A short description of this game would be MicroProse's X-Com with the back story of James Cameron's Avatar. Anyone familiar with both of those properties will not find much new in Perfect Blue.

But that's not all bad. I've been wanting to see an X-Com adaptation for quite some time, and Perfect Blue could easily be made into one. The base construction and management system, as well as the research and manufacturing, is pretty much the same. The changes (the do-it-yourself tech tree, for example) are all pretty easy ones to make. The general formula of game play is also the same, though applied to a different situation (freedom fighting instead of defense from invasion); players acquire and equip vehicles and teams to do various missions around the globe.

As for the Avatar connection, a powerful and greed-driven evil corporation has come to a planet that is rich in a super rare and super valuable mineral. The bad guys then start strip-mining the planet and abusing the native blue people. The players come into the picture as the blue people and their allies who resist the evil corporation.

However, humans are not the villains of Perfect Blue. That role is passed to aliens called Andromedians, who are described as having a Communist government. The humans are charismatic humanitarians who once brought prosperity and enlightenment to the other races by spreading their (essentially American) way of life. Humans are now fellow victims of the Andromedians and sympathetic to the plight of the blue people.

The art and writing are both unpolished. If it were just the art, it wouldn't be an issue, but the book does not seem to have been proof-read very thoroughly. The writing seems awkward at times and there is an inconsistency or two that I found that appear to be leftovers from previous drafts. Worse are some strange and, to me, fairly annoying notions to be found in the game. It says among other things: cyborg and android mean the same thing, but cyborg is the more common term for a non-biological manufactured person; semi-automatic is when a gun fires a burst; there is a particular alien creature that is much smarter than a chimpanzee, but not smart enough to be sentient.

I can't really see my gaming group liking Operation: Perfect Blue as is, but it may be worthwhile to surgically extract the elements that drew me to purchase it to begin with. It is most certainly not worth the origional listed price of $39.99, but the $5.00 I got it for as part of a bundle seems more reasonable.

For the price, there is enough art here to make the collection worthwhile as filler art. While the images are decent resolution, many of them are very small and would only be suitable for filler or accent art. Some line drawings look like sketches and not finished pieces.

This is a decent work. The setting is a man-made island, which is very nicely mapped, something you don't always see. Myself, I would have placed it in a RL city because maps are easy to come by, but no problem.

The product's art is second-rate, but not enough to detract.

It begins with a very good piece of intro fiction.

The blurbs selling the game do a good job of presenting the concept-a mutated virus creates supernatural-like beings which the PCs battle. Its an innovative concept in its presentation.

The downside is that nearly every great idea is countered by a less-than-great counterpart. The setting of a man-made island-city is offset by the idea that the US military would build a biowar facility under this dense urban population, where security was easily compromised, and where a perimeter failure would infect millions. Since the PCs are gov't agents, this means they are employed by, and rely on, idiots.

The game has an extensive weapons list and provides pages of illiustrations of the weapons, a very good idea. However, instead of using clipart or the professional line drawings avalible everywhere (the weapons are modern day) they use freehand drawings done by someone who does not own a ruler.

A terrible idea was the linkage of in-game terminology to religious concepts (DEVIL virus, archangel counter-chips), which is offensive to some religions and comes across as very juvenile. It badly damages the overall tone of what strives to be a grim, dark setting.

In all, not a bad game; the designers break some new ground and present some things in a new light. A fair buy at $10, but its no AFMBE.

The real question here is: why purchase an OGL product in the wake of 4th edition? The short answer is that Deathstalkers II diverges from d20 as much as it emulates it.

Innovations to OGL:

Two additional attributes--Courage and Speed; Attribute ranges contingent upon character race; races have special attacks; combat governed by actions per round; defense is dynamic, requiring a die roll, armor provides DR; Skills are specifically defined and can be leveled; Feats and skills may be purchased with raw XP, or leveled-up in the usual manner; Spell casting capacity is determined via Con; Clerics level up by purchasing spells with XP

"Old School" Elements: Wizards learn spells categorically, like in 2nd edition; Each class has a different XP table; XP can be gained by subduing monsters; Each character level for each class has a title The game is virtually self-contained.

General Overview:

I purchased this game during the GM's Day Sale in honor of Gary Gygax's passing because I was in the mood for something "old-school," and the game's description had a "white box" feel. You can see from the list above that it doesn't disappoint here. The available classes and races are, however, tailored specifically to the game world. Halflings and a monk class are curiously absent, for instance. Although the system is reasonably crunchy, I'd have few qualms introducing new roleplayers using it because the book contains a number of tutorial narratives covering key elements, like combat.

As far as the setting is concerned, think high fantasy with a horror twinge, though not as bleak as Midnight. The world is recovering from a series of global terrorist attacks perpetrated by a race of demons awakened from frozen sleep and a race of demoniac constructs. There are some clearly Tolkienesque elements here, but I see this as more of an homage to old school gaming rather than a hindrance. The setting information focuses on the nations of a single continent within the game world, and a full illustrated bestiary of threats is provided. Setting info is also embedded in the race and class descriptions, which are frankly fairly generic. A detailed pantheon, best described as Pantheistic Zoroastrian is provided.

Esthetically speaking, the art consists of top-notch pencils; the layout is professional; the font is notably small, but readable. The writing quality vacillates from crisp to droll. Reading consecutive passages about "the Dark Forge," "the Dark Anvil" and the "Dark Hammer" made me feel like I was trapped in a late 80s chocolate syrup commercial. Although this book is more complete than perhaps any other FRPG I've seen, it's not entirely so. It lacks encounter tables and any sort of NPC matrix for the given classes.

That said, Deathstalkers II is a mammoth accomplishment from a company whose philosophy clearly is to provide self-contained , playable games at reasonable prices. Fans of Palladium Fantasy, Fantasy Hero or Rolemaster, may want to have a look.

Guys! Guys! My first reaction is that this looks awesome but a 695 page PDF without bookmarks! That really is the stuff of horror. More detailed review to follow once I have hacked my way through this monster.