Rating: 
Summary: With great Power...
Review: I am a huge fan of White Wolf's Storyteller books, and I was hugely excited by the release of a superhero module. There are some great aspects in this book, but some serious problems that come with that. The greatest problem is that White Wolf seems to find it necessary to become vague to the point of uselessness in every core book. Even the most fertile imaginations have trouble working out all the details commonly left out, and Aberrant does not fail to disappoint. Combined with some rather cheesy ways of introducing the background, the books intro chapter is likely to leave you saying "HUH?" In a gaming sense, this is a powergamer's dream and a storyteller's nightmare. Even the negative effects of becoming tainted aren't hugely detrimental. In short, if you want to play games by the book, then think twice before you buy this. If you don't mind some tactful editing of the storyline (I run it much as I would a World of Darkness campaign), then the systems are great to use for generating PC superheroes. However, there is a feast of literature on its way to support Aberrant. With Year One and Expose, White Wolf is feeding us more details needed to create an adequate world to surround their wonderful game mechanics. With a little imagination, a lot of work, and some of the support books, this becomes a decent module. I just hope that a second edition with better detail is released in the near future.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Setting
Review: I haven't played RPG's for years, but when I saw this book sitting on the shelf it intrigued me, when I flipped through the pages it intrigued me even more. I bought the book to keep me busy on a very long plane trip, and i was surprised how well thought out the system and the campaign setting was. Since buying this book, I bought the supplements that follow and have watched this world blossom and grow into one of the best campaign settings of all time. Even if you don't play the game you will enjoy the paranoid tapestry that the setting is founded on. X-files meets Watchmen.Great game for anyone who enjoyed the super hero RPG's of old but became to respectable to make time to play them.
Rating:
Summary: At this price it's a bargain
Review: Some people think this booklets are very small and don't have enough juice. But i have read books from White Wolf at $15 or more and just got a few facts and nothing else. This booklets are at a great price and cover enough of the theme to start your head rolling with the ideas. This can be caracterized between two kind of gamers: The Gerber gamers who just want every small detail about the archvillain so they do not have to work at all, and the microwave gamer who gets the bag with the ingredients and a few instructions but all is in your hands. This book is good for the latest and not for the first. The XWF is the eXtreme Wrestling Federation, in the year 2006 people don't bother about puny human wrestlers bahing their heads with chairs and stuff. No, they want superpowered beings throwing cars and spitting plasma at their enemies all in the blink of an eye. It may sound cheap but then you don't enjoy the WWF at all and then you may prefer any other book of the system, anyway at less than five bucks you can take the risk and find out about the idols, the movers and the secrets behind this mega million dollar business. I did and i found it good enough to be tried once, or at least use it as a support history.
Rating:
Summary: Superheros, Mercenaries, Celebrities?
Review: Superheros, or are they? White Wolf created this game as a prequel to an earlier game, "Trinity". Similar to Trinity, it doesn't take place in the World of Darkness, infact, it more or less takes place in our world, except things changed radically in 1998. A space station exploded, littering the Earth with nuclear waste. Soon after people started to display "super powers". Peoples reaction to this, is what makes this game seem most realistic. Novas (as the new super heros are called) are lauded as celebrities by most people. Cults arise devoted to them, Christian Fundamentalist hate them, and they even have their own TV channel a spinoff of E! (the channel is called N!). The game doesn't suffer a syndrome common to many white-wolf games, this is an added plus. Things that many white-wolf fans refer to as "splats", which are essentially loosely defined character classes/organizations don't exist in this game. The characters aren't defined by any other characteristic short of the ones they choose. The organizations seem realistic enough, and aren't purely optimistic, because this is a white wolf game afterall. The notable groups are- Project Utopia (Novas helping make the Earth a better place), the Teragen (Novas are a new species, and are free of human law), the Directive (National Security against Project Utopia and Abberants), the Elites (Corporations of Nova mercenaries), and a number of minor organizations (like criminal syndicates). The Powers Novas have make this game really shine. They reflect the insane amount of power novas have, but fortunately keep much of them out of the reach of starting characters. There are two types of powers: Mega-Attributes (Mega-Strength, Mega-Appearence, Mega-Perception) each with echancements and Quantum Powers. The Quantum powers are extremely broad, and can be better defined by the player. For example, the "generic" Quantum Bolt can be a fireball, an Iceball, a Ball of Lightning, etc. This allows for the players to create, more-or-less, the superhero (super-genius, Super-celebrity) of their dreams. There are a few faults with this game, like a few typesetting errors (like the two sample characters in the back), and the first half of the book (which is full color and incharacter about the setting) lacks any real method of navigation. Also, the game takes place in 2008 after 10 years of having super genius novas around, it's suprising how little things changed (Sure there are lasers, although they are huge weapon emplacements, and their are a number of conveniences like the OpNet replacing the Internet). Overall, I'd recommend this game to anyone interested in playing a Superhero, in a world obsessed with superheros.
