3:16 CATS is a pleasant surprise for a small, independent, British-created RPG. It is exactly what the description says it is: no more, no less. The Layout is well done: simple, to the point, interesting to read. The art could have been better, but the gritty cartoons seem to convey the correct tone of the game. The game mechanics are easy to understand with the first reading; I will be anxious to play this game soon. • 3:16 kind of brings Halo or Starship Troopers to mind when you imagine blasting big buggies in the middle of a deserted space station.

While I don't like the use of the F-word in most RPGs (I found over 4 uses in this book), never-the-less I understand what this game is supposed to be, so I am letting it slide as I rate this game what it deserves for the value paid.*

• = For 10 dollars, it's a little over-priced, but the game was a refreshing break from the normal RPG. I feel OK with the purchase.

Pick it up if you have 10 dollars to spare: if you like straight, to-the-point cinematic combat and fast dungeon crawling, all mixed up with fragging a plethora of space aliens with a blatant disregard to "sacred" life and ammunition limits (yuh, right), then this game is for you!

This has become one of my favorite games. Character creation is crazy quick and the mechanics are simple to explain and understand. The mechanics don't support story at all, so whatever story there is, is what you inject into the game. So, the game can be a mindless kill-a-thon where the characters massacre worlds, or as complex as your group wishes. This works as a great introductory roleplaying game or as a pick up game. I will always have this game with me, whenever I go and game somewhere.

3:16 Carnage Amongst the star is a simple game of killing things. What things, any alien life you encounter. The game only has to stats FA - Fighting ability and NFA - Non Fighting ability. It is a Roll under system where you roll and if you get your score or below you succeed. Damage from weapons equates to how many aliens you kill. The Gm is given a structured point system to determine how to develop his encounters and use aliens special abilities. He is also given random tables to determine planets and aliens.

Play was very fun with only 2 players and a gamemaster, the rest of the crew was filled out with nameless marines that soaked up damage. An entire game played out in just about 1 1/2 hours and that was with us trying to figure out rules as we went. I wouldn't recommend this game for long campaign play, but I would insist that it is perfect for one shots when not all of the players show up.

Pick this game up and give it a try. If you like Aliens, or Starship troopers this is the game you've been looking for.

3:16 - Carnage among the stars. Just say it out. From the get-go it slaps you around, and tells you to straighten up, cause you're in the infantry now! Originally written for a 24-hour contest, author Gregor Hutton has refined it and rewritten the rules to actually work.

A quick read of 96 pages, it is beautifully decorated, and has a cartoony feel to it. Perfectly blending flavor text and actual rules most seasoned players will have read - and understood - the entire thing within a couple of days.

The key to any good RPG is clear rules for characters and a good system for conflict resolution. 3:16 has both. I have yet to find a player who has not grasped the basic consepts of the game within ten minutes of explanation and demo-playing. Simply limited to two kinds of dice, d6 and d10, the game features just about any kind of weapon you might want, from hand-to-hand weapons and grenades through sidearms to weapons that yield 1d100 kills.

Another great thing with this game is the fact that there are a lot of examples of use of the rules, which help understanding greatly.

The second time I played 3:16 was as a game master. My group loved it, and we had an excellent time, with one of my players scoring 83 kills in a single mission.

3:16 is simple to grasp, and quick to play, a single mission taking up to two and a half hours to play through. Featuring the best of both the roleplaying and boardgame worlds, this RPG still has ample opportunity for actual character development both in between missions and through. using the game's wrench in the machinery; flashbacks.

Best friends may not be the most testosterone filled RPG in the market, but dang it if its not one of the most creative to come along in a long time. If you have seen your share of dungeons, dragons, cyborgs and evil bases, you should enjoy best friends, whom appear to be more viscious than all the previously listed

Best friends produced by Box Ninja and written by Gregor Hutton is an RPG heavy system that has its players playing the rolls of girls with serious problems towards one another. The tone of the game is very much tounge in cheek. This game is not a cutesy RPG for kids, as the name suggests. It appears that when girls have it in for each other, it gets very cutthroat. Of course any man who has ever taken his wife to a dinner, only to have another woman have her dress on has witnesses this before. The game is best for five players, though there are rules for anywhere between 2 to 8 players (not including a GM). The 50 pgs are all well laid out and contains both PDF bookmarks, table of content bookmarks and internal bookmarks to make navigation pretty easy.

A unique thing about the game is that it does not have a ?set? RPG setting. Game Masters are free to play the game out however they wish. You can use any setting, fantasy, scifi, serious, silly, horror or anything else you can think of. If you tweak it a bit, you can even lay it over your d20 game and play both systems simultaneiously. So those of you whom have always wanted to run an all Red Sonja game are finally in luck.

Once its determined what will be played, the game master develops scenerios with each scenario beginning with a conflict between the players based on their dislikes of each other. Players must play out their characters as their dice indicate.

There are no dice to be rolled. All conflict resolutions are solved by whom has the higher rating. You also get a few ?friend chips? that allow you to temporarily boost your ability to win a conflict. For the typical RPGer, this appears to be the biggest weakness in the system. The lack of randomness can make you feel trapped/

For the Player

Like, the most coolest thing about this game, is like the character creation system. Its like, so innovative. Seriously!. Instead of, like, you picking out your character traits, your character traits are selected by how, like, the other players see you.. You first select a name, then everyone shows everyone else their name. Next to the five hatreds, you list a player?s name like other than yourself. The hatreds are: pretty, cool, smart, tough and rich, which are also your key abilities. If two people placed you as like pretty, you have a 2 bonus in pretty. The game is like not dependant on lots of stats so after your attributes are determined, you are free to write down all your other loves, hates and like of course girly items you own.

This creates a very free form environment like for the player and like adds a lot to character creation.

For the Game Master

Again, you will, like, love the character creation which really takes a step away from power gaming. You will, like, find yourself putting in a lot of, like, work. Best Friends is a light preparation RPG which means you will, like, have to come up with things on the fly and ,like make a lot of decision making because of the vagueness of what constitutes what hatred.

Like also, The game is built around playing it session by session, and does not lend itself to a ?like? full campaign. But for th

The Like Iron Word

I like so enjoyed this game. The player creation system is awesome and I can see myself instituting a similar system in my d20 game. This is another game for the pure RPGer that is unusually polished for a new system. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - The player creation was very unique

• lots of rpg opportunities
• Way to vent some steam when your daughter runs up her cell phone bill. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - Little randomness
• lots of dm in game work<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>