Post originally by spike at 2005-06-05 18:40:24
Converted from Phorums BB System

Well, I have to go by the review as I can't just hop down to the store to browse the book myself, but between the Space Indians, the cow analogs (why can't future people just take cows with them?) and the frontier planet desciptions (right down to having only one major city and a bunch of small, probably dusty towns) and I'm betting a lot of desert plains sort of land. It sounds pretty Western to me. Consider this list of advanced classes:
The advanced classes are: Air Runner, Barter Jack, Colonial Leader, Gunhand, Lawman, Rancher, Rebuilder, and Velin Guardian

Futuristic analogs ripped from a stereotyped cowboy game. Without seeing the acutal book write ups, and I assume graphical represntations, I'd guess they read alot like any western movie types with only a few stylistic changes to make them futuristic.
So, sure, within limits imposed by the setting you could play a wide variety of games, but I'd guess they'd all feel pretty much like they were ripped from a western in the end, unless you stay in the one thriving metropolis. My beef isn't so much that, after all a great number of good stories are western, or similarly themed (trigun, etc.) or even that it's a bad game, which it doesn't sound like it is, it's that by comparing this to D20 Future you are really comparing apples and oranges.
True, the orange in this case is a bit bland and probably genetically engineered to be 'safe', whereas the apple is just a new breed grown using good stock, to make a really complex metaphor, but the point remains the same.

Still, I am a setting light kinda guy, in the build your own ideas school of thought, so if I ever got a hand on this game, I'd probably just rip the tech out (and maybe a few prestige classes) and smack it into my setting in place of the bland and unappatizing tech in the D20 Future book.