Wednesday 26 August 2020

Fighting Fantasy #15 - The Rings of Kether

Title: The Rings of Kether

Author: Andrew Chapman

Illustrators: Terry Oakes (cover), Nik Spender (interior)

Published: 1985

Level of previous knowledge: Something about being an undercover investigator and a narcotics ring. In space. Yeah, nothing that isn’t on the back cover.

Plot summary: All is not well in the Galactic Federation. Nasty drugs are being exported from one particular system and the local authorities don’t seem to be doing anything about it, so they’ve called on me, a humble interstellar fruit salesman, to investigate and bring down the entire operation from within. No problem.

Rules: A hybrid of Space Assassin and Freeway Fighter – blaster combat and ship-to-ship combat are used in this book, the latter using the ship’s WEAPONS STRENGTH and SHIELDS. Smart missiles are this book’s equivalent of rockets, winning ship combat instantly. Four energy tablets replace provisions, restoring 6 STAMINA each. LUCK isn’t used in combat.

 

Attempt #1

Stats rolled: SKILL 12, STAMINA 20, LUCK 8, WEAPONS STRENGTH 8, SHIELDS 5

Approaching the planet of Kether in my ship, I decided to begin my mission by wasting time and shields investigating the asteroid belt nearby, where I found nothing but two hostile, unidentified vessels which were much better shots than their stats suggested. Upon landing on Kether my ship was searched for illegal technology, but fortunately my smart missiles of utter destruction were perfectly legal.

Grumbling, I headed to the canteen for a drink and a mingle with the locals. Deciding that a coarse, burping woman was clearly of interest, I followed her home, where thanks to a handy sign I discovered her name was Zera Gross, and she was in the interplanetary import/export business. Congratulating myself on my amazing detective skills but not quite understanding why this was important at all, I settled down to watch her apartment for a while. Soon a visitor named Arthur showed up to see her, so when he left I tailed him carefully. Or not carefully at all – he spotted me following and ducked into the shadows, from whence he grabbed me as I passed. He scrawled a note telling me to be quiet because of a ‘spy beam’, and then another telling me to meet him at a nearby hotel.

Arriving at the run-down hotel, I climbed the stairs to the 12th floor because the lift wasn’t working. Approaching the door to the room, I met an extremely shady-looking individual heading the other way. Choosing to investigate the room rather than follow him, my suspicions were quickly aroused when I knocked on the door and heard nothing but a groan from within. Smashing the door down, I discovered Arthur lying in a pool of his own blood. With his conveniently-timed dying breath he told me to beware Zera Gross and someone called ‘Blaster B…’. Chuckling slightly at the silly name, I reminded myself of the gravity of the situation, and looted the corpse hurriedly. The man’s wallet identified him as Arthur Flange (chortle) and a letter from someone named Clive (hilarious) told me that he had a meeting arranged for the next morning, adding that ‘Z’ doesn’t suspect their plans yet.

I decided to go to the meeting in Arthur’s place, so showed up at the CafĂ© Heroes of the Federation (yes, really) at 9am. The man, perhaps sensibly, didn’t show up, so I did some searching about and came up with his likely address. At the door I was greeted by Clive’s rather upset wife, who told me that Clive’s colleagues had murdered him after he told them he didn’t want to work with them any more (that’s a hell of an exit interview). Here I discovered that Clive was Zera’s accountant, and that a customs boss called Kalensus was in on the whole thing.

I headed straight for the Customs Office and caught Zac Kalensus, standing by a window. Suspicious. Then an 80s television cop took control of my voice and uttered one of the cheesiest lines I’d ever heard in an attempt to get the man talking. Somehow this had the desired effect, and he mumbled something about a satellite in orbit, that relayed information about shipments. I roughed him up a bit and he revealed the location of the dealers’ HQ, at the top of a tower in the city. I tied the man up with a telephone cord (that’d keep him quiet for ages, right?) and headed straight there.


On the 50th floor of the Isosceles Tower, I found the office of Zera Gross. Reflecting that I could have saved time by simply following her to work a day earlier, I sneaked down a corridor and entered a room where I caught two thugs in the act of shredding documents and incinerating memory chips. A hail of bullets ensued, and I was the last man standing. Helping myself to an automatic blaster which I was told would do extra damage in combat (even though it didn’t when I was the target), I turned to find myself ambushed by a bureaucrat wielding a paperweight. Dodging his attack, I wrestled him into submission and investigated a vidilink which provided the most useful information yet. The message I found informed all staff to destroy all files and rendezvous on an island thousands of kilometres away, and was signed by Zera Gross and Blaster Babbet (snigger).

Making my way to the remote island by helijet, I parked at the handy landing bay. Checking out a nearby anti-grav dray (not being Australian I had to Google this one – it’s a truck without sides) I considered the possibility of ramming the freight doors with it, but decided not to announce my arrival so loudly just yet, and made for another tunnel entrance. Inside I was met by some kind of giant cybernetic dog, which leapt at me and engaged in paw-to-hand combat. Its growl was worse than its bite, however, and it was dispatched easily.


Taking a turning, I entered a room containing a friendly robot who I called Johnny Five. Johnny Five rolled over to me and offered to clean my gun. I shoved Johnny Five out of the way and helped myself to the only useful thing in the room, a hand grenade, before going back to the corridor. The next room I entered contained four thuggish-looking guards who opened fire without asking questions, but luckily they’d not done the appropriate training yet and were terrible shots. The room was full of crates containing narcotics, but nothing of particular interest except a corpse in the corner, which looked like it had been through a rough time. I found some energy tablets clutched in its hand, which presumably would have fixed the man up nicely if he’d managed to get them into his mouth in time. Oh well.

After a brief encounter with a riddling robot where I managed to guess correctly without understanding my own answer, I wandered straight into the office of none other than Zera Gross herself, dictating to her robot sentry. Opening fire immediately I was able to put her down without injury to myself, in a brief, anticlimactic kind of way. The room adjacent to her office was the command centre of the operation, where I learned that the drugs were being manufactured on an asteroid, and noted its location before making my way back to my ship.


