Giant Monster Rampage
by Mystic Eye Games (www.mysticeyegames.com)
Scales & Servos & Spandex, oh my! Possibly the best Giant
Monster table top game in production!
WARNING TO READER! Do not continue to read this review if
you do not like Giant Monster Films or games that simulate said films! That
said, please be kind as this is my first game review on the net (and hopefully
not my last).
I have been a Giant Monster fan since I was old enough to
say “Monster!” and convey to my Mother that I wanted to see if there was a
Godzilla film playing on one of the UHF channels. (if
you don’t know what a UHF channel is, go ask your parents so they can feel
old). I would be remiss to mention that I had been looking forward to the
release of this book and of its competition, Monster
Island by Firefly Games. While I am
going to save my opinion about Monster
Island for a future review, I will
say that I feel that Giant Monster Rampage (GMR) is the superior product.
I have broken down GMR by the categories I felt were most
important and rated each separately.
Cost: $11.95 for a 56 page, B&W
interior, Full-color cover, perfect bound book. This brings the cost per page
to roughly $.24; a bit on the high side. 3 out of 5.
Art: Sparse but well drawn. 100% Black and
white comic style with a uniform feel throughout the book. 5
out of 5.
Layout: Low text density with eye-pleasing
fonts. Well done except for a lack of text-wrap space around most of the
graphics. 4 out of 5.
Crunchiness: 3 pages of TOC, intro, &
what you need to play; 19 pages of monster creation; 23 pages of rules,
optional rules, & scenarios; & 9 pages of pre-constructed monsters,
combat tables, and a monster sheet. No fluff here! 5 out of
5.
Monster Creation: Simple and straight
forward. The group decides of how many points per monster, picks a Kingdom
(such as humanoid, Mech, or Amphibian) that each monster originated from, and
then spends these points on Attributes and Powers. The only disappointment was
the somewhat short list of monster powers. Listed in the book are 7 movement,
30 kingdom specific, & 19 generic powers. 4 out of 5.
Playability: After purchasing GMR, it took
about 30 minutes to thoroughly read through it and get ready to play. Monster
creation took about another 30 minutes (your group may take less time, mine is
always slow on character creation). The first few turns (Phases in GMR) took a
while as we were getting into the system but, near the end of the first game we
were at less then 5 minutes per phase.
Each Phase goes as follows:
- Determine
Initiative
- Roll
for Atomic Power (used to fuel each monster’s Powers)
- Roll
to see if the Military becomes involved
- In
order of initiative, move your monster
- In
order of initiative, perform ranged attacks
- In
order of initiative, perform close combat attacks
- Roll
for each wound a monster has, up to 5, to see if it has regenerated!
The game’s play was refreshingly easy and hardly resembles
most of the complex war games of today. Each monster was very different in the
options it had to use and, with continued support (i.e. supplements with more
powers and such), this should keep the game from
seeming stagnant. While we have not fully used the campaign rules where
monsters gain EXP from every battle and continue to get buffer, the rules seem
simple and effective. 5 out of 5.
Totals:
Cost: 3
Art: 5
Layout: 4
Crunchiness: 5
Monster Creation: 4
Playability: 5
Total: 4.3
Conclusion: After totaling up the scores I
have decided to give a Style of 5 and a Substance of 4. I truly enjoyed the
game and would suggest it to any fan of Giant Monster films!
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)