Sofar, I've not been impressed with this book. It had potential but the shortcomings of it seem to outweigh the positives. There are a few gems in here, but you've gotta sift a whole mess of coal to get at them.

It looks like the authors were trying to create their own gaming universe, but bad art, bad editing and bad chacacters seem to be the order of the day. It's like the first wave of Image comic characters. All flash. No substance.

I'm not mad that I purchased it, just disappointed at what it could have been.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: 1) SOME of the art for this book is not crap. It could very well show up in a comic. 2) I Like the fact that every one of the characters have plot hooks and suggested possible adventures. 3) I like that all of the characters presented aren't above the default starting power level for M&M. 4) The book has both a Table of Contents and an Index. I love this, BUT (see dislike #1)<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: 1. While the book contained a Table of Contents and an Index, it lacks PAGE NUMBERING. This is a major major problem.

1. The layout could definitely use some work. The book is done in simple two-column format with no embellishments.
2. The art for some of the characters is bad. Some of it VERY bad. Some attempts at photo-realistic art falls flat in the B&W format.
3. The characters are just odd. It seems like a good deal of thought went into some of them but with no frame of reference (ie. Game World), they seem to be islands unto themselves. And some of them are just lame.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

An interesting collection of spells, I find myself torn but generally happy. Some (NOT the majority, but a notable minority) of the spells seem to bend some of the basic D20 principles of spell creation (a few are too strong, a few are too weak). Conversely, the spells are quite creative and just /feel/ fun, which more than makes up for this deficit.

I love the names of several of these spells: A Fool's Nose Turns Blue, Rust Your Blade To Nasty Scrumbles, and "You're Not Real! Get Back In Your Book!" as good examples. Most of the spells are meant for Wizards/Sorcerers, of course, but there is a good mix of spells for Bards, Rangers and Clerics as well. The mix of spells is also good for levels, with at least as many for the lower levels (0-3) as for the higher; in fact, I think there are a few more for the lower levels, but I have yet to actually count them.

So give it a try, but watch out for specific spells. Choose carefully from this product and you will have a lot to add to your game.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Fun new ideas for spells (and spell titles!). Several variations on spells to apply in new situations. Three pdf files in one (Portrait, Landscape, Printer Friendly).<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Several typos and some questionable application of spell principles -- you will have to weed through these spells carefully to decide which to use and which not to use in any given campaign.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Another fifty spells as a follow-up to the previous product (Blasphemous Secrets and More Forbidden Lore). Many of the same delights and warnings apply to this product -- fun spell names, good distribution of levels, and questionable power of some of the spells.

This offering provides some Druid, Ranger, and even an Assassin spell into the general mix. As with the previous product, most of the spells are aimed at Wizards/Sorcerers, but there are goodly number of Cleric, Bard, and Ranger spells. And, just as before, the level distributions skews slightly in favour of the lower spell levels (0-3), but since these get more "play time" than the higher levels, I like this.

Once again you will need to watch for specific spells. A few of them are overpowered, a few are underpowered (fewer), and some just might not fit with your notion of what magic is all about in your world. With judicious reading by a GM, however, the few bad apples will be weeded out swiftly.

Once again, I have to point out the titles of some of the spells: Bow Before Your True Master, The Moon Is Angry, Find Me The Greatest Smith In The Land, and The Weaver's Unwelcome Guest are just a sampling of the imaginative titles. Personally I prefer such titles to the rather more generic and bland titles such as "Magic Missile" and "Dispel Magic", but that is a matter of taste.

Overall, I think this is product is a good bargain, with the provisos listed above.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Fun spell names, good range of spell levels, three files in one (Portrait, Landscape, Printer Friendly)<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Questionable application of some spell creation principles. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

If you need some evil magic in your campaign (and who doesn't?) this is the perfect book for that. At first glance, you might think the price is steep for just another dark magic spell book, but it's 55 pages with 99 spells, so that makes it well worth the money.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Some of the spells are original and imaginative, and there are a lot of spells to choose from.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Well, some of the spells aren't original or imginative, but that's certainly to be expected with that many of them<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

This was bad. Really, really bad.

I admit that part of my bias is personal taste but I honestly felt as if the characters were not all that exciting. The art was nothing short of abyssmal and whereas the writing was not great, the writing was not stellar, either.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: I like the fact that the author attempted to put out a product in a market that sorely needed some excitement. The PDF market does not have enough Mutants and Masterminds products and at least the author took the initiative to try.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I did not like the stale characters. I hated the horrid artwork. (I would raher have seen no artwork and left things to my imagination.)<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

If you love super heroes and comics, you're gonna love Mutants and Masterminds. If you love Mutants and Masterminds, you're gonna love this book. It is a must for your M&M library! Buy it!<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Short version: great writing and ideas, art and layout not so good. In all, buy!

Longer: The villains are all original and well thought out, you won't find any versions of well known comic book villains with the serial numbers filed off here. Many are a bit on the weird side, but never crossing the line into silly.

