Product Review

This was Pinnacle's first sourcebook for H.O.E. (Hell on Earth) in it we get a selection of new rules, some brilliant new powers and lots of background information. Before I begin I must point out one thing, I have always thought it's best to either use all the main character sourcebooks or use none of them. This may mean a big payout of money but it stops the unbalancing effect the sourcebooks may cause in your game. So, that’s basically my only problem with this sourcebook.

The start of the book is done in the usual Pinnacle style, which is to have a narrative written by a H.O.E. character, in this case it is written on behalf of Sergeant Jack Mather a southern veteran syker. He begins with a brief history on how the first sykers gained their powers. The ‘how’ goes back to the Huckster's and the Martial Artist's from The Weird West, the syker being a strange mix of the two. He then goes on about how Syker's were trained in big Academies before the Last War. How the governments used their sykers in times of war and peace, mostly as spies, commandoes and Assassins.

That was until mankind discovered a means to travel to a far-away place, a planet called Banshee. The planet had it's own intelligent life form but that didn't stop us as we flocked to this place of untold mineral wealth. The aliens and mankind got on ok for a while but it soon got ugly and a war started (Very much like the settling of America in our own history.) A lot of this opening section is about what the Sykers were forced to do to win the war against the primitive aliens, which included some very unsavory deeds.

The next chapter is where the new rules, Edges, Hindrances and Archetypes can be found. This contains some really cool stuff including some things to give you more starting powers, more energy with which to use those powers and even some cool but strange powers to give you more choice. There’s some good information on how to create various types of characters like Syker spies, Syker Assassins and Syker Subversives to, which is interesting.

The best section of this book is the one containing the new powers, we've now got all manner of new powers with which you can read minds, make things blow up (blowing things up is cool!) and some useful sneaking powers. Below are a few of the best:

Aztec Surprise- The power to rip some one's heart out by Telekinesis, always useful if you want to star in the new remake of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as the evil high priest.

Brain Bomb- The power to make your opponent's head explode, which is just plain cool, coz gore is great (Oops! Did I say that loud?)

Predator- This totally new and original power allows the caster to become invisible by bending light around himself, leaving a shimmering form around him. (Wait it's not original it's from that film ain't it... you know... True Lies... no Terminator... no maybe I'm wrong... it must be original.)

The last section contains the Marshall’s section, which I cant really discuss, but a few thing's I can mention are the Table that's used when the Syker goes bust, with this new table the poor Sykers' head can go pop like a grenade, hurting the people around him (Explosions are still great!) Or the Syker can go mad as a hatter.

This book is well written with just the right balance of world information, new rules and the all-important new powers. In addition to all this, the book carries on the Pinnacle tradition of keeping its products funny, with a joke hidden every few pages. The opening chapter gives you a good look into why the Sykers act like their do in the Wasted West.

So all in all this book is well worth picking up, so go get it and start having fun blowing up things with your mind, (little note to players in some of the pre-designed Pinnacle Adventures you get extra points for big explosions. So when in doubt cause big explosions! It may not work but it is fun.)

But as I said above, if you have one of the Arcane Background sourcebooks you really need them all to keep the player's evenly matched (a very Gamesworkshop ploy, as we saw with all there army books, but Pinnacle have made every one equal and it's not a case of my Background is better than yours coz mine was released later, so is designed to match all that came before it and keep things friendly)

Good Sources of reference:

Scanner's - A film about sykers.

Star Wars (Any of them) - Picture Jedi Knights without Lightsabres but with the power to blow stuff and people up.

Must be more just can't think (must have been all that thinking about those explosions… it’s rotted my mind)

Reviewed By Martin Dye