Pyramid Review
The Judge Dredd Roleplaying Game
Published by Mongoose Publishing
Written by Matthew Sprange
Illustrated by Kev Walker (cover), Scott Clark, Nathan Webb, Ann Stokes, Ron Smith, Cam Kennedy, Emberton, Q Twerk, Brett Ewins, Brian Bolland and Mike McMahon
256-page hardback; $39.95
The British Weekly comic 2000AD has been going for twenty-five years now. Since 1977 there have been over twelve hundred issues (plus other comic spin-offs) and the comic has been the starting point for many of today's noted comic book writers and artists such as Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and Simon Bisley. Some of the comic's characters have crossed over into other media, but none more so than Judge Dredd, the stone-faced, Dirty Harry-inspired lawman of Mega-City One. There have been newspaper strips, team-ups with Batman, miniature figures, T-shirts, computer games, a mediocre movie, decent audio adaptations of some of the classic stories, and -- of course -- games.
For British gamers, many of whom read 2000AD each week, the announcement in the 1980s of an RPG based upon the character to be published by Games Workshop was received with no small anticipation. This was, after all, the big British license, and they had already released a Judge Dredd board game that was a lot of fun. This boded well for the RPG. The resulting game, published in 1985, certainly caught the flavor of the comic, but the game mechanics left something to be desired; in particular it was too easy to kill off player Judges, . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: June 14, 2002
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