Rating:
Summary: Superheros, Mercenaries, Celebrities?
Review: Superheros, or are they? White Wolf created this game as a prequel to an earlier game, "Trinity". Similar to Trinity, it doesn't take place in the World of Darkness, infact, it more or less takes place in our world, except things changed radically in 1998. A space station exploded, littering the Earth with nuclear waste. Soon after people started to display "super powers". Peoples reaction to this, is what makes this game seem most realistic. Novas (as the new super heros are called) are lauded as celebrities by most people. Cults arise devoted to them, Christian Fundamentalist hate them, and they even have their own TV channel a spinoff of E! (the channel is called N!). The game doesn't suffer a syndrome common to many white-wolf games, this is an added plus. Things that many white-wolf fans refer to as "splats", which are essentially loosely defined character classes/organizations don't exist in this game. The characters aren't defined by any other characteristic short of the ones they choose. The organizations seem realistic enough, and aren't purely optimistic, because this is a white wolf game afterall. The notable groups are- Project Utopia (Novas helping make the Earth a better place), the Teragen (Novas are a new species, and are free of human law), the Directive (National Security against Project Utopia and Abberants), the Elites (Corporations of Nova mercenaries), and a number of minor organizations (like criminal syndicates). The Powers Novas have make this game really shine. They reflect the insane amount of power novas have, but fortunately keep much of them out of the reach of starting characters. There are two types of powers: Mega-Attributes (Mega-Strength, Mega-Appearence, Mega-Perception) each with echancements and Quantum Powers. The Quantum powers are extremely broad, and can be better defined by the player. For example, the "generic" Quantum Bolt can be a fireball, an Iceball, a Ball of Lightning, etc. This allows for the players to create, more-or-less, the superhero (super-genius, Super-celebrity) of their dreams. There are a few faults with this game, like a few typesetting errors (like the two sample characters in the back), and the first half of the book (which is full color and incharacter about the setting) lacks any real method of navigation. Also, the game takes place in 2008 after 10 years of having super genius novas around, it's suprising how little things changed (Sure there are lasers, although they are huge weapon emplacements, and their are a number of conveniences like the OpNet replacing the Internet). Overall, I'd recommend this game to anyone interested in playing a Superhero, in a world obsessed with superheros.
Rating:
Summary: Superheros, Mercenaries, Celebrities?
