Pyramid Pick
Monster Island: The Game of Giant Monster Combat
Published by Firefly Games
Written by Bruce Harlick & Patrick Sweeney
Illustrated by Bryce Nakagawa
32 b&w pages; $9.95
The title says it all, really: Monster Island: The Game of Giant Monster Combat is a game of combat between giant monsters played out on an island of monsters. In fact, it is deeply inspired by post-war Japanese monster movies that began with Gojira, King of the Monsters in 1954 (retitled Godzilla, King of the Monsters for its 1956 American release) and spawned many, many sequels. This is a game for fans of Japanese monster movies with their classic kaiju -- Japanese for "monster" -- such as Mothra, Ghidora, Gamera, Rodan, and so on. While it concentrates mostly upon the Japanese films, Monster Island: The Game of Giant Monster Combat also encompasses many of the western B-movie features of the 1950s and 1960s (essentially anything involving an irradiated beastie!), including The Blob, Them!, King Kong and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Nor is television ignored, with discussions of both the Japanese Ultraman shows and, on a more modern note, the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers series. The latter might be one way in which entice younger players to try Monster Island: The Game of Giant Monster Combat -- after all, it is designed for players aged eight and up.
Thankfully for the inhabitants of Earth, the United Nations Science Alert Corps has been established to deal with all of the kaiju that have plagued the . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: August 23, 2002
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