There's been a few things building up in the review bin, so I'm gonna blow through them, rather than keep procrastinating.
Like guns? Hope so. That's what your getting here. 191 pages of them. And not a whole lot else. There are some pretty bad spelling errors, though. I was glancing through the book again to double-check the stuff that wasn't simply stats and noticed some talk about "Ballistics exffperts." That's an error that takes effort to get into print, as "exffperts" isn't a word. All you're getting with this is a lot of dry statistics, most of which could probably be derived from a good gun catalogue.
$29.95 for 192pp, hardcover
$4.95 for a used softcover version
Character sheets. We all need them. Here's a collection of class-specific sheets. Pretty nice, actually. There's also some bonus stuff. A generic sheet, a d20 Modern sheet, and a mess of spell charts. They come packed in a folder with art on the outside, stats on the inside. Pretty nice indeed. I'm partial towards ASCII sheets, myself, but that's just because I could abuse the printers at high school for them back in the day.
$14.95 for 13 Character Sheets, plus bonuses
$14.95, but I'd probably wait `till a sale.
Here's the scene: 7:55 pm. Tuesday night. Your buddy calls, and tells you he'll be a bit late for the D&D game tonight, but could y'all wait for him, he should be there by 8:15. Problem. You forgot that you have to DM, including a Dungeon Crawl. What do you do? Grab Map Folio I. Otherwise, this is totally useless. The stuff in here could be made in about 20 minutes with a sheet of graph paper. Or, you be 01d-sk001 Nerdc0r3 and render them in Doom. Not that I've done something like that. Really. Actually, this is kinda handy to have in case of emergencies. If you DM a _lot_, this might be a worthwhile purchase, but only if you don't hold onto your old maps.
$9.95 for about 30 maps
Actually, I don't think I'd ever buy this. I like to make my own maps. Sorry.
I'll be nice to this book, as I really don't like a lot of the concepts covered within. UA is one of the standards of D&D. Also known as "The stuff that we didn't include in the core books", there's a lot of stuff for DMs to throw at wannabe know-it-alls. There's also a lot of stuff for players to use in annoying the living hell out of a DM. "I wanna play a XX!" They've got all sorts of unnecessary junk: Environmental and Elemental Racial Variants, Bloodlines, Variant Character Classes, you name it. Most of these are blatant twinkery, but there's a few good things in here, too. Figher Variant: Thug is a personal favorite. If you need more books after this, the DM's guide, the Player's Guide, and a Monster Manual, then you need more imagination. The book's layout is quite good, with Tables and Sidebars listed on the Table of Contents, and two pages of Index. Coming from a White Wolf background like I do, that's a much-welcomed aspect. As a bit of a side note, the book does enough text to warrant the price asked, a rarity in WotC books.
$34.95 for 224pp, Hardcover
$30
When I first found out about book piracy, I had gone by alt.binaries.e-book.rpg. Upon arriving in the group, I saw that somebody was starting a Forgotten Realms flood. Three weeks later, they finished [shudder]. So I've seen my fair share of FR. This book is mostly an update to bring FR up to speed with D&D v3.5. In order to attempt to justify a $32.95 price tag, WotC threw in a bunch of random Faerun-related info. The main problem is that there's no lack of stats and info for d20 games, thanks to the Open Gaming License. If WotC planned their releases better, then this sort of "Errata + tidbits = Sourcebook" product wouldn't be needed.
$32.95 for 191pp, Hardcover
A buck-fitty. If they were lucky.
Ahh, Psionics. Because "Magic" didn't have enough magic already. If you want to include Psionics in your campaign, here's your big chance. 223 pages, a good ToC and index. I'm not too keen on $34.95 for under 250 pages, but this is pretty much your one-stop-shop for Psionics. Meh.
$34.95 for 223pp, Hardcover
$20
Joey's been giving me static as of late, since I rarely offer unfettered praise for something. Behold unfettered praise! Sgt. Frog rules. The comic tells the tale of an advance force from the Keronian military, here to conquer Earth. Sgt. Keroro is the leader of the force, and he's not very good at what he's doing. He gets caught, and is forced to live with some earth teens and their mom. Think Invader Zim with otaku jokes and you're on the right track. This is some a really good humor comic, but it is a bit heavy on the in-jokes, so you might wait `till you can get most of Otaku no Video. If you're already there, than go out and get this now.
$9.95 for 179pp, Softcover
$15