Zona alpha

[Chimpfoot]

Hi there quick question
Does anyone know a good review for zona alpha?
I already have this is not a test but was wondering if it was particularly different in any way?
Is anyone playing it yet any thoughts ideas
Love to hear anyone's comments if you've time to spare
Cheers all

[Dentatus]

Depends on what you mean by 'good', but

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Zona+Alfa+reviews

[NickNascati]

I haven’t played “This is not a Test”, but I have played Fistful of Lead and Pulp Alley for Stalker type games.  Now that I have Zona Alfa, I will say it is better and more focused that either of the others for this very particular gender of gaming.  If you have read “Roadside Picnic” or any of the “Metro 20..” series, you will have an idea of what you are getting into.  I recommend the rules.

[armchairgeneral]

I got the Zona Alfa rules and having read them through I was really impressed. Looking forward to giving them a go.

[Chimpfoot]

Thanks fellas knew I could count on you
The reviews and comments here lead my on to ash barkers let's play on YouTube.

Seen the rules for £8.41 post free on ebay so think it's worth a punt
Thanks again
Cheers

[Lau]

Blood Beard have a good review here:
https://bloodbeard.blogspot.com/2020/01/review-zona-alfa.html

And a playthrough here:
https://bloodbeard.blogspot.com/2020/02/zona-alfa-crossroads-at-blyatsk.html

[Calnala]

I posted my second ever review on March 1, 2020.  I am still finding my style, so I hope mine is considered at least decent.

http://wargamingforums.com/2020/03/01/zona-alfa-a-review-from-the-exclusion-zone/

[Chimpfoot]

Calnala : if you define 'decent' as thorough, informative, balanced and interesting then you've hit the mark every time. Your style is all of the above along with some nice personal touches.

Thanks very much for taking the time to post this great review
Cheers now I've got to go and buy it

[aliensurfer]

I ended up buying too just based on how it has gone down well here on LAF - now I can't wait until it arrives to read through it.

[Karadek]

I posted my second ever review on March 1, 2020.  I am still finding my style, so I hope mine is considered at least decent.

http://wargamingforums.com/2020/03/01/zona-alfa-a-review-from-the-exclusion-zone/

Great review.  Thanks for that.  I did buy this, based on everyone's reactions here.

[soulman]

be nice to try other settings like

war war 2, british paras land and check out a small village...where are the germans ?

or

Vietnam, soldiers on patrol......  like the flim short they did..

Oats studios : firebase 1

[Mr. White]

I’m setting my games in the American Southwest.

Either Roswell, NM after a more intense visitation/crash in the 80s/90s or Area 51 after some sort of accident/closure happens.

I suppose whichever doesn’t really matter, but the Roswell zone would be a product of Alien visitors while the Area 51 could have some Stranger Things type dimensional creatures.

[nozza_uk]

My games are set in the US Midwest, specifically as a follow-up to the film 'The Crazies'.

[aliensurfer]

I'm thinking of trying this to see if I can make an x-com lite style game, I'm going to try it with Galactic Heroes, Pulp Alley and a couple of others, which means it'll probably be a mix up of all of them     Really like the rules having read the book, just need to try them out now.

[DegenerateElite]

I going to go against the grain here a bit about these rules.

They are mostly just another set of small scale modern rules with no outstanding attributes.  The game actively encourages co-operation between groups rather than overt combat between them.  The combat is fairly deadly and in an ongoing campaign losses could quickly lead to a rather hopeless situation for underdogs.  There are also a few oversights, as revealed in the GMG playthroughs.

All the setting specific stuff that I bought the rules for is absent.  A bit of flavor from fluff sprinkled throughout and using Russian names for weapons, is about all you get. 

There are no rules for hazardous battlefield terrain, like hell slime, cobwebs, bug traps, arc lightning, etc that made the Zone in Picnic so dangerous.  If anything, the focus on combat takes this outside the Realm of Picnic and The Stalker film entirely.  That sort of represents the video game and Metro a bit more, but Metro was far more about claustrophobic, dimly lit tunnels, which this game has none of.

The recovered artifacts are really generic, mostly just a cash prize with no descriptive flavor at all.  This game really needed deeper charts of alien artifacts with far more crazy effects and even just odd descriptions for the cash prizes.

The campaign system is bare bones, to say the least.  There is a simple scenario generation system but all missions fall back on looting artifacts to advance, so the focus will always be on that. 

Now granted, you can write complex scenarios and terrain rules yourself, but then you wouldn't need this book to accomplish that.

I'm left with an overall impression that there isn't enough background detail to make this interesting for more than a couple of games, and the rules are not interesting enough to warrant bothering learning them over other, more robust systems that will play just as fast while giving you far more scope for expansion and depth.