I have to admit I was hoping to see Commissar Cain as an NPC along with his Valhallan comrades...

That aside, this is a great set of rules...one that brings the Imperial Guard to life. The rules are easy to read, although I would have liked to see character creation presented earlier in the process. Breaking it up the way it is, while making some sense, might be confusing for those new to RPGs in general. The regiment choices are interesting, and provide a fair amount of variety when it comes to designing adventures. The Comrade system is also slightly unclear, especially since the rules governing them are split into a number of different locations (Character Creation and Combat). It might be better to deal with them in Combat, since that's where the bulk of their rules are located.

A very sold add-on for the Covert Ops system, and especially useful for GMs who may not want to create their own agency. It also makes a great template for those who want to branch out and give Covert Ops their own specific setting flavor.

This is a great system IF you're wanting to run wide-open espionage games in the style of James Bond or Matt Bourne. If you're looking for more gritty stuff, Covert Ops doesn't really fit the bill. That's fine, of course, but players and GMs need to be aware of the differences.

I found these rules to be especially suited for a Mission: Impossible or Bourne style of game; something where there's a lot of very fluid action and a character's cover identity isn't intended to last more than a few seconds. If you're aiming for a game in the style of the movie Ronin or the like, you may have trouble making these rules work in a satisfactory way. I'm also not a fan of character archetypes of the sort used here, although they do make for fairly quick character creation and fit in well with a Mission: Impossible type of game. The "Bones" system for altering rolls and some game outcomes is quite useful...something that I think is needed in any modern system without magic.

In short - good game if you're looking for something fast-paced and fluid. Not so good if you're looking for something in the vein of the original Top Secret rules. It's also not as elegant as the James Bond RPG system, but a big step above Top Secret/SI.

I have to admit that I bought this purely for the Top Secret adventure, and found it something of a mixed bag. Like all of Rasmussen's published TS adventures it's detailed enough (but not overly so), but it's also got a shaky plot and tends to be more "direct action" in nature, which TS isn't optimized for. TS works best when you have more cloak and less dagger in the missions, and Scorpion Sting is mostly dagger. The oasis is also very reminiscent of Sprechenhaltestelle...the city area detailed in the first TS module.

I originally rated this a '4', but downgraded it based on a couple of factors. One is what I feel is the unnecessary complexity of some of the core rules (commented on in my review of the Player's Guidebook), but the bigger issue is the title. This should really be called the GM's Guidebook (not an addendum), as it's really essential if you want to run a good game of Aces & Eights. There's some very solid information here for a GM looking to run a Western campaign (so good that I'd recommend it to anyone looking to run this kind of game, even with a different rules system), and as with all products in this line it's visually stunning.

Another visually stunning product from Kenzer, in my opinion it falls down when it comes to the actual rules. I found the whole system to be cumbersome and geared more toward originality (no one's done it THIS way before, so it must be good) as opposed to playability. The lack of character classes isn't original, and was actually handled in a more streamlined (dare I say elegant) way by the old FGU product Wild West (it wasn't anywhere near as pretty, but was at least as complete...more so when it came to animals in the game). I'm not a fan of needing additional components (cards, poker chips, and so on) to play a game when those elements could be done as easily (if not more so) with dice.

The alternate history is an interesting touch (although likely not needed), and the coverage of weapons is better than average for games in this genre (not as good as Wild West's but better than ICE's Outlaw or TSR's Boot Hill). I'm a big fan of Old West gaming and really wanted to give this a '5' but just couldn't do it based on the unnecessary "novelty" in the rules system.

Again, this is a visually stunning addition to the Aces & Eights game line. The maps are good, and the NPCs have the level of detail one expects from this line. Sadly, though, the adventure material is lacking. The mechanism for determining faction reactions to PCs is cumbersome, and seems to have been done for impact rather than utility. A simple chart would have been much easier and more logical.

Visually this is a stunning product, like all the Aces & Eights material. The NPCs are as detailed as a GM could hope for, although it would have been nice if as much attention had been paid to linking the module to the town setting included with the GM's Addendum rulebook. The overall organization is decent, and the boxes with adventure and dialog possibilities for GMs based on the actions of their players are helpful. They do consume a fair amount of space, though, making the adventure seem more involved or substantial that it actually is. On the whole it's a great product for those new to a Frontier setting but experienced GMs might wish for more "meat" in the adventure and less in the way of window dressing.