Virtual Worlds was on hand with a dozen MechWarrior simulator pods. These surprisingly sophisticated sims let players climb into the cockpit of an 80-ton walking war machine for just $6 per mission. Read about it here.

An upcoming starship tactical battle game called With Hostile Intent was on display. Although the official rules haven't been released yet, publisher Ninja Magic had some great looking painted ships to show off. There's a gallery of them over at Robot Viking.

Twilight Creations debuted their new invasion game, Martians!!! Based on the same game design as their popular and venerable Zombies!!! series, the game pits the human players against a horde of conquering alien greys. Watch out for the crop circles.

I also got a chance to try out Race for the Galaxy, an interstellar empire building card game. It has some interesting and elegant game mechanics, and the card art features some cool space stations, aliens and futuristic weapons.

Finally, while it's not strictly sci-fi, a new mass combat miniatures game called Arcane Legions generated a lot of interest. The game is based on an alternate history in which Egypt, Rome and the Chinese Han Dynasty battle in a world filled with living mythology, and it has one of the coolest game mechanics I've seen in a long time.

Of course, you can see the full story over at Robot Viking, but here's a taste of what Ed Grabianowski has to say:

Master Vodo is widely considered one of the greatest Jedi Masters of all time. He lived thousands of years before the events depicted in the Star Wars movies, although a holographic version of himself shows up to share his ancient Jedi wisdom with Luke Skywalker. He trained many Jedi, some of them quite notable in their own right. Including Exar Kun, who apparenly had fear, which of course leads to anger . . . and that lead to Master Vodo suffering a gruesome death at the hands of his former pupil . . . Vodo essentially has one real Force power: Force Alter, which lets him shift probabilities and make opponents reroll crucial attacks. Master of the Force allows him to do this twice each turn, and with five Force points to spend, he could make for a very frustrating opponent. I like the way the Force Spirit power reflects Vodo's ability to inspire other Jedi even after his death.

If you want to see more upcoming characters for Jedi Academy, check these out.

via Robot Viking

io9 pal Ed Grabianowski gushes about the book, and the dystopian scenario it supports:

It's a few hundred years in the future, humankind has warped and splintered, society has devolved into walled city-states glaring at each other through their bristling defenses, and cosmic aliens walk the Earth alongside demons. Yeah, it was that kind of apocalypse. What does this world desperately need? I'll tell you one thing, it probably doesn't need zombies or hostile robotic children, but it's getting them anyway . . . Each creature in the book gets a full-color image. Not some little pencil drawing, either - a big, evocative, awe-inspiring image like the Augmented Sentience Killer above . . . The creatures themselves are really quite weird (and I mean that as a compliment of the highest order). You've got the aforementioned AI kid-bots; freaky little mutants that are part living Cabbage Patch Kids, part post-apocalyptic cannibal hobbits; giant alien warbeasts; demon dogs; super-zombies and hideously mutated abominations that look like a casting call for a Tool video.

Want to get the full story on this welcome addition to your gaming universe? Check out Ed's full review at Robot Viking.

io9 pal Ed Grabianowski explains it all over at Robot Viking:

Part of what makes these sets so cool is how rare it is to find terrain sets with a modern theme at all. The Mayhem Junkyard set just came out a few weeks ago, adding a dirty, grungy setting complete with crushed cars, piles of used tires and the dingy front office that you find in every junkyard. The only detail missing was a girly poster on the wall.

The Mayhem Junkyard is just the latest Mayhem setting, though. Mayhem Industrial includes a trucking company, industrial equipment and trucks. Streets of Mayhem is a gritty urban street scene perfect for a ton of modern and sci-fi RPGs and miniatures games, including a certain special Robot Viking project (that I promise isn't dead!). Mayhem Downtown will give your superheroes all the tall buildings they can possibly leap over, brood on the ledges of or swing from via synthetic webbing.

Get the scoop on how to deploy these cool gaming sets in your next post-nuclear D&D game. Read the rest of Ed's review at Robot Viking.