Main Menu

Gamebooks

Started by Funt Solo, 19 October, 2021, 02:40:32 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Richard

Those two books, Creature and Night, are both much better than the average FF book.

BB's review makes me want to look at Seas of Blood again. I can't remember anything about it except the endings. But I like the idea of playing as an evil character for a change!

Barrington Boots

I'm off to buy Night of the Necromancer then.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

Blue Cactus

My friend and I attempted Legend of Zagor last week and the biggest challenge was issues we had with Microsoft Teams. Took about an hour to get that sorted. Which was about twice as long as we lasted in the story!

The book is a bit different in that you choose one of four characters (all white males of course) who each have different strengths and weaknesses. We selected Sallazar the wizard and my companion rolled some decent-ish initial scores. Here is my extensive quest report:

Spoke to a priest for a bit of cryptic advice before setting off. Headed to the tavern to try and scrape up some extra money through gambling (Ric my pal cannot resist heading to a tavern in FF books). Anyway, we lost some money pretty quickly and so couldn't buy much from the local shop. Feeling somewhat dejected we boarded the ship that was set to take us to our destination and met the captain, a sea-dog centaur. He's dressed in full sea captain clobber from the (human) waist up and we manage not to embarrass him by looking at his unclothed horse parts. We set sail.

A couple of paragraphs later we got absolutely gubbed by a Wyvern.

End of quest.

In short, I still have no idea if this book is any good or not - pretty sure this happened last time too!

Barrington Boots

Freeway Warrior part 3 - The Omega Zone

The ending of the previous book saw me rescue Kate and reach Fort Bliss in El Paso where we linked up with a small military force under Captain Frankland of the WDL only to be besieged by Mad Dog Michigan and his army of over 1000 lunatics from the various clans he had united under his banner.

The book starts with us having been under siege for a few weeks until we get the news that the clansman are bringing in a few trucks of explosives from Zaragoza - enough to blow up Fort Bliss and everyone in it. Captain Frankland decides to take a team of four out to blow up the trucks once they reach Ciudad Juarez, with that team being marines Haskell and Knott from book 2 plus me (I wondered where the other marine from book 2 went, as he is never mentioned - looks like he can die in book 2 and so isn't referred to again here, which is a shame as there's no tangible benefit to the player therefore to keeping him alive). The plan is that we infiltrate the clans base on foot and blow up their stuff, which should allow the defenders of Fort Bliss to bust out and make a run for Tucson. It's kind of the same setup as the start of book 2, except this time I'm on foot - Kate will be driving my car and leading the colony. I've kept all my gear from the previous book including my fire axe.

Right at the start I choose to take the longer, less dangerous route out of Fort Bliss. I got for maximum stealth, dodging patrols and scavenging where we can. Clansmen infest the city - I spot a large group of them looting the El paso Museum of art and building bonfires of the paintings and artworks - but we reach the Rio Grande without incident, kill the guards on the bridge and sneak into Ciudad Juarez on the Mexican side of the river where Mad Dog is holed up at the Juarez race track (he obviously likes race tracks as he was camped out in one at San Angelo). The track is packed with clan vehicles of all shapes and sizes, and Mad Dog is spotted in command. Knott heads off to secure a truck for our exit whilst we distribute our own explosives and stealth off to set them on the trucks from Zaragoza once they arrive. It goes a bit wrong for me here as I easily dispatch a guard and plant my bomb but when Knott starts up out getaway truck the clans are alerted, I bungle a roll and get shot up and eventually pulled into the moving vehicle by Haskell and Frankland, leaving half the contents of my backpack behind. With bullets tearing through the truck around us we bust out the racetrack and detonate the bombs on the explosive trucks sending a fireball sky high. Mad Dogs army falls into confusion and as we speed off into the night we can hear gunfire from Fort Bliss as the colony makes its run for Tucson.