Blasting off into space once more, I headed for the asteroid belt, to find the asteroid in question well defended. I took out the surrounding mines with my phasers, taking some damage to the ship in the process, and was then confronted by batteries of phasers. Firing both my smart missiles (I figured this might be the last time my ship was involved in combat, and certainly would be if I didn’t) I barely managed a victory, with no SHIELDS left whatsoever. Parking veeeery carefully at a dock, I left the ship and entered a zero-gravity tunnel heading into the asteroid.

Coming to a large chamber I was met by a bizarre device consisting of metal cubes with bolts of electricity flying between them. It looked very interesting but was disappointingly inefficient at impeding my progress, my automatic blaster making short work of it. The next room was a large cavern where I was presented with the odd choice of leaping across some floating metal spheres to the other side, or walking amongst some tentacled creatures below. Wondering how the regular employees here would get around these obstacles, I leapt from sphere to sphere until I arrived at the exit, my SKILL making the task a trivial one.


The exit led to the main drug factory, where I amused myself for a while by sabotaging some of the equipment. Opening a door, I was confronted by a big-mouthed, three-legged alien which commanded me to halt so it could shoot me. Climbing over its corpse, I continued to the next room, which was a cube, each wall of which contained a door with a button. Pressing them at random, my very last choice was successful, opening into an identical room. This time I was successful on the second attempt, and I exited at the cost of 5 STAMINA and 1 SKILL point. Slightly sore, I was surprised to find myself facing two identical figures, both of which were apparently Blaster Babbet (heh) himself. Instead of shooting either of them I decided to dive through a folding screen, only to discover the real villain hiding behind it – both of the figures were some kind of reflections. The ensuing punch up did not go well for him, and I soon had him trussed up like a goose, my mission a success.    

Conclusion: Success!

Number of combats: 9

 

Review

Writing: Another new setting for FF, this one a planet in a Galactic Federation that isn’t described as ‘alien’ as such, but is certainly weird and wonderful in different ways. Little touches like ‘crypto-fluorescent signs’ and ‘helicabs’ conjure visions of a futuristic Blade Runner style environment. The investigation element of the book is actually quite interesting, the numerous ways in which you obtain information keeping you moving from one location to another, piecing together the story. The main problem is the characterisations, both of the villains and the main character, which are lacking or poor. I’ve never enjoyed it when a gamebook puts words in my mouth, and to hear myself speaking such awfully cheesy and stupid lines dropped my immersion quite a bit. The two major villains had potential but were never fleshed out very much, particularly Blaster Babbet who I knew absolutely nothing about all the way to the end, except that he was the boss of the narcotics ring. Overall however it’s a much more cohesive story than Andrew Chapman’s last effort, Space Assassin.

Writing: 3/5

 

Artwork: Usually I don’t care too much for the sci-fi type drawings of robots and the interiors of spaceships, and while they’re not great here either, they’re certainly better than earlier books. Some of the illustrations of other environments and especially of people however are excellent. I’m not sure who is depicted on the front cover (it might be Zera Gross but doesn’t look like the internal illustration) but it’s not bad either.

Artwork: 3/5

 

Design: This is probably the least linear FF so far in that there seem to be many ways to progress through each stage of the story. This results in the overall adventure (at least the path I took) being significantly shorter than most earlier books, but this could be considered a good thing and certainly makes replaying the book more attractive, especially as there are actually two different ways to win. There is no ‘shopping list’ of items and a lot of freedom with decision making, as the book finds a way to get you back on the right track without it feeling forced. The disadvantage of this approach is that it does make the book a little easy, as demonstrated by my completing it on my first attempt without remembering anything about it. The lack of interesting items (all I picked up were combat upgrades) takes something away from the experience.

There aren’t many substantial combats in the book which feels like a shame, especially the lack of ship-to-ship combats (only three in the entire book), but it does kind of fit with the story that a detective would avoid combat as much as possible (but perhaps shouldn’t be as skilled as my character when forced into one).

Finally, although you play a detective in this book, at no point did I feel like I had to use the information I had learned to make an important decision – structurally it felt a bit like a tick-box exercise than an investigation as all conclusions were fed to me rather than hinted at and referred to later on. Even the riddle I was asked by a robot at one point was too easy because I just had to choose the first letter of the answer out of three options – I got this correct even though I had no idea what the answer was, and don’t understand it even in retrospect.

Design: 3/5

 

Fairness: From my somewhat limited playthrough (I only saw one possible path through the book) I had little trouble navigating the hazards in the book. There don’t seem to be many ways to find yourself at an instant death paragraph, and those that do exist appear to be the result of bad decision making rather than random chance. None of the combats were overly difficult although one unavoidable (I think) ship combat would have been almost impossible with a low SHIELDS statistic. I also didn't come across any clues that would have helped with the final confrontation - just a slight hint at Blaster Babbet's personality (turns out he doesn't have one) somewhere along the way could have been useful. 

Fairness: 3/5

 

Cheating index: 0 Razaaks

 

Average enemy stats

Successful path:

11 enemies, SKILL 7.3, STAMINA 7.2

3 enemy ships, WEAPONS STRENGTH 6.3, SHIELDS 3.7

Entire book:  

24 enemies, SKILL 7.4, STAMINA 6.9

5 enemy ships, WEAPONS STRENGTH 6.6, SHIELDS 2.6

 

Instant death paragraphs: 19

 

Any player can win no matter how weak initial dice rolls: The book doesn’t make this claim, but with some lucky rolls this could just about be TRUE.

Final thoughts: A nice change of pace from other books in the series, this book presents an intriguing story and an alien setting which is more fleshed out than previous sci-fi efforts. It may be a little easy to complete because the decision tree is so forgiving but this makes for a short, fun, replayable adventure which although is slightly ridiculous in places, doesn’t outstay its welcome and is definitely worth playing.

