There are several ‘post-apocalypse’ games around, even ones using the D20 ruleset, so what sets this one apart? The Introduction sets out the underlying philosophy: Man is a destructive beast, and it’s not unlikely that sometime he’ll nearly pound himself out of existence, very likely by mistake. The rot set in during the Second World War, when research led to the first atomic bombs, and continued with other scientific ‘advances’ until the calamity that sets the scene for this game. Taking a date prophesied by the Mayans as marking the end of the current age, 21 December 2012, a rapidly-escalating nuclear exchange is postulated, leading to an ‘exodus’ of survivors seeking safety in underground shelters from which they have finally emerged some twenty years later.

There are two ways to go about writing a super hero RPG. The first is to focus on the Heroes, such as with Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes, or Godlike. These games are interested in the setting and world view. They have rules, but aren’t really dictated by them. The second way is to study the philosophy of Super Heroics and then apply some mechanics to it. It is here that we find games like Capes, Truth and Justice, and eCollapse. Here we find ourselves asking questions like “what does it mean to be a hero” or “what kind of choices can I live with.” Both roads can lead to some excellent gaming, but I usually find myself playing the former and reading the latter.

FALLOUT is Derek Gunn’s latest book in is his Vampire Apocalypse series and it’s now available from Black Death Books in a trade paperback edition. In this military/post-apocalyptic series the Vampires rule. Humanity is enslaved in a nightmare world where those who are still alive are bred as food for the vampires and the entertainment for the vicious thralls who guard them.

According to the author this installment sees vampires pitted against vampires and the thralls use this war to their advantage. But the small band of human survivors hold a secret of immeasurable power – a coating for bullets that can kill the vampires. The thralls want it and the vampires must destroy it. But first they have to find them. Across the country another power struggle threatens them all and the doomsday clock continues to tick relentlessly towards Armageddon.

I normally tackle one product at a time; however, Sean Boyle’s line of HDL games is so entwined with one another that it’s simply easier to treat them as one massive project. The exact products I’m including are the HDL Basic Rules, Perfect Horizon, Demongate High, the HDL cards, and Lucid: Dreamscape Reality. I’ll try to separate these books for clarity’s sake, but I suspect I’ll have to trip back and forth between them on occasion.

The first book in the HDL line is strictly the nuts and bolts of Boyle’s system. It’s a modest read at eighty-seven pages. Like most, my first impression of the book came through a skimming. The artwork, derived from a stable of six illustrators, seems to enjoy the fact that it rests inside a generic system’s corebook.

Review by Todd Cash

SLA Industries is somewhat different. It posits, in the typically dour, rain-swept and pessimistic style it has achieved, a contest between the players and the monsters – er, a series of psychopathic serial killers – which may or may not be equal or fair in nature. The conceit is that the players take the role of quasi-official operatives who may accept contracts to eliminate undesirable presences on the mean city streets, returning if successful with evidence of the kill (ears, perhaps, in the Mongolian style or some other previously agreed token). There are twenty such ‘Hunter Sheets’ provided in this supplement, which runs to a length of 77 pages in a PDF item. As well as initial and concluding fluff – sorry, intensely-wrought and crafted flavour pieces (there is a reason why publishers are so reluctant to pay for fluff) – the twenty serial killers are presented one at a time, first with information for players and then the same for the GM. The first would be presented to the player group, depending on how much choice the GM is prepared to offer them, while the second is reserved for subsequent use. Some clues are presented for working the individual killers into play but, inevitably, too many of these in a row will make game play feel a little repetitive. Perhaps they may be reserved for occasional interludes when a campaign reaches a natural break or when an impromptu game breaks out for one reason or another.

Review by John Walsh

Mongoose Publishing has released the Cthulhutech Main Rulebook as an eBook with a reprint of the paper version on the way to stores sometime next month.

2085. Humanity faces extinction. Alien insects from the edge of our solar system, long hidden behind the façade of reality, descend to enslave us. Hordes of unspeakable horrors roll out from Central Asia, laying waste to anything in their path. The church of the fish-god scours the world for lost occult secrets to unleash terrible forces. Dead gods awaken and turn their dreadful eyes toward the Earth. And within hides a cancer, eating away at the very heart of the New Earth Government.

This is the Aeon War. This is the time of CthulhuTech.

SLA (read ‘Slay’) Industries was a landmark game when I first bought it many years ago and I rather regret the series of events that saw my copy deposited on the bed of the River Han in Seoul. It is with considerable joy, therefore, that I found that the original is now available as a free PDF download. Once again there is the chance to become immersed in the nasty doings of the Planet Mort, where 900 years of deception have led to the exploitation of just about everyone by the infamous SLA Industries itself and, above all, where it always seems to be gloomy and raining. This is the future as a Glasgow tenement, or at least so it always was in my imagination.

Review by John Walsh