R. Talsorian's recent Castle Falkenstein line, with its steampunk fantasy and Victorian highbrow, quickly draws attention to a very similar game that appeared a few years back. Space: 1889 takes players into the science fiction worlds of Jule Verne and H.G. Wells, where spaceships fly the luminiferous ether to Mars or Venus, the British Empire expands across several worlds, and mad scientists and alien beings rub shoulders with dragoons and royal families. Players take the role of soldiers and adventurers in this brave new world, thwarting the plans of the Kaiser's agents or the canal lords of Mars while searching for fame, money, and all that other stuff that makes role-playing worthwhile.

Space:1889 ultimately suffered under a clunky system, which remained complicated and unwieldly despite an obvious attempt to keep it simple. Several rather wretched adventure supplements — in which character was held hostage to over-plotting and players were rendered completely helpless at least once a scenario — didn't help things any. Balancing that, however, was a keen understanding of the time period in which the game was set; brief but informative passages clue players in to the political intricacies of 1889, its class system, its codes of conduct and the way alien worlds and new technology have affected all of it. The other worlds in the solar system were also unique and original, and functioned well together in a context that makes perfect sense (at least in terms of Victorian pseudo-science).

And as any player of Castle Falkenstein will tell you, there is nothing more refreshing in today's ordnance-heavy role-playing environment than a little polish and gentility. Tired of seeing who has the biggest guns? Ever wish that space aliens lived a little closer to home? Want a science fiction setting that understands where the whole thing began? Space: 1889 can deliver all that, and much more.

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