Final score: 6/10

Wednesday 12 August 2020

Fighting Fantasy #14 - Temple of Terror

Title: Temple of Terror

Author: Ian Livingstone

Illustrators: Christos Achilleos (cover), Bill Houston (interior)

Published: 1985

Level of previous knowledge: I remember having to collect little dragon miniatures along the way or fail the quest (well, it’s Ian Livingstone after all). Also that there are a couple of different ways to get to the dungeon in the first place. Oh and who could forget the happy little fellow, the Messenger of Death…

Plot summary: A rather nasty chap called Malbordus was brought up by dark elves in Darkwood Forest, so of course has grown up to be a complete sociopath. For his eighteenth birthday he wanted five dragons, and found out that if he could retrieve the dragon artefacts from the lost city of Vatos, his wish would come true. The wizard Yaztromo says it’s unlikely that Malbordus would use such pets for anything other than evil, so it’s down to the brave warriors of Stonebridge to step up and explore Vatos en masse in order to find the artefacts before Malbordus does. No? OK, I’ll go by myself then.

Rules: Standard rules with no potion, but a box for Spells on the adventure sheet.

 

Attempt #1

Stats rolled: SKILL 10, STAMINA 18, LUCK 7

Following Yaztromo directly through the Forest of Doom, I questioned how he could pass through with so little difficulty, given the fate that so many adventurers met here in the past. Yaztromo remarked that the creatures of the forest don’t dare mess with him, and it was actually more dangerous going around the perimeter of the forest as the wild hill men out there didn’t have any respect whatsoever. Wondering why Yaztromo didn’t just find the darn hammer parts himself instead of sending adventurers to die in the Forest of Doom, I eventually arrived at his tower, where Yaztromo offered to teach me a few spells before I embarked on my journey. Picking spells that seemed like they would be useful in a deserty ancient city kind of environment (Create Water, Fire, Read Symbols and Open Door) I was soon on my way, led for the first stage of my trip by the wizard’s pet crow, which I named Vel.

I was led to a bridge where some unsavoury types were loading a barge which looked far too small to accommodate me, so I decided on the other option, crossing the bridge and heading for the desert overland. Vel the crow didn’t stick around and callously abandoned me at this point, so I headed vaguely south and hoped for the best. Heading towards some smoke rising a short distance away, I arrived just in time to witness a couple of dark elves setting fire to a hut with flaming arrows, flushing out their quarry and filling him with more arrows. I had no idea who their victim was but this seemed a bit mean so I taught them a lesson they forgot instantly, because they were dead. A quick rummage earned me two gold pieces and a bow, which I thought might be useful if that damn crow ever showed up again.

Heading onward through the scrubland I came to an odd black patch of ground that smelled of decay, in the middle of which sat a medallion with ‘M’ inscribed on it. Retrieving the item was not an appealing prospect and it all seemed like a trap laid for the stupid, so I ignored it and continued on. After an uneventful night I was attacked by a harpy, which failed in its attempt to mesmerise me with its piercing cry and met a swift end at the edge of my sword. Later in the morning a giant eagle arrived to give me a lift to my destination. Fully expecting the ride to be a brief one, because help from an eagle is always either too late or short-lived, I hopped on and took off. Sure enough, a pterodactyl appeared from nowhere and attacked the eagle. My attempt at shooting it with an arrow failed, and I was not given a second chance despite specifically having found two arrows. The pterodactyl and eagle engaged in combat with me still hanging on to the eagle’s back, presumably too terrified to interfere. Unfortunately the pterodactyl turned out to be the superior combatant and my eagle plummeted to the ground and crashed, with no survivors.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 2  

 

Attempt #2

Stats rolled: SKILL 7, STAMINA 20, LUCK 7

Surprisingly this adventure ended not as a result of my pitiful stats, but because once again the giant eagle failed to fend off the pterodactyl’s attack. This was despite my Magic Arrow spell which sunk into the pterodactyl’s belly, for some reason only reducing its SKILL by 1 point and not affecting its STAMINA at all.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 0

 

Attempt #3

Stats rolled: SKILL 9, STAMINA 19, LUCK 11

The pterodactyl wins again.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 0

 

Attempt #4

Stats rolled: SKILL 11, STAMINA 19, LUCK 8

The eagle wins! Flapping valiantly onwards, it soon landed to allow me to find shelter for the night. By the morning it had flown off again, thereby fulfilling its destiny as a giant eagle, by disappointingly being not as useful as it could have been.

Entering the desert proper, I soon found the Create Water spell to be useful, and wondered if Yaztromo was also a master of the Create Sun Lotion spell. Eventually arriving at a worryingly large skeleton of an unknown creature, I spotted a box among the remains, which I dug up to find a mirror and a clay pot. The mirror seemed useful, and being an experienced adventurer I assumed the clay pot was not, and left it alone.

Spending a night out in the open desert (Create Tent, anyone?) I awoke thirsty, and rather than simply cast Create Water again I decided to hunt around until I found a dangerous-looking spiky plant, which I was offered the opportunity to cut open. Declining, I was then offered the chance to cast the spell, and moved on. As I progressed I was grabbed by a pair of tentacles which emerged from the sand, intent of dragging me into a nearby gaping toothy maw. Despite prevailing easily over the tentacles I lost a SKILL point as a result of the unprovoked mauling my leg received.

Further on I encountered a legendary basilisk, who suffered from the typical villain trope of stashing the weapon that is their greatest weakness, somewhere nearby. In this case I whipped out the mirror I found earlier and the basilisk turned to stone. I then came across the corpse of a man who had a terrified, agonised expression on his face, and stole his water bottle. Good times.