Review: Superheros, or are they? White Wolf created this game as a prequel to an earlier game, "Trinity". Similar to Trinity, it doesn't take place in the World of Darkness, infact, it more or less takes place in our world, except things changed radically in 1998. A space station exploded, littering the Earth with nuclear waste. Soon after people started to display "super powers". Peoples reaction to this, is what makes this game seem most realistic. Novas (as the new super heros are called) are lauded as celebrities by most people. Cults arise devoted to them, Christian Fundamentalist hate them, and they even have their own TV channel a spinoff of E! (the channel is called N!). The game doesn't suffer a syndrome common to many white-wolf games, this is an added plus. Things that many white-wolf fans refer to as "splats", which are essentially loosely defined character classes/organizations don't exist in this game. The characters aren't defined by any other characteristic short of the ones they choose. The organizations seem realistic enough, and aren't purely optimistic, because this is a white wolf game afterall. The notable groups are- Project Utopia (Novas helping make the Earth a better place), the Teragen (Novas are a new species, and are free of human law), the Directive (National Security against Project Utopia and Abberants), the Elites (Corporations of Nova mercenaries), and a number of minor organizations (like criminal syndicates). The Powers Novas have make this game really shine. They reflect the insane amount of power novas have, but fortunately keep much of them out of the reach of starting characters. There are two types of powers: Mega-Attributes (Mega-Strength, Mega-Appearence, Mega-Perception) each with echancements and Quantum Powers. The Quantum powers are extremely broad, and can be better defined by the player. For example, the "generic" Quantum Bolt can be a fireball, an Iceball, a Ball of Lightning, etc. This allows for the players to create, more-or-less, the superhero (super-genius, Super-celebrity) of their dreams. There are a few faults with this game, like a few typesetting errors (like the two sample characters in the back), and the first half of the book (which is full color and incharacter about the setting) lacks any real method of navigation. Also, the game takes place in 2008 after 10 years of having super genius novas around, it's suprising how little things changed (Sure there are lasers, although they are huge weapon emplacements, and their are a number of conveniences like the OpNet replacing the Internet). Overall, I'd recommend this game to anyone interested in playing a Superhero, in a world obsessed with superheros.
Rating: 
Summary: XWF
Review: The XWF is a Wrestling Federation in the Abberant game world. This book has information on it incase one of your characters ever wants to join up. Certainly not important for running the game, it does add flavor and something new for characters to try. Also good is the low price.
Rating:
Summary: Not just for RPG'ers
Review: This book is well written and extremely well thought out. The first half of the book has nothing to do with roleplaying but instead develops the setting, a world where one in a million people has super-powers. Because of the separation of role-playing and fictional elements, the book can be enjoyed both as a role-playing game and as science fiction. The book presents a world with super-humans in a different manner than usual. Instead of having archetypal heroes and villains, the setting is presented in a more realistic manner with most of the Novas (the term the book uses to describe the super-humans) as being motivated by the same things normal people are; they want a good job, be famous, have fun etc. and acting upon these impuslses in realistic ways. This book will appeal to people who are well read and will recognize he philosophies of the various organizations that are described in the book. For example the Teragen (a Nova organization devoted to the liberation of Novas from opression by non-Novas) is based partly on the works of Nietzche and the works of Ayn Rand. The only caveat is that the setting is presented in a non narrative form, it is more in the form of interviews and newspaper clippings, This could be difficult for someone who is unfamiliar with the format to understand. But once one gets over the unfamiliar presentation, ones mind can escape from the boring world we live in to the facinating world of Abberant.
Rating:
Summary: So So
Review: This book is for any of you Aberrant fans. It's quite short but well worth the price. Words of Advice : Enjoy
Rating:
Summary: Not just for RPG'ers
Review: This book is well written and extremely well thought out. The first half of the book has nothing to do with roleplaying but instead develops the setting, a world where one in a million people has super-powers. Because of the separation of role-playing and fictional elements, the book can be enjoyed both as a role-playing game and as science fiction. The book presents a world with super-humans in a different manner than usual. Instead of having archetypal heroes and villains, the setting is presented in a more realistic manner with most of the Novas (the term the book uses to describe the super-humans) as being motivated by the same things normal people are; they want a good job, be famous, have fun etc. and acting upon these impuslses in realistic ways. This book will appeal to people who are well read and will recognize he philosophies of the various organizations that are described in the book. For example the Teragen (a Nova organization devoted to the liberation of Novas from opression by non-Novas) is based partly on the works of Nietzche and the works of Ayn Rand. The only caveat is that the setting is presented in a non narrative form, it is more in the form of interviews and newspaper clippings, This could be difficult for someone who is unfamiliar with the format to understand. But once one gets over the unfamiliar presentation, ones mind can escape from the boring world we live in to the facinating world of Abberant.
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