I cannot praise Rising Stars highly enough. Just be forewarned that if you were hoping to download this to an iPad through Safari/Atomic that it just isn't going to happen. It'll crash half way through every time. Downloading this was a beast and I had to put it through my desktop and then send it to my device using GoodReader.

Rising Stars is a super hero story - just not the kind you probably grew up on. The Specials are a group of 113 kids in utero exposed to an unexplained flash of brilliant light above Pedersen, Illinois. Shortly after their births it became apparent that the flash caused a change in these children, changes that brought about unexplainable abilities. Like any other children, they had capacities for both good and bad, they formed cliques, they grew up. But their powers came with some problems, some more profound problems than others, and when they begin to be murdered, a secret comes out that will change all of their lives and send the world into an uproar the likes of which has never been seen.

The story ran a good six years and this collects all of them. This book was a game changer for me in college, and it presents a world where super heroes and reality converge. I recommend this book for just about everybody - late teens and up.

This book definitely throws a curveball to the oldschool punk. I was simply too young to have seen the original black box edition, but 2020 is like the technologically-compelled gamer's bible. 3.0 had a ton of changes, some good some bad. The art is crap unfortunately. Dolls do not reflect a cyberpunk RPG. I've grown up with Cyberpunk and I always loved the art that came with the original 2020 setting. However, I DO like a lot of the NuTech changes, though the social groupings and concept of Giri seem a little weak at times. For the old school punks, you can still get all Cybered Up and chip in. Bleeding edge tech is still there.

As far as systems go, they might want to also think about putting that empathy box somewhere on the character sheet. They say it's there, but it's missing. Without it, how can someone have cyberpsychosis with no empathy stat? 3.0 mentions two separate ways to track your humanity (one without using an EMP stat, one using old school EMP), and I think in a hurry to publish, they just dragged and dropped some text from 2020 into 3.0 without even checking or revising the old systems to match the new systems. Makes for a confusing way to keep track of the devolvement of the cybered monsters which are a part of the chilling core of the 2020 setting.

All said and done, Mike Pondsmith is still the man. But this is NOT your father's Cyberpunk. Depending on your view, this could be good or bad. Worth a read.