Later on I came to the camp of a nomad, who invited me in and gave me food and water. I would have felt bad if I left without buying any of his goods, so I simply bought one of everything, except a mirror because I already had one, and vanity wasn’t my thing. With a pack full of potentially useful items, I was feeling good about life until a giant sandworm emerged from the sand in front of me, and despite my protests that I knew nothing about any spice, attacked without mercy. It was a close fight but the creature’s sheer perseverance overcame the power of my annoyance, and I succumbed to its onslaught.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 2

 

Attempt #5

Stats rolled: SKILL 8, STAMINA 21, LUCK 11

Knowing I stood little chance of making it through the desert this time, I decided to explore the other route to Vatos, buying passage on the barge to Port Blacksand after some minor haggling. Arriving at the city, I sensibly decided to wander the streets of the City of Thieves as dusk set in. Ignoring a highly dodgy-seeming offer from an old man who claimed to have a spare bed for the night, I pushed on and soon found myself at the infamous Black Lobster where I paid for a room and some information about a ship setting sail in the morning. I was directed to the captain who took the princely sum of 10 gold pieces for passage on the Belladonna, first thing in the morning. On the way to my room, I crashed into a rather grumpy fellow and spilled his pints. I thought it best to avoid confrontation and paid yet more money for new drinks.

In the morning I made my way to the ship and was quickly informed that I was to take the place of one of the ship’s gunners, who hadn’t survived the night in Port Blacksand. Knowing what this would lead to, I waited until the inevitable man-of-war appeared on the horizon and hunted us down, firing cannonballs mercilessly until our ship sank. Swimming towards the attacking ship, I was relieved to find it crewed by dwarves who believed my story when I told them I was working for King Gillibran of Stonebridge, and offered to take me the rest of the way to the desert. Two days later I was deposited on a sandy shore somewhere near the desert with no idea which direction I should take.

Heading inland, I came across a corpse with a leather pouch clutched in its hand, which I searched to find a golden key, which looked useful, although why the previous owner was carrying it around the desert in his hands was a mystery. Further on, I came to a familiar tent where a nomad guilt-tripped me into buying his goods again. At this point I knew my purchases would not matter, as the unavoidable fight with the sandworm was next, and the outcome was utterly predictable.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 1 

 

Attempt #6

Stats rolled: SKILL 10, STAMINA 20, LUCK 12

Pterodactyl.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 1

 

Attempt #7

Stats rolled: SKILL 8, STAMINA 21, LUCK 9 

Pterodactyl.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 1

 

Attempt #8

Stats rolled: SKILL 7, STAMINA 20, LUCK 12 

Eaten by the sandworm.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 1

 

Attempt #9

Stats rolled: SKILL 10, STAMINA 22, LUCK 12 

Pterodactyl.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 3

 

Attempt #10

Stats rolled: SKILL 12, STAMINA 19, LUCK 10  

Pterodactyl. Seriously, this is daft.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 2 

 

Attempt #11

Stats rolled: SKILL 7, STAMINA 21, LUCK 12   

Pterodactyl. Not that it matters.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 0

 

As I’ve had 10 attempts and it’s obvious that the giant sandworm will eat at least 50% of characters, not the mention the pterodactyl fight (anyone worked out the odds on that?), and I haven’t even reached Vatos yet, this could easily go over 100 attempts. From now on I’m rolling four dice and allocating them as I like for stats.

 

Attempt #12

Stats rolled: SKILL 9, STAMINA 15, LUCK 8   

Oh, FFS.

Choosing the sea route, I pulled off a miraculous win against the sandworm this time. Stumbling onward through the desert, I ignored an oasis on the basis that I could conjure water from thin air instead and not take any risks. Investigating a pile of rocks I was predictably stung by a scorpion but rewarded for my efforts when I found a sack, in which was glass ball containing some kind of sprite. After he was released he sprinkled some lucky dust on my head and told me to make a headscarf out of the sack. Because I was the least well-equipped person to ever attempt a desert crossing.

Later on I finally arrived at my destination – the lost city of Vatos! Opening the gates with a simple spell I walked until I found myself in an empty square and looked around. A dark stone archway looked promising, so in I went, heading down the stairs into the darkness. At the bottom of the stairs was an icon casket, so fully expecting a trap of some kind, I was bemused when it contained a well-made iron helmet, and more bemused when wearing it didn’t cause my brain to melt or anything.

As I wandered down the corridor, I was tapped on the shoulder and turned to meet an extremely attractive fellow who whispered the word ‘Death’ into my ear before disappearing into the darkness. Instinctively I knew that if I came across all the letters of the aforementioned word during my quest my life would be drained away. Groovy.

Undaunted, I indulged my exploratory tendencies by pulling open a pair of drapes and was almost disappointed to find nothing but a door, which I opened to find an odd room containing nothing but an ice bucket hanging from the ceiling. Oh, and a massive centipede that attempted to eat my legs. Oh wait, it succeeded.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 2 

 

Attempt #13

Stats rolled: SKILL 12, STAMINA 18, LUCK 11

A high SKILL score gets me past the giant sandworm (although still not without serious injury) and I made it to Vatos without much trouble. Heading into the tunnels, I made straight for the giant centipede’s room and exacted revenge before pulling the bucket down from the ceiling, which contained a bone dragon artefact. Woohoo!

In the next corridor I found my path blocked by some kind of spiky floating eye, which floated menacingly in my direction. Fumbling in my backpack for something useful, I pulled out an onyx egg at random, which was apparently too dark for the eye to handle, so it went to sleep and allowed me to pass. Clearly I wasn’t thinking about my return journey, or I would have chopped it to bits right then. Further along I came to an iron grille which I decided not to investigate too thoroughly as distant alarm bells rang in my memory.

Arriving at a T-junction (how many times does that happen in Ian Livingstone books?) I chose a direction at random, following the tunnel until I noticed the floor was covered in broken glass. A shadowy figure appeared, giggled madly and threw a bottle at me which fell to the ground and shattered. The bottle had contained a parchment which I declined to read because you know, possible death and all that. Judging from all the broken glass everywhere, I wasn’t the first to receive this message.

