Tabletop Tales: ‘Operation Perfect Blue’

When a computer game is successful (or at least interesting), it’s only a matter of time until it’s adapted to RPG form. Everquest, EVE, Dragon Age, have all been brought to the tabletop at some point but what about the classics like XCOM that may never receive an adaptation? Here’s a fun fact that may blow your mind: An XCOM RPG does exist, brought to us by none other than Cutters Guild. Anybody familiar with my works knows that I tend to be really harsh on them despite how dear the company is to my heart. The reason for that is, of Cutters Guild’s offerings, there are two that excel above the rest and today I will discuss the most influential of them.

For those that live in a cave and remain ignorant to XCOM’s existence, I shall explain. In the roaring 1990’s when we were 100% sure PC gaming was just a fad and the internet would never achieve a damn thing, I was but a wee lad when XCOM: UFO Defense was released for free by PC Gamer Magazine to its subscribers. In this game, you were tasked with operating mankind’s last defense against the alien menace, and were dropped into the world with no tutorial or information. The game was hard, the enemies were without number, and you were expected to fail. This game was later remade by Firaxis in 2012, and it was more or less a pretty accurate reimagining of the original XCOM, but to be honest when I say XCOM, assume I am referring to the original and not its reimagining, if only because today’s review is of a game that was designed before the Firaxis version was even in production, much less released. Originally, Operation Perfect Blue was going to be a licensed XCOM game, but due to licensing issues the game was given another direction, which honestly provides a much more open sandbox for the group to play by bringing us a unique “Uncanny Valley” situation of the world being invaded and fully taken over in the same way that would happen if losing the original XCOM game.

Operation Perfect Blue takes place on the far off Planet Orna in a far away, previously undiscovered sector of space during a routine search for Itosium, which much like “The Spice” from Dune, must flow, for it is the only known source of spaceship fuel capable of sustaining interstellar travel. Orna is inhabited by the docile and polite Ornan people, blue colored humanoids with a tech level comparable to modern day earth. Orna is a paradise, untouched by major industry and mostly ignored by the universe until the EVIL Triaxy Corporation scams Orna into selling itself to Triaxy for the equivalent of three turnips and a cow.

Only then do we get the real setting of this story. Triaxy has now covered the entire planet with mining facilities, the pollution generated by the Itosium factories having reduced Ornas status to a Trash Planet. The Tri-Galactic union is powerless to stop Triaxy, leaving Orna to its fate; to be destroyed by Triaxies greed as they rape the world and use Ornans for biogenetic experiments. It even seems like there is no hope, Orna’s government has been disabled by Triaxy and its people comb through ruined cities avoiding Triaxy, manhunting parties while scavenging for food and water, while the Galactic Sena- Err Tri-Galactic Union is doing nothing to help. That’s where Operation Perfect Blue comes in.

OPB is a gigantic resistance shadow organization that officially does not exist, established by the ever enigmatic ornan known only as Majestic Blue; This operation is split up into several levels, such as RED level, ORANGE level and of course: BLUE Level (Black ops, Land and Undersea Espionage) which the players take control of. Unlike other tabletop RPG’s in circulation, OPB is fairly unique in its hybrid design, in that the players create and control main characters called “Executives” that act as their avatars and run BLUE level by managing its bank account, designing the bases, researching new technologies, manufacturing new equipment, hiring soldiers, and of course, launching raids on EVIL Triaxy bases. The ultimate goal of Perfect Blue is to repel the Triaxy occupation and re-establish Ornan control of the planet.

Now, who is Triaxy? Triaxy is an Andromedan Mining Corporation that specializes in mass Crystal Aggregate (AKA: Itosium) production that is used as starship fuel. The Andromedans are closest in stature to the Grey Aliens of modern imagination, and are separated into a common and higher caste of Psionic Andromedans. All Andromedans of common stature are capable of using Hardpoint cybernetic armor that links into their nervous system. This armor makes Triaxy soldiers difficult to take down in contrast to lightly armored Ornan freedom fighters and can pose a difficult challenge to the players with the powerful armors unique to the Andromedan race.  Ornans, in addition to being blue in color also have natural resistance to psionic attacks, making them ideal for fighting stronger Andromedans.

