I'm really not sure what to say about this. It has potential, and it reaches for the stars (literally and figuratively).

Unfortunately, it kinda doesn't get there.

The typesetting in this makes my memos look good. I'm sorry, I'll be honest. It's just not that good a job of typesetting. The background image obscures the text, and cuts out at the top and bottom of the page, leading to a cringe on every page. The art is decent, but doesn't follow the rules of real-estate (location, location, location, anyone?). Throw in the fact that it looks like it was from a few years ago (and I've authored a monochrome webcomic, it's not hard, but it's not to its full potential), and has absolutely no color (this makes sense for printing, but a .pdf can have colors. I can do coloring, and the nice crisp lines (at least for the cover art, the rest of the art seems to come from a variety of methods, the Greys look pencil-sketched, and the Pentarans and Daemons look actually to have had some shading done) seem to beg for it.

The rules, while good, are still nothing exceptional. d20 with modifiers gripe here: Like I say on most every review, the one-die system is nice, but if you put on too many modifiers, you don't get a fair game since someone always wins all the time, and others will always lose.

The main strength of the game is its diversity, which it does halfheartedly. The intro was very exciting, but having a mere 5 character classes (arguably with specializations, but really, be honest, there's five, and they choose from different lists sometimes) restricts players, and the lack of a dedicated Psi-user for anyone but humans is disappointing. However, there are more weapons than I know what to do with.

There's a lot of detail in some areas, too. For instance, ships can have a separate laundry, for crying out loud. But you can only follow given rules for Soldiers, Pilots, Merchants, Psi-Ops (Human only, the other races lose out), and Nobles. What is it with nobles in space anyways? It seems like every space game has to have player-class nobles, did I miss this memo?

I'm torn over this review. On one hand, there's obviously a lot of work in this product. On the other hand, it looks like it was done by an amateur or novice, without consulting people before letting it off the chain.

Really, for $8, you don't get very much product. If it were priced with similar products ($2 or $4, maybe), I'd say yes, but as is, I would sit this one out, unless you absolutely need a sci-fi game to play immediately without getting into a Star Wars/Star Trek/Firefly-Serenity/Battlestar Galactica/Babylon 5/Starship Troopers dominance fight.

Unfortunately, the only rage this filled me with, was the rage to quit the one of ten Adobe Reader windows I have open that contained the rules for this. In fact, it seems to be made to prevent Nerd Rage, since it takes generic things that feel more like a conspiracy theory compilation and mesh it together in such a way that will make any nerd agree that any of the aforementioned settings are better.

Really, the only thing about this that was noteworthy was the Messianic Greys, but that was really not enough. I know it's supposed to be a generic version so you avoid the price tag and setting wars, but if it's generic, they may as well put in some good stuff with it. There's a fine line between generic and nondescript, and this goes to the nondescript side.

Would it be worth $8? No, probably not. Would it be worth $4 or $2? Quite possibly.