What follows is something of a running battle: from the back of the truck I'm first battling bikers, before we stop and massacre a pack of pursuing Angelios, then detour around Columbus into New Mexico and losing pursuit in the mountains.
Ten miles out of the abandoned town of Hachita the ignition unit fails on the truck and Knott and I have to walk back in the baking heat to see if we can scavenge one. There are clan scouts there and I take a lot of wounds in a knife fight, but they have sufficient supplies on them for me to heal up and top up my now-depleted food and water. We find the part we need and choose to take the clans motorbikes back to the truck, which is a poor choice as Haskell and Frankland promptly open fire on us as they think we're with the Lions. Luckily no permanent harm is done. We also find tracks that shows the convoy breakout was successful and has passed this way - hurray! Looks like Kate (or someone) is still in my Interceptor. We camp overnight at Lordsburg and who should roll through overnight but another convoy - this time the remnants of Mad Dogs lot, led by Mad Dog himself, also following the convoy's trail. Out truck is found and another fun battle ensues as we make our escape over the rooftops, steal another vehicle (a jeep from a couple of dopey Mavericks) and the chase is on again. I'm driving, Frankland is on the heavy MG mounted on the roof: fancy driving and fnacy shooting gets us through the night, and in the end we stage an accident, setting our jeep alight and pushing it into a ravine, staging our deaths and throwing the pursuers off.

This of course leaves us walking in 90 degree heat. At the next town I scavenge a fire extinguisher (the only item that has proved essential in both previous books: it didn't here) and we're able to scavenge a Toyota pickup. I don't have the requisite item to start it but we jump start it in the end, meaning our water supplies take a hit, and we're just climbing into the car when - BLAM! - Haskell takes one right between the eyes. We take cover but no more shots are forthcoming. Looks like a clan sniper is on our trail - but where?

Knott is badly shaken and I'm not much better. We speed off to Coronado Timber Forest, and we're burying Haskell when the sniper strikes again, first shooting out our tyres and then killing Frankland. Knott and I flee into the forest where we discover signs of life and, under fore from the sniper again, find a small reinforced underground cabin. We break in via an air vent but the family within won't help us and force us out, where the sniper is waiting, and Knott is shot and killed and I only escape by running like a madman from tree to tree and climbing down a cliff before taking shelter in an abandoned hunting lodge where, luckily, I find an offroad bike which takes me as far as Tombstone before conking out.

As a reader, by now I was in a bit of a panic as it appeared the bike dying on me was due to my failure to collect an item earlier. With the assassin approaching, I take shelter in Tombstone courthouse. The sniper drives up like Streethawk, all in black leather on a black bike and promptly puts a bullet into my bikes engine, blowing it up and illuminating him nicely. As he reloads his rifle I fire, but my shot goes wide. I duck back into hiding but he has some kind of infrared binoculars and puts a few bullets through the wall I'm behind followed by a smoke grenade. Coughing and spluttering I have no choice but to bust out the door and end up face-t-visor with him. There's a little showdown at high noon moment where we stare at each other through the smoke in the morning light, then we draw, but I'm quicker and one shot is all it takes.

With the hitman dead I take all his awesome hi-tech gear including his bike and go racing after the colony where I swiftly meet Kate, who has been scouting back looking for me. Our happy reunion is brought to a sudden halt however when who should appear over the horizon but twenty clan bikers and Mad Dog himself in a souped up, bullet proof black roadster. He catches us at the girder bridge over the Pantano Wash river and sideswipes us into the crash barrier. With Kate's bullets having no effect, he tries to ram us over the side, but I brake hard and he hits the bridge side at 100mph. I accelerate past - up ahead there's an abandoned bus across the bridge and only room for one vehicle to pass. I keep my nerve, shoot through the narrow gap and Mad Dog hits the bus like a ramp, catapulting him into the air, off the bridge and far into the river below to his doom. All that remains is for Kate and I to catch up with the convoy at Tucson for high fives all round. Surely the way to California will be simpler now, with Mad Dog dead?

VICTORY!

For me this was probably the weakest book in the series so far. A lot of it felt like a retread of stuff I'd done in books one and two: the back of the book promised a journey across the titular 'Omega Zone' of New Mexico and Arizona "a region still blighted by lethal radioactivity" but this didn't really factor in - I think the Omega Zone itself was only mentioned once, by the survivalist family. Adventuring with the marines was less interesting than you'd think as they were all pretty interchangeable.

I also found it pretty easy. My skills are now very high, easily enough to pass (or at least, not catastrophically fail) most tests, I never really ran low on supplies and with the way the items work (they give you an advantage, rather than a 'don't have it and die' setup like in most FF books) I was rarely troubled and finished the book first go. Otherwise the book had the same pros (strong worldbuilding and atmospheric writing) and cons (false choices, fiddly combat) as the others. The art here wasn't quite as good as the previous two either - some good cars, but one of the pictures of a Mexican clansman had him looking like a cartoon bandit with sombrero and droopy moustache and the cover, which shows Kate and I running from a souped up bulldozer, doesn't happen at all from what I can tell.

