GAME TITLE: Hegemony
REVIEWER NAME: Per Fischer
1) CREATIVE AND EFFECTIVE INCORPORATION OF RULES (1-10): 9
Feedback: This game uses almost every ingredient extremely well. The only teeny weeny grudge I have, personally, is the word Steel. I agree that Steel points sound cool, but to me they don’t really invoke that far-future feeling. In the next edition, I would suggest changing Steel into something as cool as the rest of this incredibly well designed game. Hegemony features the best time ingredient incorporation I have seen so far, and there’s quite a distance to the next best, I’d say.
2) CLARITY (1-10): 6
Feedback: You wrote 39 pages of rules in a week? And they are almost entirely coherent? That’s an effort in its own merit. I did have trouble grogging all the rules, and phases, and especially how to count damage in between sessions, but to hell with that, I enjoyed reading every bit anyway.
3) COMPLETENESS (1-10): 7
Feedback: Sadly, this huge monster of a game in not complete. Chunks are missing, and it is not playable in its current state. That said, I will personally be the first in the queue to order any future edition that is more complete. The sheer scope of this massive multiplayer game is wild.
4) ESTIMATED EFFECTIVENESS IN PLAY (1-10): 6
Feedback: This is a new slant on roleplaying. I probably couldn’t play it as it is without quite a bit of work, but as a whole it’s nicely executed.
5) SWING VOTE (1-10): 10
Final Feedback: I loved this game, I wanted to play it NOW, and it’s even suited to my internet-based lifestyle, where I can play in a small group but participate in a much bigger game at the same time. It’s a new genre of roleplaying, it just has to be.
Anyone who would chose to take a game in this class and scope has to be completely insane. And that’s a good thing in my book. Hobert Roward, whoever you are, I bow to you. My favorite game so far this year.
TOTAL SCORE (add items 1 through 5, above): 38