Alien RPG - Review

 

Space is vast, dark, and not your friend. Gamma rays and neutrino bursts erupt from dying stars to cook you alive, black holes tear you apart, and the void itself boils your blood and seizes your brain. Try to scream and no one can hear you—hold your breath and you rupture your lungs. Space isn’t as empty as you’d think, either—its frontiers are ever expanding. Rival governments wage a cold war of aggression while greedy corporations vie for valuable resources. Colonists reach for the stars and gamble with their lives—each new world tamed is either feast or famine. And there are things lurking in the shadows of every asteroid—things strange and different and deadly.

Today we have with us the Free League Alien review . In 392 pages we will get fully into the Alien universe.

Game Mechanics

Being a Free League game we will see its famous Zero Engine. All of their games use the same engine with modifications to suit the background. The explanation of the system is simple: you roll a number of 6-sided dice equal to your attribute plus skill, if you get a 6 you will have succeeded. Multiple successes allow your character to do additional things, called extraordinary effects.

Characters have four attributes: Strength, Agility, Wits, and Empathy. They should have between 2 to 5 points in each attribute, depending on the career they choose. A character's health is equal to her strength. Each attribute has 3 associated abilities. It is quite intuitive.

There are 9 career to choose from, the races are set in what we have seen in the Alien universe. Each career  comes with a key attribute, 3 key skills, and a talent. The talent is chosen from one of the 3 options that each career  will offer us. Let's say you could consider the specialization of the character and what he excels at. There is also the option for your character to be an android, which will give you special rules. Players can display their android nature openly or keep it secret.

As I said at the beginning, this game uses the Zero Engine and what it adds to adapt to this universe is stress. As the characters progress through the adventure, their stress level will increase; for example, forcing rolls or encountering a xenomorph. When the player makes his roll, he will add a number of dice equal to his stress level. The rolls apply normally, but if you roll a one on a stress die that's when trouble comes. Since you will have to roll on the panic table. There you will roll a D6 and add your stress level. Your character may begin to shake their hands, they may become paralyzed or start attacking whatever is closest to you.

The rulebook covers all actions that can occur in the Alien universe. We must highlight the initiative, it will be done through a deck of cards and critical injuries. Such injuries are rolled whenever the character's health reaches 0 and can be very deadly.

Game Modes

The system offers us two modes when playing it: Campaign and Cinematographic. They both use the same rules, but are handled very differently. The campaign mode is pretty self explanatory, a group of players will progress through a series of scenarios over many game sessions, while their characters improve. By contrast, the cinematic game is intended to be played in a single session or in a few sessions. The objectives of the characters sometimes conflict, so do not rule out fighting between them. Like the movies, most of the characters are likely to die. As a general rule, they will be played with pre-generated characters who are assigned motivations and objectives for that particular scenario.

Expanded Universe

101 pages of this regulation will be dedicated to the background. It covers everything seen in both the film sagas and the comics. On the inside cover of the book itself we have a map of known space. One chapter is devoted to describing governments and corporations. Another chapter is dedicated to describing star systems for use in games.

An entire chapter of the book is devoted to alien species. We have several species, but the one that stands out the most are the xenomorphs. They will describe to us the seven stages of the life of a xenomorph. We will have all kinds of xenomorphs to fight, from the drone to the queen. One thing to note is how you fight xenomorphs, each one has a specific attack table. These specific attacks are interesting as they can make a player panic or attack them into dropping their weapon.

In the following pages they recommend us how to face the campaigns with a multitude of tables to use as a mother director. These tables will range from creating star systems, planets, and job generator. A cinematographic adventure closes this book.

Conclusion

My biggest fear when purchasing this book was whether it would conflict with the other two sci-fi games in my library, Traveller and Coriolis. Luckily that conflict is non-existent and that is due to the cinematographic game. This mode has a unique twist as it makes you get into the movies and this is what this game shines for. Being such a deadly game, I see it as very difficult to play any kind of campaign. On the other hand, I liked the fact that the xenomorph is there, it's the mythical part of the franchise, but you don't have to use it. Also, the fact that in the cinematic adventures each player has a hidden objective gives a very interesting layer of depth to the game. A highly recommended game that should be on everyone's shelf, especially if you're an Alien fan.