The one thing that was fun and different was being hunted by the sniper - that was pretty tense stuff once it got going and the final battle being in Tombstone was a nice touch, even though the fight was over very quickly. The ending with Mad Dog was fun, but felt a bit tacked on and one paragraph after knocking him off the bridge I was in Tucson and the book was over.

I don't believe for a minute Mad Dog is dead and I expect the fourth and final book will be a showdown between us. Although I actually hope Kate gets him.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

Barrington Boots

Quote from: Blue Cactus on 18 August, 2022, 10:36:05 AM
a sea-dog centaur. He's dressed in full sea captain clobber from the (human) waist up and we manage not to embarrass him by looking at his unclothed horse parts.

I hope there is a picture of this.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

Richard

The sniper seems like a pretty cool section of the book. I wonder if there is more than one way to defeat him? And the fight with Mad Dog sounds like it was a suitably entertaining climax. A bit annoying if he's not really dead though. Hopefully book 4 has another villain.

Blue Cactus

Quote from: Barrington Boots on 22 August, 2022, 05:15:29 PM
Quote from: Blue Cactus on 18 August, 2022, 10:36:05 AM
a sea-dog centaur. He's dressed in full sea captain clobber from the (human) waist up and we manage not to embarrass him by looking at his unclothed horse parts.

I hope there is a picture of this.

There is! Maybe me saying 'sea-dog' confused the image slightly but he is a ship captain and centaur.

Barrington Boots

I'm thinking top half is tricorn hat and a naval style coat and bottom half is a horse?
This is absolutely ridiculous, because being a centaur would make it extremely difficult to get about on a boat. No wonder this guy got you ganked by a wyvern.

Quote from: Richard on 23 August, 2022, 12:30:39 AM
The sniper seems like a pretty cool section of the book. I wonder if there is more than one way to defeat him?

There was a different place I could hide when he was approaching, but I think it would have played out in the same way.

One thing I've noticed about these books is a lot of the choices aren't hugely impactful. For example, prior when I saw the bikers burning stuff at the museum I had the choice of going one way where I could hear commotion and another way where it was quiet. I took option 1, saw the fire, then was told I doubled back and took the quiet route. The choice added some atmosphere and made the story cooler, but didn't change the route at all.
As another example, I always take binoculars but I've noticed when asked if I have them I get a paragraph that gives me some colour info (eg I can see the bikers approaching are Detroit Lions) but then I just move to the paragraph I would have gone to had I not had the binoculars.

It's similar to WotT where you may have two routes (eg. there were two ways to get in to rescue Kate) but it's hard to veer off the main path which has both advantages and disadvantages.
Fun though and keen to see how the last book plays out! I will also finish WotT and then it's back to FF. 
You're a dark horse, Boots.

Richard

Way of the Tiger 4: OVERLORD!

Not a full playthrough this time, more of a review. Barrington Boots has written a pretty comprehensive guide on page 25, and now that I have finally read it (only now, to avoid spoilers) I pretty much did everything he did, except for one departure which I will cover when I get to it.

My favorite part of the book is the first half, in which you are ruling a city and have to make a number of political decisions, all of which have ramifications for later on, and the whole thing is presented in an entertaining way. You have a Popularity score, which is affected by the decisions you make and their consequences, and from time to time the book asks you what your score is, and if it's too low the people revolt and depose you. This happened to me once, but I just resumed playing from that bit, because I was only one point short, and I had lost one point for imprisoning someone without trial -- since it turns out that not imprisoning him causes absolutely no problems at all, I just pretended I hadn't done that and kept going.

You have to choose four advisors from a list of eight, and each individual is very different. My favourite is Foxglove, the head of the secret police and a senior person in the former, evil administration. She is an interesting character as she is sometimes loyal to you and sometimes not. If you choose another evil character as an advisor, they both gang up on you, but if you don't (I didn't, he's the guy I locked up) then she is a useful ally, as long as you don't piss her off. The evil or at least ruthless characters generally give better advice; the good guys generally give crappy advice. Your choices of what you may decide to do are restricted to following the advice of one or another of the people on your council, which frustrated me at one point when I would have liked to do a combination of two people's ideas but wasn't allowed to, but it's a completely unique kind of gameplay (as far as I know) for a gamebook.

Like Mr Boots, I could have played a whole book of this, but unfortunately halfway through you are obliged to leave the city and go on a quest to recover the stolen crown jewels. That seems like a very bad idea when I've only just begun my reign, but when the book offers me the chance to decline I think it must be a bad idea so I go anyway. (I'm right to do that as the alternative is an instant death paragraph!)

