Rogue One Movie Review
Janie Mccorey
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I owned two BCDs before. I used a Lady Glidetek from Scubapro from 2011 to 2012, and then the Zuma Pro from Aqualung from 2013 to 2018. From very early on, I was convinced by back inflation BCDs and the incredible help it gives you to find the right trim underwater once you are used to it.
For 5 years, until my departure to Japan and New Caledonia, it is the only BCD I have used. It did an excellent job through 5 years of intensive use all over the world and was still in decent shape after this. The thing that changed though during these years was my practice of underwater photography.
The customisable parts of each BCD are the back pad, the shoulder straps and the waistbands. They come in 3 unisex sizes (S, M, L). It means you can get up to 27 possible configurations to adapt to your body type. You can also choose between two sizes of optional weight pockets.
Even if the metal buckle is a great feature to make it easy and quick to adjust the tank strap on the tank, I found it was a pity not to gain more weight by putting something more simple and keeping this feature for full features BCDs.
Beyond weight, I discover a surprising advantage for travel, which is related to the way this BCD is made as a modular kit. The connectors move in a way you can fold the waistbands on the side when you put your BCD into your scuba diving bag almost flat. In extreme cases, I can disassemble it in a minute with the first pen I find. So the surprising advantage was the compacity and the space you can gain inside your bag.
As part of my partnership with Aqua Lung, they provided me with complimentary BCDs to write this review. As always, all my views and opinions are my own and reflect honestly my experience. Photo credit: pictures of me underwater wearing the Rogue BCD courtesy of Thierry of Babou Ct Ocan in Hienghne, New Caledonia.
A lot of RPGs assume you're just some nobody with a sword trying to make their way in a strange and hostile universe. And there are few universes as large and hostile as Warhammer 40K. That's why I was so delighted that Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader puts you into the shiny, step-on-me boots of a titular Rogue Trader, the heir to the von Valancius dynasty and a very powerful member of the high nobility in the Imperium. Getting to roleplay someone of such status and wealth across more than 130 hours of gritty, tactical combat and superb quest writing is a fresh power fantasy for this setting and this genre. I just wish it wasn't plagued by more annoying bugs than there are daemons in the Warp.
Breaking away from the Pathfinder rule system Owlcat reproduced with almost self-defeating fidelity in its past two games, Rogue Trader pays homage to some of the classic Fantasy Flight Warhammer 40K tabletop RPGs, but this is really a new system built from the ground up. And that intentionality has allowed it to simply work better in most cases. I will warn you that it is still a very crunchy system, though. If you're coming here straight from Baldur's Gate 3, Larian's interpretation of D&D will seem like a soft, gooey nougat that melts in your mouth by comparison.
Ability descriptions in Rogue Trader can feel like reading an academic paper on differential equations, and the wordy, overly-detailed way the tooltips are presented doesn't do it any favors. I eventually got a handle on it and came to enjoy the depth it offers, but it's intimidating until you learn its visual language. And it never stops being kind of a research project to understand what a new talent actually does on first inspection.
The highly positional space combat is well done too, and plays out much like a naval engagement with lots of maneuvering and lining up broadsides. And a fairly involved colony management system reinforces the idea that I am a powerful ruler within this sector, even though some colony of the stats, like Security, didn't seem to matter much.
The writing is what really steers the ship here, though. From the central quest to reclaim your protectorate and deal with a powerful Chaos cult, to terrifying encounters on desolate shipwrecks hidden away in the dark corners of the Koronus Expanse, to conversations with your diverse and multifaceted crew, the dialogue and scenario design is of a similar quality to Baldur's Gate 3 and other greats of the genre. Plus, if I had to pick three favorite factions in the 40K universe, they would be the Sisters of Battle, the Craftworld Eldar, and the Space Wolves. The fact that all three of those are represented by Rogue Trader's recruitable companions probably wasn't done specifically to pander to me, but it sure feels like it was.
The galaxy of Rogue Trader also looks great, from the cramped corridors of an imperial bunker to the wild expanse of an untamed jungle world. It manages to capture the harshness and moodiness of 40K without being constantly gloomy or depressing. There's a lot of deft use of color in every environment and on every model or portrait. Exploration is a treat, even if danger is usually just around the corner. The character designs rule, too, even if they definitely seem a bit dated for 2023 in terms of fine detail.
Rogue Trader is an absolutely colossal, somewhat lumbering CRPG. And like my grandiose, gothic voidship the Fortunatrix, it's not exactly polished to a mirror sheen. On the bright side, like Baldur's Gate 3 before it, almost none among the huge catalog of side quests and optional activities feel like filler. Developer Owlcat's previous games, Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous, had a lot of trash fights that honestly seemed like they were there to waste my time, but every encounter in Rogue Trader\u2019s epic-length campaign presents tactical challenges that are made interesting through new ways of thinking about its enemies and use of space and cover. And Rogue Trader has a lot of surprises in store for 40K fans in terms of the kinds of foes we get to fight.
The upshot of having so many options is that the power of my squad fully outstripped the default difficulty by around halfway through the campaign. My heavy weapons specialist Argenta, like a broken ramp deck in Magic: The Gathering, can do what functionally amounts to infinity damage on Normal by the third or fourth round of combat, trivializing even some of the toughest bosses I faced. Luckily, difficulty in Rogue Trader is fully modular and can be changed at any time. You can keep out-of-combat skill checks at Normal but really crank up combat difficulty in targeted and granular ways, which allowed me to dial in a satisfying experience \u2013 though it does take some patience and experimentation. And there are some startling difficulty spikes here and there where I had to nudge things back down temporarily.
One of my favorite elements of this combat system is how powerful support characters can be. I made my Rogue Trader, the esteemed Katarin von Valancius, an officer who not only hands out buffs, but can also give allies free actions. This ended up making me the lynchpin of the entire party even though I rarely ever fired a shot or swung a chainsword myself. That\u2019s why I have Yrliet, an ancient elven ranger with a sniper rifle, Argenta, a warrior space nun, and Ulfar, a freaking werewolf in power armor, after all. I'm never going to be as cool as any of them, so helping them do violence even better is a great niche to find myself in. Setting up a combo where Ulfar cuts several people in half or Yrliet one-taps the enemy commander from across the map is endlessly satisfying.
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