Chasing after my assailant, I soon realised the effort was futile and eventually arrived at another T-junction. I was rewarded for my shrewd choice by an encounter with two skeleton warriors, easily reduced to a pile of bones. At the end of the corridor was a door, behind this door was a room, in this room was a clay goblet, and in my backpack the clay goblet went. Heading back to the junction I took the other tunnel and opened a door to a smelly room which happened to be the lair of someone’s ill-trained (or possibly well-trained) pet dog, which attacked me after bounding in after some meat that ‘someone’ threw in as I arrived. Putting the hound down, I peered into the small dark tunnel that led off the room. Shrugging, I got on to my hands and knees and crawled into the blackness. Sensing danger (thanks, sixth sense) I cast a Detect Traps spell to find myself staring right at a crossbow trap, which I managed to avoid triggering and stepped into another room.

As I made my way across the dusty room my mind was suddenly filled with horrific images of the room in flames, my body burning endlessly. Eventually coming to, I realised it was all an illusion, but that did not prevent the loss of 3 SKILL points. Flipping ‘eck. I then encountered some giant fireflies which I was still too skilled to be bothered by, but then walked in front of a stone golem which took exception to my presence and literally took a bit of a hammering. The next room was flooded, and I waded in fully cognizant of the likely outcome, which arrived in the form of giant tentacles. Luckily they were repelled by the crappy bracelet I guilt-purchased from the nomad in the desert, and I was able to escape unstrangled.

Ignoring a side tunnel, I arrived at a dead end with an alcove in which burned a solitary candle. Behind it I found a box with a dragon motif on the lid. Bracing myself for an unwanted sight I opened the box and was delighted to find a silver dragon artefact. Woohoo! Back at the junction, I headed down the side tunnel until I came face to horrifying face with a lantern-carrying phantom. It glared at me a bit, and I became a terrified, snivelling coward, paralysed with fear while the thing made its escape. Luckily it had no interest in eating my flesh or anything.

 At the next junction I headed towards some tapestries, admiring one in particular, that of a phoenix rising from the ashes. I tore it from the wall and shoved it into my backpack, which seemed like an oddly disrespectful way to treat such a work of art, but it might have been worth something to a certain desert nomad. Further down the tunnel I came to a chair shaped like a sphinx. Grimacing uncertainly, I took a seat, half expecting spikes to emerge from the wall, but was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be one of those vibrating massage chairs, and I stood refreshed and energised. Further down the corridor I came to a room containing some herbal liquid with which I bathed my remaining wounds, healing me back to maximum health and spurring me on.

With no way to continue in this direction I headed back to the junction. Admiring the murals on the tunnel walls, I nearly jumped out of my skin when a voice behind me asked if I enjoyed his work. Responding that his horrifying work was indeed suitably horrific, I had a conversation for the first time since arriving at Vatos (‘Here doggie doggie argh’ is not a conversation). The artist told me he’d never heard of Malbordus, but perhaps Leesha, the High Priestess, would be entertaining him. Her sanctum could be found behind a golden sho—err, curtain of golden rain. Leaving him behind, I continued until I heard the obvious sounds of torture happening behind a door. Still feeling heroic, I charged in and made short work of the perpetrator, rescuing the victim who was fortunately still in a reasonable condition. He advised me that he’d seen someone matching my description of the Messenger of Death, putting something in a golden casket. I thanked him for the top tip and we parted ways.

Coming to another door which I opened with the golden key I found in the desert, I entered an empty room except for the talking head of a woman mounted on the wall. She asked me a riddle about the prize for the art competition being held by the High Priestess, which I fortunately knew the answer to, courtesy of the talkative muralist I met earlier. Red smoke poured from the head’s mouth, which I didn’t worry about at all and breathed in. Luckily the head was true to its word and the smoke made me feel better, healing 2 of my lost SKILL points.

With a pep in my step I continued down the tunnel to be presented with a choice of two doors. Opening one, I found myself in a storeroom where I was set upon by a horned, red skinned, fire-breathing beast which was not a dragon but some kind of disappointing demon. Dispatching it easily, I searched around, finding only a dodgy-looking necklace which I declined to wear, leaving the room and opening the door opposite. The room within contained another door with some kind of donation box attached to it. Wondering if they were trying to raise funds for a new pet centipede, I rummaged in my pockets for a coin – but alas, I was penniless. Shrugging, I moved on into pitch blackness, wondering if the box was actually some kind of primitive electricity meter. Unable to see, I was injured by some kind of blade trap before panicking and running heedlessly for the exit.

I emerged in a candlelit chamber, occupied by a grotesque one-eyed mutant armed with a silver rod capable of emitting blasts of presumably dangerous white light. Rummaging in my backpack for something more useful than my sword, I was hit painfully by a blast, which proved my presumption correct. Unimpressed by the options in my backpack I pulled out the brass handbell and started ringing it, perhaps hoping to distract the creature with how utterly bonkers I was. Imagine my surprise when the mutant screamed and collapsed on the floor. Imagine my further surprise when the ceiling then began to descend, threatening to crush me along with the contents of the room. Briefly wondering if this was just a trick as it seemed odd to crush the contents of the room, the mutant, candles and all (also, what triggered the ceiling’s descent? – OK, my wondering wasn’t so brief after all), I grabbed the mutant’s silver rod, which equally oddly caused the ceiling to stop moving. Unlocking the door with my handy crystal key, I got out while the getting was good.

The next room contained little but a wooden carving of some giant sandworms attacking a city. Examining it more closely, I found an ebony dragon artefact hidden in one of the cracks. Weird, but woohoo! Opening another door I found myself in a large hallway occupied by three fanatical men in robes who moved to attack. I convinced them that I came bearing gifts for the Great and Ever Wonderful High Priestess Leesha. Handing over the gift (I could choose anything, so I gave them the key to the previous room!) I entered an archway at the other end of the room, into a narrow corridor, protruding from the walls of which were stone arms wielding swords. I wasn’t sure if sword arms were any weirder than sword trees, but they were certainly less dangerous and I swashbuckled my way through without a scratch. At the far end I stepped through the golden curtain of rain as advised by the mural artist earlier.