Play begins with the creation of the players Executive Characters. They also begin with 400 Revenue Points (2 Million Dollars) and a starting base to call their own with basic amenities. In addition to their base and startup, BLUE Level has a league of Funding Corporations, including Perfect Blue itself. The players begin with eight all on the verge of dropping out if they are not shown results within three months. More corporations can be gained and it is feasibly possible to continue the game without them by selling resources gained from missions. Most of the game will be spent in base managing and improving its various functions. But when tasks cannot be completed by BLUE Level, the operation can lease equipment, manufacturing services and research firms from MerCore (a fellow Perfect Blue operation) or other companies if the proper structures cannot be afforded.

Cutters Guild’s titles have always stacked the odds against you, but Operation Perfect Blue brings even more pain to the table with the hyper-realism introduced in its combat system where damage is concerned. A character’s Endurance Stat directly limits each character’s hitpoints, with each part of the body given its own HP totals. The Head and Torso are critical locations that result in death if lost, while the arms and legs are less important but can be severed. Thankfully here in the SPACE FUTURE, the technology exists to replace and repair such damaged parts. This becomes most relevant while in the middle of a combat where more advanced and powerful characters are able to dispense a lot more pain and damage than lower leveled characters. In contrast to the realism presented, there are several alien races available to hire as mercenaries and personnel from bug aliens, the cousins of the Brutes from Halo, to big blue dual-larynxed scientists and their creations the Androids (Mistakenly referred to as Cyborgs despite their lack of organic structure)

You may of notice up until now Humans have not been mentioned. This is not because they do not exist, but remember in Titan A.E when the Dredge blew up earth? Yeah that happened. The Andromedans, fearing Human Adaptability blew up our solar system reducing most Humans to being exotic creatures and many turn to space piracy, some of which becoming MerCore agents available for purchase by Perfect Blue. Each race is accompanied by a few pages of explanation and the general state of affairs surrounding the race, most of them having moderate reason to be capable of being hired by Perfect Blue. Humans and Androids are fellow victims of Triaxy racism and readily are available to aid in the struggle, and even some Andromedans are willing to join though those that do should be held suspect.

In addition to the diversity, every race has a unique special trait that can range from minor to gamechanging. Some races like the Lotharians are immune to psionic influence, while others like the Andromedans/Androids can purchase upgrades for themselves. This provides a lot of choice for how to construct the 3-4 man teams that BLUE Level can send out into the world depending on circumstances of the battlefield. Adding more diversity is a series of military professions available that fit combat roles from assault to heavy demolitions as well as providing the ability to hire psionic personnel.   Realistic systems for space, underwater, aerial and land combat exist along with dedicated vehicle rules similar to land combat rules but with added systems like locking onto targets for missiles.

One of my gripes with the systems used, is that uses pretty much every kind of system available. Statistic rolls are settled with a D20 roll, Skills with percentile, and combat uses a complicated D20 system mixed with various types of action points, and this can get very confusing when trying to remember what to roll for what. The benefit of this system, however, is that combat becomes very tactical, lethal, and difficult. Every character in combat has a number of Action Points, using one per combat. In addition to this statistic is a character’s Aggression, and his Aggression remaining for the entire day. What this means is that a character with 29 points of aggression can fight well for 29 rounds over the course of the day before becoming tired. These points are drained even faster depending on the nature of the actions taken, making underwater combat even more tiring.

