From Games Gazette:
VAJRA ENTERPRISES
IN DARK ALLEYs

According to Vajra Enterprises CEO and Author of this RPG this 284 pages volume is all you nee to play In Dark Alleys. It is complete with GM and Player information plus a campaign setting of Los Angeles and two scenario adventures to get the GM and Players acclimatized to the system and background.

The first impressions that you have can make up your mind about the game, even before reading a word. So let me explain the front cover art and see whether your idea of role-playing agrees with it. In your face, it shows a tortured human split in two down the centre, forehead to chin, which represents the torment and dual persona's the characters discover in themselves as they are drawn deeper into the dark alleys of their minds. Still interested? Then read on…

The author has watched sci-fi and horror movies - mainly Japanese and American - read Indie Comic Books and taken their essence and moulded it into a game background that has just enough reality and realism to freak you out into believing this is more than a game.

Players create characters that have normal, everyday, lives - Banker, Postman, Shop Assistant, Lawyer etc - but each of these character has been "Touched" - seen things that other people have no idea even exist.

To begin with they [the characters] don't know what has happened to them, except that they believe have had a weird vision or feeling, but as they progress through their in-game life they discover that they have powers and abilities far beyond normal comprehension which lead them to live double-lives like secret agents.

IN DARK ALLEYS uses the regular Vajra system mechanic whereby action results and combat are deduced as successful or not via the roll of a D20 adding in attributes, skills and modifiers and comparing the overall total to a Target Number. The character's action result must equal or be higher for success. In opposed roles - as in combat for example - the TN is determined in the same manner.

Characters are created using a point system. Players have a predetermined number of points to spend on statistics, attributes and skills etc. This means that all men (and women) are created equal but they expand their personalities and skills in separate ways.

IN DARK ALLEYS is one of the newer breed of roleplaying games where the character are created for the adventure. This is something that appears to be occurring more in scenarios that are set in America. The two adventures within this volume are in this mould as they require the characters to have many specific skills and attributes, otherwise success is either never going to happen unless the GM feels sorry for them and slips them some luck.

Trying to get horror over in an RPG is very difficult. The author can write about all manner of eerie sounds, creepy NPCs and terrifying monsters but if the GM cannot put these across then the game falls down. CALL of CTHULHU is a great RPG but only if you have a great GM.

IN DARK ALLEYS offers a very good read for the imaginative role-player. The author has done all eh possibly can to put a compliable tool into the hands of the GM and the Players. Having just read through the majority of the book, the possibilities for adventures are already rebounding like rubber bullets off an asylum wall in the RPG compartment of my brain. Personally I feel the game mechanic is a little methodical and slows down the action but there is no denying the quality of the background and the game's overall premise.