The author did indeed rectify the editing issues and I have upgraded my rating to five stars. I'll leave the original review below, but I feel the presentation is 100% better.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I love Post Apocalyptic genre stories, games, movies, etc.. Several favorites of mine are Metro 2033 and Fallout 3. I've been gaming for 30 years and I love to see new games.
This is a Capsule, not an actual play review, so take that as you will.
Contamination Europe offers an atmospheric background for a post nuclear war environment in Europe. It uses levels, skills, attributes (Strength, Dexterity, etc.), feats/talents, hit points, etc. Armor absorbs damage. Weapons do a lot of damage vs how many hit points a character has. Health is regained via eating, drinking, bandaging, rest, and medicines. The author gives an encumbrance system in which the character has a certain number of belt, or easily accessible, slots in which to place equipment (and conversely, hard to reach spaces such as in a backpack).
The rules are easy to grasp (skill rolls are made on a d30, roll under your skill or attribute). Beginning skills can go no higher than 13, maxing out at 26 (same as attributes). There are modifiers that can apply (such as aiming).
If I were to run a Metro 2033 or Fallout 3 game I could definitely use Contamination Europe.
The Bad:
The Author's primary language is not English and it shows. By no means does this make it a bad game, but it really needs to be given to an English speaking editor. Some words are used incorrectly and it can jar one from the presentation (though you can figure it out). If this bothers you, it will really drive you nuts.
The weapons are presented in a list/table format. There really needs to be some explanation as to what these weapons are, possibly illustrations of some of them. There really are a lot of them and I am not familiar with European weapons. Same thing with armor. The pictures of several Panzer suits were cool. More of that would have been awesome.
Buy it?
Depends. I do not regret it, but I love picking up rules and AP stuff. The game is a more old school mindset. The price is right for what you get. I think the author can easily expand this into a really good game. It has the feeling of a game the author would themselves use and there is no pretentiousness in the writing.
If you like slick, newer style games, avoid this. You will not like it.
I post as Bloodwolf on rpgnet if anyone has further questions.
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