The writing is witty and light hearted, despite the often grotesque subjects. This is an enjoyable and easy read.

The art is bought from several sources and lacks consistancy. "Bad guys" also uses plenty of art from LPJ Designs Image Portfolios, available on this site, and I can't say I'm a fan of their stiff and posing style. Layout is a bit too basic, and lacks all attempts at flair. Frankly, it looks as if it's set in a word processor.

Bottom line, though, is that this is a great product, very usable, plenty of good ideas and a pleasure to read. The art and layout are minor drawbacks to an otherwise excellent job.

This is an awesome M & M Superlink supplement! Highly recommended for anyone in using NPCs for their campaign! I really liked the artwork and the character descriptions. Definitely worth investing time and money!

This is a solid product with a few minor flaws. The flaws are as follows:

1. Some of the artwork just isn't that great

2. There's tons of whitespace and the layout needs some work. The layout modeled in 'The Algernon Files' is probably the best MnM character layout I've seen. The whitespace does leave room for notemaking on a print copy and each character starts a new page. It's a matter of taste.

3. A few powers seem to break the rules as I understand them. For instance, the Ice Queen has Force Field and Energy Field at her maximum PL. This strikes me as redundant.

On the good side:

The villains are well thought out with GREAT backstories and adventure hooks. There is no lack of originality here, at least in terms of stories and origins. They tend to be a bit dark and grotesque, but I think it's fair to say that if the demo put you off, then you won't buy the product. Unlike many products, Thomson's villains should slip into any campaign with a great deal of ease. Everyone else claims this, but Thomson delivers. I can see myself using the vast majority of the villains in this PDF without any problem.

Almost all of the villains are good and some will provide absolutely memorable sessions for the MnM game. This product, despite its flaws, stacks up well against print products like Crooks and the Algernon Files, especially when the price is considered.

I'm looking forward to 'More Bad Guys'.

I love this product. It's funny and inspiring.

The weapons could have been presented in a neater way, like in a table or something, but I understand that it's easier to cut and paste the text this way so it's probably for the best.

Some annoying repetition of information when several weapons have the same effect, but again, that simplifies cutting and pasting and reduces the amount of time spent searching for the effect.

It's supposed to be compatible with D20 Modern, but I'm not so sure. It breaks the standard rules for firearms all the time (all firearms do 2 dice of damage, have a threat range of 20 and causes double damage on a crit in D20 Modern, but in this book you will find weapons dealing anything between one to 15 dice of damage, cause criticals with x3 or x4 damage, and with threat ranges from 16-20). This means we have to guess how to use some of the feats like "double tap" or "burst fire" with these weapons. Why is burst fire less efficient with a super-advanced firearm than with our normal kind? (A weapon causing 2d10 fired on burst setting gets a 100% increase to damage, a weapon causing 5d10 only gets a 40% increase?)

I suppose the rules are "broken" in order to provide more of a difference for the super-advanced weapons to shine, but it's still something which could have been taken into consideration by the author.

I really don't regret my 9$, this book is really excellent. There is so many different and good ideas. For example, the "Pirhana Ball" is a weapon of choice for an assassin, and I can't wait to have a NPC use it against my players... It's really the kind of good idea I would never had myself when running a sci-fi adventure.

Also, many weapons get a funny description, and I had good time reading about weapons that otherwise appear much silly. For example, those weapons made of extremely dense material, so the axe's blade weighs 3 tons and requires an in-built antigrav device. IMO, extremely dense material remains dense because of gravity, but once taken out of that neutron star, it inflates back to normal size. Likewise, anti-grav will negates weight but not mass, so this weapon still remains unusuable... So, this weapon will never be used in my setting; nonetheless it was extremely fun to read. I had a good laugh not because of the silliness, but because of the comical writing style.

This is the last d20 science fiction weapons book you'll ever need. In fact, you'll probably never use all of the gizmos in this book, but individual sections may be well-used depending on the campaign. We're talking even more guns than Perpetrated Press's Arsenal. It's not all guns, though. Everything from a living claw to the Thanatos (Destroy The Universe) Device is covered.

If it's in a sci fi movie, you'll probably find it here.

Very disappointing, despite the reduced price. The images are created in a 3D modelling program that appears to be Bryce, and are consequently very poor resolution (72 dpi, completely unsuitable for any kind of print-based application). The images themselves aren't terribly suitable for a web-based use, either: they're very blocky and jagged, and in some cases poorly designed: a quick sampling of the rifles and pistols shows a number of items that are little more than blobs with a texture. An interesting notion, though: it may be worth it to develop a product like this using a vector-based illustration program--bona fide usable SF clip art. Hmmm....

Wow. Anything with this many guns in it has got to be great. I can't wait to work some of these items into my campaign!

I got this because I was putting together a sci-fi campaign. Boy oh boy, I got in over my head! There are so many cool weapons listed, I don't know which kinds to make the "default" tech level. If you want more weapons than you know what to do with, get this PDF!!