Most avid gamers love an excellent gear guide. Whether or not it is deciding on what to purchase with all that gold getting inspiration for a wholly new character, it’s considered one of my favourite forms of growth books. Cyberpunk video games do these exceptionally effectively. I spent a lot time curled up with the Avenue Samurai Catalog and the varied ChromeBooks as a child taking a look at new choices for my characters. The success of Cyberpunk Crimson meant {that a} line was coming. One of many first books, Black Chrome, is now right here and R. Talsorian Video games was joyful to ship me a duplicate to evaluate. Does it shine within the neon-soaked evening? Let’s play to seek out out.
The majority of Black Chrome is structured round an in-universe app referred to as CBK. The app connects customers with the varied Night time Markets across the metropolis the place distributors promote all of the weapons, automobiles and different gear {that a} crew of slick Edgerunners must carve out a life. Most of what you’d anticipate within the guide is right here however there are two notable absences. The primary is netrunner gear. There’s a couple of bits and items that improve these capabilities however anybody in search of packages and the like should wait till the seemingly upcoming netrunning guide. The opposite are full physique borg conversions. As an alternative, the guide presents linear frames, lots of which might be put in internally but in addition exist as Fringe of Tomorrow type exoskeletons.
Designers James Hutt, Jay Parker, Turbo, J Grey, Anne Morrison, Chris Spivey, Linda Evans, and Melissa Wong strike an honest steadiness right here between straight ahead stuff like greater weapons and trendy armor with the spy gadget stuff crews love to make use of like explosive electrical retailers or an anime fan handgun that giggles if you reload it. My favourite pair of entries are for the most recent lethal mono katana with biometric safety that ignores armor, adopted by a budget duplicate media tie-in that appears virtually precisely the identical. There’s a thread of Robocop-style satire operating by this guide that I actually loved.
The guide addresses one of many essential considerations I had with the way in which gear was dealt with in the principle guide. For a recreation that facilities on identify model weapons, every part was constructed to be extraordinarily generic. There have been some items that stood out however many of the neat components in my Cyberpunk Crimson recreation have been issues that my gamers and I used to distinguish one cyberarm from one other, such because the Sylvester Stallone property licensing a collection of Rocky themed cyberarms.. Black Chrome provides so many entries the type of taste you need out of those books. The principle factor I missed have been feedback from customers on every app entry. I notice that is extra of a Shadowrun factor, however these snippets convey lots of neat backstory in regards to the world when carried out proper.
One space the place the designers actually acquired that in-universe doc really feel is the setup of the PDF. When a reader touches the BUY IT NOW button the PDF snaps to the part within the again the place the merchandise’s recreation statistics are listed. For many of this evaluate I felt like I used to be navigating an app slightly than studying a guide and that introduced the expertise to a different degree. Whereas this can be a full-color guide with some nice artwork that may look good on the shelf, there’s one thing to be mentioned about handing a pill over to the gamers to do some buying.
There’s extra to the guide than gear as effectively. The ultimate chapter particulars Night time Markets and the way their economics work. These particulars burnish the punk really feel of the sport as they speak about how simply because a participant has the money available doesn’t imply they’ll mechanically get the gear.These cool gadgets might simply as simply be the fee for a gig. There are additionally six Night time Markets that may be dropped into any recreation full with location, map and the personalities that hold on the market. I used to be initially upset that the area lower down on the gear within the guide however the entries have been flavorful and switch the buying section of a cyberpunk recreation into a part of the narrative.
Black Chrome is a superb cyberpunk gear guide full of recent shiny bits for gamers and GMs. It deserves to be in your shelf subsequent to different traditional ChromeBooks.
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