Post originally by CodexArcanum at 2005-06-03 07:46:02
Converted from Phorums BB System

I'm not going to argue too hard on the points in this review, everyone has a pretty firm opinion of their own on WW2. However, I did feel that the game maintained a pretty fair tone as far as race, gender, and other issues went considering the game's time period. WW2 was a pretty racist, sexist, and other-ists time and writing a game about such a subject that tries for more than just random Nazi killing is a tough and bold challenge.

I felt that Detwiler actually made the Germans a lot better on the supers front than most nations. All that Nazi propaganda about being a superior race apparently sank in. As to the Japanese, it seemed to me that he was generally fair about the descriptions. There are a few Japanese Talents in the book, and I believe that one of them is described in a massive fight with an American super and the Japanese Talent wins. I read Dennis' point about Japanese individuality and it seemed pretty accurate based on my knowledge of WW2 history. It seemed to me that they were very convinced of the strength of their nation, and thus did not have as strong a need for belief in thier own strength. But to each their own, the book isn't the end all of how you run the game, and I haven't even done a game in the Pacific yet.

Speaking of, I'm sorry that the reviewer doesn't feel any need to play the game. I've run a few sessions for my group and they always have a killer time. Power creation is fast and mercifully simple. We had human characters in less than 10 minutes, and about 10-20 more minutes to get powers worked out and balanced like everyone wanted. Ironically, I mostly just run the game as Nazi-bashing, my group like that kind of thing, but I can see it working great for exploring other issues during the war.

Anyway, the ORE is a very fast and fun system. Everyone really enjoyed the speed and deadliness of combat. It's definately a system that stays out of the way of your gameplay, and it doesn't matter if your group is a "kill 'em and take their stuff" or likes to play with a little more depth.

One reccomendation I'll make to anyone who wants to play this game: little plastic army men. For me, it just really helps me visual the battles better. Other groups can do it all visually, some will go more wargame with it, but I find that using those $1 a bag army guys works great for keeping the field under control.