Initiative is also very important in the gunfights taking place in OPB, as characters can use up to three actions instead of one per turn, which primarily benefits higher level characters with more APRs, as it allows them to shoot, dodge a return shot, then shoot right back again if they want to. This mechanic gives combat a very tactical and action packed feel, as shots fly and characters are given the choice to duck into cover, take it, or even attack right back. Thankfully, to aid with the confusion the book includes a very helpful series of detailed Tutorial examples that walk you blow by blow through solving a few combat situations which can help those willing to read through it understand the system rather quickly.

Base design and functions are fully realized, with a large section devoting itself to the manufacturing and research functions. I really enjoy the treatment science is given, as players are expected to come up with their own pseudo-scientific theories and thus research pretty much anything within reason that the GM allows. There is no shortage of structures and variety for bases, with mechanical benefits for installing doors and alarms. The alarms of course can be programmed with thousands of different sounds for different occasions. Everything you would expect you can build in XCOM can be built and more, from things like the mess hall to defensive cannons, to containment cells and their upgraded versions.

Players begin with a Trident Base, which is a half constructed base for the players to turn into the glorious first base of Perfect Blue, giving the players quite a lot of freedom in its customization. More space for facilities can also be constructed as additions to the base and theoretically allow you to build a base pretty much anywhere you want, even on land if you were that ready for Triaxy to bomb you from orbit and/or send their large amount of Big Fucking Mecha to stomp it flat. In addition to the base and tactical aspects of Operation Perfect Blue, there are pages upon pages of various craft for the air, sea and even space if need be. Though that’s far from where the list ends, as then there are several Combat Walkers available as well (tanks are for wusses, real men use giant mecha) that are oddly rather cheaply available from one of the many fronts that Perfect Blue uses to purchase and design weaponry and vehicles, Ornan Technologies Center, a thinktank established by Perfect Blue that has been secretly designing and constructing a wide variety of weapons for sale to Perfect Blue and other companies.

I have several issues with this. OTC and many other such businesses lay in the Atlantean Cities, never mind that I seriously doubt the Ornans would know what Atlantis is, but the fact these cities lay in domes underneath the oceans (Which is where the primary Itosium deposits are!) and have for an indeterminate amount of time in the “deepest” parts of the planet’s oceans… Which is where Triaxy would logically want to scan first for large Itosium deposits as beneath mountains and on the ocean floor are common locations for them. Granted, the game mentions that it’s only a matter of time before they are found, but with the amount of military presence Triaxy has and the fact that the cities are stupid enough to actually conduct interstellar trade as well as train MerCore soldiers makes me call bullshit that Triaxy has not located them already. They have spies everywhere, at least one has to have made it into MerCore and thus into the cities despite how I already call foul that there are gigantic underwater utopias that somehow no Ornan has told Triaxy about, despite the countless acts of torture they are subjected to.

The overall theme of the game, if you have somehow not noticed yet, is that Triaxy represents the Nazi’s in basically every way. They conduct genetic experiments to create cyberzombies called Enforcers on top of pretty much every war crime imaginable, even having more than a few concentration camps on the planet. The game wastes no time in telling you just how really bad the Ornans have life now, some becoming servants, many others as common slaves, and the rest fighting for their lives amidst the ruined cities for scraps of food. As a child of 1990 I managed to miss the Holocaust, but I’m pretty sure this is what it would look like if Hitler made cyber attack jewzombies, which can make reading the games lore more than a little difficult to those that strikes a bad chord with.

While Operation Perfect Blue has a learning curve, it’s not a very steep one. The game is written in a very informative manner, which can make it rather easy to learn for those willing to read the massive book. The combat system is very brutal, as it’s designed with the intention of players being able to replace characters easily, which they can, due to the base mechanics of hiring mercenaries. The game does a good job of giving the player a large amount of variety, and while not all of the story actually makes sense, the way it is written gives the players a ton of free choice to play the game exactly how they want to play it (which is odd, considering the same person wrote What Lurks Beyond). I highly recommend this game, I have very few bad things to say about it, and the fact that you can buy miniguns that can fire underwater make this one of the best Cutters Guild products ever released.

-Necroscourge 4/13/13