Beyond was an opulent room adorned with paintings, but I had no time to enjoy them as I was attacked by a bare-chested balding guard with unfeasibly large feet. After defeating them I suddenly felt a bit thirsty and fatigued, bizarrely deciding to drink from a bowl in the room when I could have  easily cast Create Water any time I liked, and then settling down for a nice lay down on the cushions. Thankfully given the option to stay awake, I was interrupted by the sound of someone approaching the room, so I hid behind some drapes, which I was then informed were semi-transparent. Luckily the man who entered the room had very poor eyesight, and after checking on the guard’s corpse he simply ran off again.

Approaching the door on the other side of the room, I cast an Open Door spell and was disgruntled when it failed to work – apparently my magic had been drained by the golden rain but that didn’t stop the attempt from draining my STAMINA as usual. I hacked the lock off the door and wrenched it open in annoyance, finding another two doors before me, one engraved with a sun sigil and the other with a moon, both with unreadable runes scrawled underneath. Picking the moon door at random, I entered another room containing three pots. Opening one, I found a monkey’s paw which I left well alone as I assumed some kind of curse. Another pot contained a copper ring which I tentatively slipped on to my finger, expecting something terrible to happen – but nothing did. I left the third pot alone as I felt like I was being a bit too curious for someone trying to avoid seeing any ‘messages’.

Another tunnel, another door, and I found myself entering a treasure chamber. Forewarned about the golden casket, I avoided it and helped myself to a golden statuette instead, which would either make me a rich man or a looter’s dream. Further along I took a turning and came across some grapes on a marble column. Assuming they were intended for someone important not therefore not likely to be dangerous, I scoffed the grapes to discover they had healing properties.  This was fortunate, because immediately afterwards I came into contact with two talking skeletons who insisted on poking me full of holes with their spears. I prevailed over them however, and entered the large chamber beyond, which happened to be the inner temple of the High Priestess Leesha.

Leesha was being fanned by yet another bare-chested muscular type, this time with milky white eyes that suggested blindness. He was therefore useless in a fight and dispatched with ease. Leesha grabbed a shiny black object which I assumed would be bad news, so in a flash of completely random inspiration I pulled out a giant sandworm’s tooth from my backpack and waved it at her menacingly. Conveniently this item happened to be her only weakness, so she ran for it. Charging after her, I stopped to investigate an idol of a nice doggie, which contained a golden dragon artefact. Woohoo! I was then further interrupted in my pursuit by a random sunburned dwarf who handed me a war hammer and told me to destroy the dragon artefacts with it in the order I obtained them. Turns out the hammer was the famous weapon put back together by the hero of Forest of Doom and the dwarf was sent by Yaztromo. Wondering why Yaztromo didn’t arrange for me to be armed with the weapon before I started this flipping quest, instead sending a random dwarf on a suicide mission to get it to me (how did he get past all the guards? were they all new employees? So many questions), I chased Leesha into a room with a circular pit in the middle.

Seeing no sign of the High Priestess I decided to empty out my backpack to count my dragon figurines. 1…2…3…4! Gleefully eyeing my collection I was distracted when a clap of thunder sounded, and through the window I saw none other than Malbordus himself departing in true villain fashion, on the back of a dragon’s back. Apparently he had found the fifth dragon and I had failed in my mission. Gah.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 14

 

Attempt #14

Stats rolled: SKILL 10, STAMINA 15, LUCK 10

Eaten by the giant sandworm.

Conclusion: Failure.

Number of combats: 3 

 

Attempt #15

Stats rolled: SKILL 12, STAMINA 19, LUCK 11

This time taking a slightly different route through the tunnels of Vatos, I encountered a gnomish scavenger who had a fetish for brass. He offered to take a brass telescope off my hands in exchange for something from his hoard of goodies. Handing it over, I was delighted to find a crystal dragon artefact amongst his belongings, and grabbed it gleefully. After a brief encounter with a pair of rat men I was back in familiar territory, and knowing that the same path as last time would result in obtaining the rest of the dragons, I stuck to it carefully, with the exception of the room of terrifyingness that cost me several SKILL points last time.

Therefore I was like unto a god when I arrived at the point where my adventure ended last time. Heeding the dwarf’s words and smashing the bone dragon first, I was interrupted in my endeavours when a dishevelled-looking man arose theatrically from the depths of the pit, which looked suspiciously like a latrine. It turned out this was Malbordus himself (Was he waiting in a pit for me to arrive? I thought he was you know, looking for dragon artefacts). He clapped his hands once, causing a deafening thunderbolt to not deafen me because the copper ring I found earlier protected me from it somehow. He then drew his ‘cursed sword’, which was apparently no better than anyone else’s sword, and did not help him in the slightest as I cut him to ribbons. Smashing the rest of the dragon artefacts to pieces, I wondered where that Leesha woman had gotten to. I peered into the pit…

Conclusion: Success!

Number of combats: 15

 

Review

Writing: Ian Livingstone is back in his element with this one, a large part of the book being set in a comforting, familiar, deadly dungeon-type environment where he can use his imagination to its best effect. The Messenger of Death in particular is a great story device, leaving you in fear of investigating anything too closely throughout the dungeon.

The setting is interesting, a return to fantasy after the departure in Freeway Fighter, but with the desert-themed twist. The story is set up pretty well, with Malbordus built up to seem like a genuinely dangerous magic user who is a real threat to Allansia, and you as the hero in a race against time to find the dragon artefacts before he does. Sadly this never really pays off – at no point does it really feel like Malbordus is nearby trying to find the artefacts and the only sign of his existence before the very end of the book is a ‘trap’ medallion supposedly left by him out in the desert (on the ‘wrong’ path). The final confrontation is a big let down – Malbordus is supposedly a powerful wizard but after one easily-defeated trick the conclusion is a simple sword fight. No spells, no cataclysmic dragon-riding duel in a magical thunderstorm, just a fight in a room that looks like a toilet.