I go to some distant mountains and fight some evil ninjas who live there. This is a tough section of the book, as these ninjas are pretty deadly, but I eventually manage, and with his dying breath their leader gives me a detailed run-down about where to find the stolen jewels. That seemed a bit odd at first, but it turned out to be a bit of a ruse to get me to lower my guard so he can attack me again, causing the loss of my left eyeball! This permanently reduces all of my skill modifiers by one. But at least it does provide some faintly credible excuse for all that exposition.

Leaving the mountains, I go east because going by the map inside the front cover that seems to be the most direct route to where I'm headed next. Barrington went west here ("because I always do") and had to go to a place called the Isle of Thieves, where he stole an evil magic item which permanently reduced his Inner Force score by one. Instead, I went to another island (not named but it has a city called Haven), a much nicer place. This city is regularly attacked by dragons, so it has various defences like tall towers with spikes on top and nets above all the streets, but sometimes the dragons breach them, like (of course) today. The red dragons breath fire, the black dragons vomit acid, and their leader is a blue dragon who emits lightning. On my first playthrough here I failed to rescue a child, who got eaten, and I left the island empty-handed. Dying later, I came this way again and saved him, earning the supposedly useful help of his grateful father. However that "help" turned out to be basically irrelevant because on my earlier playthough I had discovered that I didn't need it! It's a very well-described and entertaining scene though.

(The Isle of Thieves route is basically the same -- the magical amulet Boots stole is slightly helpful but you can still make do without it. But I read it anyway and found it to be good fun. You also have the opportunity to rescue another innocent character from certain death, which I quite like -- you can rescue either of these poor people, but never both!)

Sailing on, I am attacked by a Kraken, but I see him off by blinding him with a shuriken throwing star (instead of using the magic amulet to achieve the same result). There is then a fight with some monster, after which I regain the missing crown jewels and return home to find my city has fallen to an army of orcs and dark elves. The book ends on a cliffhanger.

I'm quite keen to see what happens next, so I think I will buy book 5.

Barrington Boots

Great review there and I'm glad you also went for Foxglove as top advisor as she is awesome. I was amused by your (true) statement that the good advisors are generally useless. Your path for the second half sounded much more straightforward! To my shame, I didn't even look at the map when choosing my overland route.

Did you become an elf-friend? I was puzzled when the book asked me if I was one but it didn't seem to make much difference.

I think this book could easily have been two books (city management book, and then the quest) and been better for it, but I thought the next book was fantastic. Looking forward to seeing what you think of it!
You're a dark horse, Boots.

Richard

You can become an elf-friend on the Isle of Thieves if you rescue an elf from being sacrificed in the evil temple and then talk to her afterwards. It helps you get along with the elves you meet later, but you don't need it because you can also just be honest with them for the same result.

Barrington Boots

I must have missed that, but I really struggled in that temple.
So I've now finished:

Way of the Tiger: Redeemer -quick review

So this is the last book in the series, written 30-odd years after by a different author but with the blessing of the original ones. As far as I know nobody here has played this book, so to avoid spoiling things I've kept a note of my paragraph's and I can put up my writeup under spoiler tags in another post anyone is interested, otherwise this is just an overview.
The book starts exactly where the cliffhanger of book 6 ends, with Avenger and various others trapped in the web of the Black Widow and facing death. The first half of the book concerns the escape from the Rift, and the second half the retaking of the city (yeah, that's happened again)

It's a real love letter to the series, with a lot of past lore and previous characters returning - including ones slain in previous books.
Various loose ends are resolved and there's a lot of continuity and resolution of arcs. A lot of care has been taken to capture the feel of the original books and it feels like it was written by a real fan of the books.

Mechanically there's a lot of detail in the Rift, where your choice of route and various interactions with characters can mean encounters vary considerably depending on who is alive and has done what or is accompanying you. The second section isn't as complex, but is satisfying. It doesn't end with a cinematic battle but it does end with two quite interesting fights in that one opponent auto hits you and the other you have high defence against, but one hit can kill (although it's possible to kill one of the two enemies earlier in the story, as I found out after he killed me in an one playthrough).

One totally awesome thing is that the book also ties in with [spoiler]Talisman of Death! I picked up the sword used by the shieldmaiden at the start of that book, and later encountered the spellcaster who teleports you out of the Rift. He is dying, but able to assist you once more[/spoiler]..

