Power Outage is a really good intro for a superhero campaign, or a scenario you can throw in to any on-going campaign; especially if your heroes get captured. The opening finds the characters being hauled somewhere in the back of a truck. They have lost their powers and memories. This makes for some very interesting and collaborative RP. A big part of this scenario is the heroes remembering why they are heroes . Why do I protect the innocent? Why do I serve justice? These are all important questions that really get to the heart of the superhero genre. Using powers to throw trucks and smash the villain is always good fun. Knowing why the hero is doing their hero bit, gives the game some real stakes. While the scenario isn't overly long by page count, there are many hooks to found throughout the book to pull the heroes in different directions. Power Outage could be completed in a few sessions, or using the hooks, for much longer period. There are also some great random hero/villain generators included. Larrimore, Pivek, Yon and Turpin have done some great work here, going beyond the face of superheroes, and taking a deeper look into the why's.

I've not run this yet but after a read it feels a bit flat. The premise is ok (the PCs have lost their powers) and I like the options presented and the randomised powers table although it is not a comprehensive supers-generator. The "boss" himself is quite original and the mechanics of how the minions interact with the boss, but the encounters might feel too repetitive - the final encounter is very close to a repeat of the second major encounter. There is nothing special or unusual about the locations presented and the PCs are essentially led along from encounter to encounter, regardless of what they do. They can't get to the boss who is behind their kidnapping and ... power outage ... without a key NPC ally taking them there, or the GM puts him directly in front of the PCs. There's no real detective work to do following clues to track from the initial in-media-res opening leading to a resolution, the PCs are taken there one way or another. I don't mind a linear adventure but this is a bit of an odd mix of the default city setting with some fairly pedestrian minor encounters taking place in the mulling-around midsection of the adventure scenario. I can't help thinking a much more directed scenario with more variety and challenges would have been a better to hang the basic idea on. The cover is striking and the interior art is good but the text has a lot of padding for what is essentially a small scenario. A final note, I really hate the NPC blocks without characteristics. I can see it was done so that skills don't have to be figured out to be "correct", but very very annoying if you want to work out other skills, or if you want to work out KNOCKBACK (SIZ ???)- hardly rare in a supers setting, or if you want to work out Fatigue (CON ???). Frustrating. The NPC stat-blocks themselves look like they could have been tweaked to design each one to fit in a single column, as it is they are split into two almost everytime. It's just annoying to read, and the fact that they don't have characteristics just makes it even more grating.

Highlights: A good premise, supported by reasonable mechanics. An interesting "villain group" with novel Lt/Boss level combat encounter mechanics.

Lowlights: Combat encounters feel repetitive. Verbose text. Bland setting and incidental encounters.