As is often the case with FF, there are many things that don’t make much sense. Why send a single adventurer when the fate of the world is at stake? Why not provide the eagle ride from the beginning? Where did Leesha go and what was the purpose of the character in the first place? Why wasn’t Malbordus hounding me at every step, or making more effort to find the dragon artefacts, most of which I found just lying around? Why was he waiting in a pit for my arrival? Why did I suddenly decide to destroy the dragons when I arrived in the unremarkable room at the end?

Also – stop telling us things we don’t know! “Unknown to you, the golden rain has drained your magic powers” is up there with “Unknown to you, you just drove through a minefield without exploding”…

Writing: 3/5

 

Artwork: There are some decent illustrations in this one but I found them mostly unmemorable, except the drawing of Malbordus, for all the wrong reasons. Instead of setting up a final confrontation with a depiction of an all-powerful evil wizard on the verge of greatness, we get a skinny unwashed guy emerging from a toilet (no, I can’t let it go!). The cover is very nice, and I have nothing bad to say about it because Christos Achilleos signed my copy of the book!

Artwork: 3/5

 

Design: This is a pretty tough book to complete because it has a classic shopping list of dragon artefacts, but this is hard to criticise too much because it’s the main premise of the book. The one thing that bugged me slightly was the crystal dragon, which is not only extremely missable (see attempt #13) but can only be obtained if you trade a copper telescope for it, which in turn can only be obtained if a) you pick the correct route to Vatos, thus rendering the other one and all its content pointless) and b) you make a stupid decision which gets you robbed, and then find the telescope on the robbers’ corpses. It’s a shame the desert route is a ‘wrong’ path for this reason, because otherwise it would have been a perfectly viable way to get to Vatos, albeit significantly tougher.

Otherwise this is a pretty well-designed adventure, often with multiple ways to succeed in different situations (the large array of spells and obtainable items helps with this) and a dungeon which feels dangerous at every corner. However it’s a bit linear in places and there are a lot of unavoidable combats which will wear down all but the most skilled adventurers. The final encounter is also disappointing mechanically as well as storywise.

Design: 3/5

 

Fairness: This book isn’t quite as tough as many later ones in the series, but I’d say a minimum SKILL of 10 is required to stand any real chance here, and probably 11. The giant sandworm is a big ability check, denying you entry to the second half of the book if you’re not up to scratch. The Messenger of Death mechanic, while fun, does make it entirely random when you search anything, whether you find a useful item or one of the deadly letters. This unfairness is justified by the story, however. My biggest annoyance in my early attempts was the fight between the giant eagle I was riding and the pterodactyl attacker. The fight is rigged heavily towards the pterodactyl even if you successfully shoot it with an arrow, and you have no influence whatsoever over the fight itself, which more often than not results in your untimely doom. I was glad when I realised that the desert wasn’t necessarily the correct route (especially considering another couple of nasty encounters there) but this fight seemed unnecessarily harsh. Overall the book is learnable within a few attempts if your stats are up to scratch.

Fairness: 3/5

 

Cheating index: 1 Razaak (stat dice allocation) 

 

Average enemy stats

Successful path: 26 enemies, SKILL 7.0, STAMINA 7.0

Entire book: 46 enemies, SKILL 7.5, STAMINA 7.5

Instant death paragraphs: 23

 

Any player can win no matter how weak initial dice rolls: Yeah, that’s a LIE.

 

Final thoughts: An enjoyable adventure that doesn’t quite live up to its own story, it’s nevertheless good fun to explore a new kind of setting in Fighting Fantasy. If you’re in a rush, roll D3+9 for your SKILL…

Final score: 6/10

Monday 27 July 2020

Fighting Fantasy #13 - Freeway Fighter


Title: Freeway Fighter

Author: Ian Livingstone

Illustrators: Jim Burns (cover), Kevin Bulmer (interior)

Published: 1985

Level of previous knowledge: I remember bits and pieces, particularly the fact that you have to choose the right route at each turn because you need to find every fuel canister along the way. Sadly I don’t remember any of the actual route at all.

Plot summary: A killer virus has wiped out most of mankind, which is divided into peaceful fortified towns and roaming gangs of barbaric savages. A resident in a town called New Hope, I have been called upon to transport food supplies to another settlement in exchange for a tanker of fuel. My journey will be long and perilous, so luckily I have a car with all the optional extras I could ask for, including armour plating and rockets.

Rules: The most notable change is the addition of the car, the Interceptor, which has FIREPOWER and ARMOUR stats. The car is also equipped with a certain amount of weaponry – rockets, iron spikes and oil spray. STAMINA is higher than usual, with 24 points added to the roll rather than the usual 12. Med-Kits replace Provisions but perform the same function. Combat is divided into unarmed, shooting and vehicle combat. For the second book in a row there are no rules for using LUCK in combat.


Attempt #1
Stats rolled: SKILL 10, STAMINA 27, LUCK 12, FIREPOWER 7, ARMOUR 30

Driving through the gates of New Hope, I entered a wasteland of ruined buildings, abandoned vehicles and wild animals. I soon arrived at a small town which appeared deserted, and hearing a gunshot in the distance, I decided to get out and explore, because heading towards the sound of a gunshot is definitely the correct course of action. Fortunately the shooter was friendly, and when I told him the truth about where I was from he gave me some useful advice – not to stop at Joe’s garage down the road because they’d rob me. Continuing my drive, my memory was sorely tested when the very next paragraph saw me arrive at Joe’s garage, which I duly ignored and drove on despite the attractive car/girl outside.

Continuing my drive, I was soon confronted by the car on the front cover of the book, complete with turret and unexplained machine gunner. Prevailing at the cost of half my car’s ARMOUR, I left the smoking wreckage of the Chevvy behind. I soon received a call from home, telling me that Sinclair, our council leader, had been kidnapped by a biker gang, and I should look out for them. Shortly after this, my petrol tank had nearly emptied and I was forced to use all my spare fuel to refill. Wondering why a) I had been provided with the most petrol-hungry car in existence and b) I hadn’t been provided with fuel for more than a fraction of my crucial journey to fetch more fuel, I drove on until I was forced off the highway by a tailback of abandoned traffic.  