If I had to complain, as with the other revised WotT books, the art is not great - it's obviously been painted in colour and reproduces poorly in black and white. There is also the sudden introduction of a character related to Avenger who is incredibly competent at everything. Other than that though, I found this a superb ending to the series and far superior to Inferno where there were some definite issues.

That's the end of my journey through Way of the Tiger! Kwon ftw!
You're a dark horse, Boots.

Richard

Is the writing style similar to the other books?

Barrington Boots

It's similar yes - not quite the same and not quite as good, but close enough (and the book was engaging enough) for me to not really notice.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

Barrington Boots

#479
Appointment with F.E.A.R

An old favourite of mine this one. As a kid I was super-into Superheroes and was desperate to complete this back in 1985, but never, ever did - partially because I wasn't able to really work out the clue bit, but partly because I never realised that the four different powers essentially give you four separate solutions.

Super strength is the obvious choice as it gives you automatically high skill but I seemed to remember ETS was always the best power to choose as you can be Batman (it actually was mainly useless) I tried both below.

I tied myself in knots trying to work it out and eventually the book ended up in my bookshelves, making several house moves with me but never seeing the light of day on it's aged pages - until now. The Silver Crusader is back, baby!

Super Strength Silver Crusader to the Rescue!

Silver Crusader foils Tormentor, saves jet! The villainous Tormentor is off to jail, and the Silver Crusader has part of the clue to track down F.E.A.R!
Silver Crusader saves woman from fountain beast in Radd square! A man gave him clue, but it made no sense, so he went to work!
Silver Crusader gets chewed out by his boss, goes shopping! He witnessed the kidnap of Millionaire Drew Swain, but when he rushed to help, he was gunned down by the Mantrapper's energy cannon and killed. What a useless goon!

Gadgets Silver Crusader to the Rescue!

Silver Crusader investigates bank robbery! The Alchemists were at work here. He also finds a clue to track down the notorious Ice Queen.
Silver Crusader stops shark attack! Children saved. He also gets s clue to track down a mysterious 'Menagerie Master'.
Silver Crusader catches Tiger Cat! Feline villain was attempting to rob a dairy! ThT'll teach her.
Silver Crusader catches Fire Warriors! Douses them with extinguisher from his utility belt and won without a fight.
Silver Crusader stops pickpocket! He also found the 1st part the clue to enable him to stop the FEAR meeting!
Silver Crusader skips work, goes shopping again! This time, forewarned with a clue, he witnesses the kidnapping, but is able to track down the Mantrapper and defeat him and his cronies. All in all, a good days work.

Day 2
Investigating mysterious attacks, the Silver Crusader tracks down The Ringmaster who was murdering the jury that convicted him. He easily defeats the Ringmaster's lions with his gadgets!
Silver Crusader goes to the museum, discovers the dreadful Mummy! He fails to do anything and runs away! (I remember the Mummy being unstoppable without strength or energy blasts)
Silver Crusader defeats The Devastator at the library with his deadly acid! Booklovers rejoice!
Silver Crusader stops a rampaging android at Whirls Court! Deciding to save the citizens instead of pursuing the Titantium Cyborg, he discovers the vital circuit jammer. Another good days work!

Day 3
The FEAR meeting is today and I don't have the right clues. Game over again.

Well, this certainly brought back some old feelings associated with this book - those of being pretty useless. The Silver Crusader is pretty hapless in that with some poor choices you can mess up murder investigations, fail to stop all sorts of rampaging enemies and completely miss all the clues so I never really got the feeling of being 'super', more like someone always struggling to catch up. I will finish this, but serious work is needed to find the true path as the sheer number of numerical clues given to you (if you see evidence of criminal x, add or subtract y from the paragraph) is very large and it all adds up to a tightly plotted and very difficult to navigate book.

Objectively then the book is a mixed bag: it's frustrating and the setting is a weird one - it's full of little jokes with the names of the various places you can go and references to other Superhero characters and genres, but it's also surprisingly grim in places with many of the villains, despite often looking and sounding goofy, being vicious killers and the whole thing felt a little jarring. Things also feel quite quick moving and throwaway, jumoing from one crazy situation to the next - all of which are unrelated so there's no 'big plot' here and nothing really to drive the story forward. I do like being able to choose your powers and the different ways it enables the story to play out, and I'm a huge fan of the comic style art.. of course the amazing Bolland cover (I think the only cover that has not been changed for the reprints?).

Although not the beloved classic I hoped it was going to in all honesty be, I have another appointment with FEAR in my future, I think.
You're a dark horse, Boots.