, Left to Right means that all cards referring to a particular direction mean exactly the opposite – left means right and right means left. Conveniently there are exactly two of these cards, meaning that once play is reversed, it will eventually turn back the other way.

Twitch is the first in a line of games Wizards of the Coast is producing in order to apparently attempt to compete with traditional family games. On the strength of this product I intend to go out of my way to also purchase Pivot, Alpha Blitz, and GoWild! — the other products in this line-up.

At seven bucks you can’t lose with this game. It won’t be put on the shelf next to your Magic cards or your Doomtown cards, but I think it more than amply deserves a place alongside such classic games as Uno and Skip-Bo.

Style: 4
Substance: 5

Author: Richard Garfield, Skaff Elias, Jim Lin, and Dave Pettey
Company/Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Cost: $6.95
Page count: n/a
ISBN: 1-57530-581-X
Originally Posted: 1998/05/30

Every so often I’ll indulge in what I call a “mythos delve”. This is where I’ll just dive wholeheartedly into whatever transmedia empire has transfixed my attention. A few years ago it was Star Wars. Before that Heavy Gear, The Matrix (this one was easier), Star Trek, and so forth. (This exploration of multi-faceted fictional milieus is undoubtedly part of what I find appealing about RPGs.)

Most recently, the Halo franchise has captured my attention. A little less than a decade ago, I played both Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, but then the franchise jumped to the Xbox 360 and I didn’t. That recently changed, however, and I started playing my way through the older games as prep for the newer ones. In the interim, I had also acquired the first three Halo novels from the $1 racks at Half-Price Books, which brings us here.

HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED (Bungie Studios): I’m not going to attempt anything even remotely resembling a full review of the Halo video games. (Largely because that would be redundant and pointless.) But what I will say is this: The original video game was basically Ringworld + Starship Troopers + zombies. That’s a pretty awesome premise.

HALO – THE FALL OF REACH (Eric Nylund): I bring that up primarily because the premise for The Fall of Reach can basically be summed up as Ender’s Game + Starship Troopers.

This proves to be an effective and entertaining variation on the themes of the original game. By shifting the underlying tropes of the story, Nylund manages to weave a tale which is true to the original without merely rehashing its content. (This can be a very fine line for tie-in fiction to tread: If you simply retread the original the result is repetitive and dull — like looking at something that’s been xeroxed too many times. If you chart your own course, on the other hand, you can end up violating the reader’s sense of how the fictional universe should work.)

Unfortunately, the training sequences lack the cleverness and unique insight which make Ender’s Game or The Hunger Games into effective young adult literature by bringing the reader along on the protagonist’s journey of discovery.The military ops are handled with more cleverness and detail, but end up being just a trifle too disjointed: They’re effective vignettes, but don’t feel like a cohesive narrative building towards some greater climax.

With that being said, if you’re a fan of Halo — or just a fan of military SF — this is a book worth checking out. It’s a fun read that kept me turning the pages.

(As a tangential note, I was amused when this book made me aware — for the very first time — that the SPARTANs are supposed to be super-fast. One of the things I had always kind of liked about Halo was the more slow / more-realistic pace it had compared to other shooters of the time. Discovering that it was actually supposed to be representing superhuman speed only served to drive home how completely inferior console controls are for first-person shooters.)

HALO – THE FLOOD (William C. Dietz): The back cover pitch for The Flood is that it will depict the events from the first video game from alternative points of view. That actually sounded really interesting to me: One of the things I really enjoyed about Halo: Combat Evolved was the implication that there was a wider, guerrilla-style war being fought across the surface of Halo as both the UNSC and Covenant forces explored this strange and alien world. Between the armed conflict, the mega-relics of the Forerunners, and the emerging threat of the Flood itself, there’s a ton of potential for developing original material while capitalizing on the video game narrative itself by showing the Master Chief’s journey (and its impact) through the eyes of others.

Unfortunately, the back cover pitch was lying to me. 80% of the book is just a novelization of the game (which is precisely as interesting as you would imagine a faithful novelization of a first-person shooter would be). The rest is just bland cliche starring a rotating cast of dimwitted stereotypes who have been hit over the head a few too many times with the Stupid Protagonist Hammer.

This is a book you should definitely skip.

HALO – FIRST STRIKE (Eric Nylund): One of the most fantastic and fascinating aspects of media consumption is the act of closure. In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud refers to this phenomenon as “blood in the gutters”, demonstrating how the space between one panel and the next forces the reader to perform a creative act: “Here, in the limbo of the gutter, the human imagination takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea.” He uses the example of showing a serial killer raising an axe in one panel and then “hearing” the victim scream off-panel in the next. “I may have drawn a raised axe in this example, but I’m not the one who let it drop or decided how hard the blow, or who screamed, or why. That, dear reader, was your special crime, each of you committing it in your own style.” (The parallel to a horror film in which a victim is killed off-screen is obvious.)

But this phenomenon, in my opinion, is not limited to small events. And one of the dangers of tie-in fiction which attempts to “fill in the gaps” between one story and the next is that it can very easily start screwing with the closure which the viewer has already provided. This creates a natural friction and resistance from the reader as the foreign, incompatible material tries to “wipe out” their own creative response.

This is a problem which First Strike — which seeks to fill in the gap between Halo and Halo 2 — runs into headlong. And it’s severely exacerbated by some significantly inaccurate handling of continuity from Halo 2 (which may be at least partially the result of Nylund writing the book before the game was finished).

With that being said, Nylund succeeds once again at giving us an entertaining pulp romp through the Halo universe. The military ops are once again clever and varied, and Nylund also succeeds at bringing to life a cast of supporting characters that give the book depth and significance.

GRADES:

HALO – THE FALL OF REACH: C+
HALO – THE FLOOD: F
HALO – FIRST STRIKE: C-

Eric Nylund / William C. Dietz / Eric Nylund
Published: 2001 / 2003 / 2003
Publisher: Del Rey
Cover Price: $6.99 / $6.99 / $6.99
ISBN: 0345451325 / 0345459210 / 0345467817
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