2002-10-10 -

I Got Ripped Off Once, And Almost Twice

Well, mission accomplished on most fronts. I got Champions, socialized, and got tix for Peter Gabriel at the Palace. (For a rather extortionate price; if the concert sucks I may go postal.) I looked at the Buffy RPG but decided not to buy it. I liked the content but loathed the price- $40 for a < 250 page book? It got even worse when I opened it up and saw lots and lots of photos and quotes from the show scattered liberally around the pages. If my cursory in-store examination was right, you could probably trim the entire thing down to 64 pages of actual rules and sell it for $15, staple-bound. I can only assume they paid a ruinous price for the license and have to recoup somehow. I'll buy it if I start playing it, I guess, but that price is way too high to pay merely to satisfy my urge to collect games.

Freedom Force is not doing a whole lot for me. If it doesn't grow on me I'll probably uninstall it and try to sell it. I want a game that uses something like the X-Com engine but with superpowers. FF feels more like something someone did with an RTS engine. The camera controls are awkward, the manual suboptimal, and the gameplay not especially arresting. I'm glad I didn't pay full price.

Off to give it another try now, though.

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