Monster Island is a tabletop battle game in which the players take on the roles of kaiju imprisoned on the South Pacific island established by the UN Science Alerts Corps to contain them. Monsters being monsters, this refuge is anything but peaceful, as the enormous beasts trash any rival who strays onto their own turf.
Monsters are built using a point system. Points can be spent on attributes (which in turn affect other, non-purchase-able attributes) and a number of powers. The character creation is simple and fast, although perhaps not as intensive as in some games, and a new monster can be developed quite quickly. The combat system is quite through, and covers a variety of manoeuvres, such as grapples, crushing embraces (a favourite of octopus-kaiju) as well as more straight forward punches and power attacks. Monsters can even become dazed, losing their ability to attack their adversaries temporarily. A revolving Initiative system keeps the combats quite unpredictable as sequence for each monster is determined after every turn. There are also rules to cover healing, alliances with other monsters, and those raucous victory celebrations fellows like King Ghidorah and Gigan are so fond of.
Movement rules are very simple, and do not cover such elements as differing aerial altitudes or depths in water. There is provision for sneak attacks, which grant a bonus in the ambush attack from things such as tunnelling underneath another monster or attacking from behind. Terrain is limited to the sort of landscape that might be found on the island, including swamps, quicksand and lava pools and rules are given for each sort of ground. Since the monsters are safely contained on the island, rules for military attacks and building destruction are not present. A wide selection of pre-made monsters are made available at the back of the book.
All in all, Monster Island is a very fun tabletop combat game built around the Action system RPG rules. It is very simple and will be readily picked up by even a very young player. The only thing lacking is a system for having monsters of varying masses, as it is assumed that each creature will be of a comparable size in the rules. However, this is a very minor complaint, and one easily remedied by house rules.
Firefly Games has done a wonderful job of supporting their product. In addition to the expansion, 'Escape from Monster Island' which details military defences and city destruction, their website offers free expansion material, including 'Monster Packs' which offer new monsters and powers, and 'Rumble Packs' which give rules for new terrain types and other odds and ends.
Other Resources:
 The Official 'Firefly Games' Site
Monster Island: Official Press Release
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