Unlike SB1, SB2 has a bit more usefulness to the average group. So I'm going to start with the good, then go into what I consider the bad.
1) There's only two Pictures by KB in the entire thing! A major plus in my mind, lol.
2) The section on the Sewers, and underground is probably my favorite part of the book, when combined with the Rail Way section it makes infiltrating a city a bit easier, and explains how Scroungers have been doing it. Depending on when you set your game(During the Wave and the Zombie Outbreak, after or as per the setting standard of months) will determine how useful these sections are to you. But regardless, they should be useful no matter what time period you set your game in. My group is already planning on setting up an underground camp to use as a safe haven while they get ready to bug outta town. Furthermore, I like the idea of underground adventures, and could see basing an entire campaign in the sewers, especially in large cities like New York, London, or even Paris. Hmmm....now we need some info on Subways, lol.
3) More info, and tricks of the trade for Zombie Bait, something I'd already used in my games, but which found to be an interesting take on the idea. this meshes well with, and was written to be added to the Bad/Crazy People section in SB1.
4) The New Impersonator Zombie, is a new type, and by that I mean more then just a variant on a sloucher or fast attacker. with the ability to talk, mimic voices and perform feats of ventriloquism, along with a healthy dose of tactical sense, you have a monster that should scare the pants of your PC's every time they meet another person. Now they have more to worry about then just Mock Zombies, and already I have devised a number of horrifying encounters using these new guys, I love them!
5) The Railway section: A nice discussion on the use of railway tracks to move about, along with random encounter tables, random discoveries, and other finds. I like this, as it does explain how scroungers move about, Shepherds of the Damned and even Reaper Scouts. It's nice, thought out and a fun read.
Now then on to the bad, and the Nitpicks.
1) The page count is still incredibly low. At 64 pages, once we remove the Reader Warning, the table of contents and such we have 60 pages of game/setting material. A few of those pages are full art, but I tend to think that pictures are worth a thousand words, so I don't discount those from the page count.
2) Although the book promises us four new types of Zombies, like SB1 most of these are just variants that we could have gotten away with a few paragraphs, and added to the existing types. Although! There is a bit of silver lining in this, another type mentioned and discussed in the book, the Blow Fish is more what the others should have been. a quick three paragraphs(if you include the description by Brad Ashley) telling us whats different about them then regular slouchers. I'd love to see this style used more often when they do these variants, because as it stands, the Sewer Crawler, Worm Meat, and Bug boy could have easily gone this route with just the bug tables, and we'd have freed some page count to put in more setting/NPC etc.
3) The Night time section. Ok really, do we need this in the book? We're told in the core book, both by Brad Ashley and by game stats that the undead see our life forces, and that at night, with no ambient light that our 'auras' burn brighter. Did we really need to waste the space( nearly four pages) on things we already have been told? This didn't add anything to the game, nor setting wise, we already knew this, so why bother putting it in there and reducing the page count which could have other more useful/New/Setting material? Maybe I'm being over critical, but it just seems to be more filler, which is something that both sourcebooks seemed to have used to reach their page count.
Also apart of the Night time section is a brief discussion on the consequences of running around a dark city with bright lights, followed by a random encounter table. Again, this is things that go hand in hand with the night time section already included in the main book. After all, did you think the Zombies don't notice the bright shining orb carried by the even brighter glowing orb? This is another section I think that could have been left on the cutting room floor without any undo stress, since it adds very little. the Random encounter table is nice, but then most GM's use either the one in the main book, or we've created our own tailored to the adventure/scenario/mission, so I don't know how much use this will be. I know some people will probably use it, and for that I don't begrudge the random encounter table being there, but I think that there'd be a better use for the already limited space in the book.
4) There's two pictures by Kent Burles in the thing......Ok, yes I listed that as a Positive, but it's also a negative to
After reading SB2 I can't help but feel that these two books should have been merged into one book, that would have given a nice page count, as well as a nice overall flow in the information. Of course a little reorganizing would have been in order, but that to is ok.
Overall, SB2 was better then SB1, but both left me with a desire for something more. I can't wait however for SB3 to come out, and once it does I'll have to see how it goes. If the quality increases as it did from SB1 to SB2 then SB3 should be good!
