Steve Carey - 12:09am Jun 27, 2001 PST (#6634 of 6666) "Weck up to thees!" Living close to Hanford Headquarters has its advantages...OOTW (hubba-hubba) is ZERO! Folks, I gotta tell ya that this product just oozes quality. CARDS: are sharp, especially the action cards - beautiful (hats off to Martin Scott). Nice touch to have the Attack cards feature Japanese planes, while the Response cards feature American planes. Included combat aircraft are an excellent mix: Zekes, Val, Sally, Oscar, Nell, Mavis, Kate, Nate, Lily, Dinah, Ann, Betty and Jake (floatplane!) for Japan. Allies have: F4F, Hurricane, Buffalo, TBD, SBD ("Slow But Deadly"), PBY, Blenheim, Hudson, and various models of P-40's. Card stock is what I'd call medium. CAMPAIGNS: are nicely laid out on thick glossy sheets. Pearl Harbor (solitaire), Burma, Coral Sea, Midway, Malaya, and the Phillipines. A pad of Campaign Logs, a Bombing Display, Target Sheets, and a foldout Campaign Game Resource Sheet, are also included. RULES: are laid out in 2 booklets, Basic Game and Campaign Game. A quick glance shows them both to be very easy to read. An extended example-of-play is presented, too. BOX ART: is a recycled use of Rodger's famous rising sun work (think Avalon Hill's FLATTOP and you'll know what I mean). It looks great, and is one of my favorite images anyway, so thumbs up. COUNTERS: look good, standard DiF fare. One American Ace did catch my eye - Stumptner! (Markus, you been holding out on us? - haha) Forget about the long wait for this one. The title of this game may be ZERO!, but first impression rates it a '10' in my book. David R. Moody - 10:23am Jun 29, 2001 PST (#6680 of 6764) Currently playing: June 6th (GMT Games), ASL/DiF Grand Campaign (currently fighting in Belgium), Advanced Civilization (AH computer version), Spaceward Ho! (New World Computing), and Achtung Spitfire (CoA--PBEM Campaign of the Battle of Britain). Out of the Wrapper: Zero, from GMT Games. At last, after years of waiting, the first of the Pacific installments of GMT's excellent Down in Flames series of WWII air combat games has been released, and what a beauty! Full color aircraft cards, a new full-color action deck, plus the usual scenarios and campaigns, all on a more durable stock than previous games in the series. Early war Pacific planes are represented--Zeros, Wildcats, Buffaloes (in both US and British colors, the latter for the Malaya campaign), Dauntlesses, Devastators, three versions of the P-40 (B, C, and E), Vals, Kates, Nells, Bettys, Sallys, Blenheims, Hurricanes, Hudsons, etc. Most Japanese fighters have an Agile ability--each turn, they can use one card as a Scissors card (leaders only, and only if they are Undamaged). At GMT Games Weekend, we learned early on when fighting Zeroes to knock out the wingman first (only a 2 Defensive rating, and Japanese fighters can't take a lot of punishment), then tag-team the leader. Of course, the planes are fully compatible with those from other games, so you can take up early P-38s against the Zeroes, or try the P-40Es against Bf-109Fs over the Med. The box art is spectacular--sharp-eyed grognards will remember it from the old Avalon Hill game Flat Top, but it still looks great. One of Rodger MacGowan's best yet. Campaigns include Pearl Harbor (solitaire), Philippines, Malaya, Midway, and Coral Sea. The last two use a new Carrier warfare campaign system. As I understand it, each carrier battle lasts 4-5 turns, and each player first picks his carrier tactic--close, medium, or long range (this determines recovery of damaged planes, and also whether he wants to run away or stay and fight, as one of the options allows you to try and hide your fleet), then decides what kind of strike, if any, to launch, which determines how many planes go on the strike and how many are left for CAP. Each player then secretly picks and reveals one option. As in earlier games, each player can use an option only once (they may pick the same option). The player picking the lowest numbered option resolves his strike(s) first, then his opponent. There can also be Scout missions, where a Catalina or Mavis tries to get information about the enemy fleet (with or without escorts). The longer the plane survives, the better, which is reflected by adding planes to the strike force. The carrier battles look really interesting and I can't wait to try them out. Other goodies include the usual ace counters (there's even a Colin Kelly counter--he appears in a special mission in the Philippines campaign). In a nice touch, you get a pad of campaign log sheets, and they are specific for each campaign (no more having to photocopy the log sheets, and no more wasted rows on the logs for the shorter campaigns). Well worth the wait, and a must-buy for fans of the series.