Turning eastwards (and hoping I hadn’t already failed my mission by doing so) I came across an ambulance parked at the roadside. Unable to resist the idea that I might find some medical supplies, I pulled the doors open and caused a blinding explosion which sent me reeling. Realising that the person who set this trap would now be approaching, I hid under the ambulance, a trick which the highwayman saw through immediately due to the gallons of blood I was leaking everywhere. Taking my chances, I came out shooting, putting him down despite my injury. The ambulance was empty (after fixing myself up I had actually found a negative number of Med-Kits) but the highwayman had some money and some knuckledusters which I hoped would be useful.

Turning south once again, I eventually arrived at a wooden bridge, which a sign saying ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY – KEEP OUT!’. Scoffing at the pathetic attempt to intimidate me, I drove my car carefully on to the bridge, and made my way successfully to the bottom of the river after the bridge collapsed in a thunderous explosion. At least I wasn’t intimidated.

Conclusion: Failure.
Number of combats: 2


Attempt #2
Stats rolled: SKILL 7, STAMINA 30, LUCK 11, FIREPOWER 7, ARMOUR 33

Taking the same route (and again losing half my ARMOUR to the Chevvy), I wanted to avoid as much confrontation as possible on account of my low SKILL score so ignored the parked ambulance and continued eastwards. Eventually I came to a roadblock built from upturned vehicles, which I destroyed with one of my rockets (rather than driving around it, which might have required some kind of ability on my part). This spooked the bikers waiting in ambush, and they sped away, firing a warning shot. Letting them go (my FIREPOWER score isn’t too hot either) I drove onwards, taking the next turning towards a place called Rockville.

Before my arrival a stray shot from a bazooka exploded rather close to my car. Going after the hooligans with the intention of giving them a piece of my mind – they’d blow someone up if they weren’t careful – I found myself entering the small settlement, welcomed by withering gunfire from a nearby farmhouse. Taking out the farmhouse with a rocket (I wondered if this option could be applied to every situation?) I heard cries for help, which I discovered belonged to our missing council leader, Sinclair, who was happily located in the general store and not the farmhouse I had just obliterated. Searching the buildings that were still standing gained me some fuel, a pair of wire cutters, a can of meat which I wolfed down (hope it wasn’t dog food) and a crossbow bolt in the shoulder, courtesy of a booby trap.

Moving on, I took a couple of turnings and ran out of fuel, so filled up with the canister I had recently found. Spending the night sleeping in my car off the road (leaving the car unattended seemed unwise), I drove south once more, miraculously passing unaware and without incident through a literal minefield laid by outlaws. I soon came to a dirt road which looked like it had been used recently, so I took the detour and arrived at some kind of gentlemen’s racing club. Accepting the offer to partake in a spiffing contest of driving skill (uh oh) for the grand prize of a canister of fuel, I was quick off the line, holding my advantage until my rather unsporting opponent fired a grenade under my car, which exploded and caused quite a lot of damage. I survived this setback though, and was able to overtake the chap after a bit of ramming removed more of my ARMOUR. The iron spikes I deployed to hinder his progress did not work properly, unfortunately, but the second grenade that came my way did, and sadly finished off my poor battered car, and me with it.

Conclusion: Failure. I seem to be on the right ‘track’ though. Heh heh.
Number of combats: 1


Attempt #3
Stats rolled: SKILL 10, STAMINA 29, LUCK 12, FIREPOWER 9, ARMOUR 31

Same route as last time, however this time I was more willing to engage in confrontation and therefore indulged in combat with both the highwayman and bikers, where some awful dice rolls ended up with me losing nearly all my STAMINA and a SKILL point as well as a good chunk of ARMOUR. Oddly I was told that I installed my spare wheel even though I wasn’t aware anything had happened to it. Rescuing Sinclair from Rockville was straightforward, and I continued along familiar roads until I arrived once again at the race track.

The race began well this time, my opponent’s first grenade failing to detonate and leaving me with a substantial lead. Unfortunately my iron spikes failed me again and my car took the brunt of the second grenade, surviving the impact but just barely. As we approached the finish line we approached a small bridge wide enough for only one car. My nerve held while my opponent’s deserted him, and I was in the lead on the final stretch. He closed on me quickly however, and I was forced to decide whether to block him to the left or the right. Picking the option to move right, I was told that my opponent had decided to try overtaking on the right (rejoice!) but that I had incorrectly gone to the left (huh?) and was overtaken, losing the race at the finish line thanks to a mistake in the book. Great.
Knowing failure was now just around the corner, I stopped at a garage where I paid a man named Pete to supercharge my engine. If I was going lose the car soon, I may as well do it quickly. Not thinking to ask him if he had any spare fuel laying around (it was a flipping garage after all) I sped off down the road, where I promptly ran out of fuel and ended my mission.

Conclusion: Failure.
Number of combats: 4


Attempt #4
Stats rolled: SKILL 9, STAMINA 32, LUCK 9, FIREPOWER 10, ARMOUR 33
Basically a repeat of the last attempt, instead losing the race thanks to a failure of nerve at the bridge.

Conclusion: Failure.
Number of combats: 4


Attempt #5
Stats rolled: SKILL 9, STAMINA 33, LUCK 12, FIREPOWER 11, ARMOUR 32

This time I tried to get smart with the paramedic highwayman, going along with his orders to come out from under the ambulance with my hands up, then attempting to throw a knife at him. He saw it coming a mile off though, and gunned me down at the roadside. At least there was an ambulance nearby.

Conclusion: Failure.
Number of combats: 1 


Attempt #6
Stats rolled: SKILL 9, STAMINA 33, LUCK 12, FIREPOWER 11, ARMOUR 32

This time the highwayman was unable to dodge my knife throw and I congratulated myself on an easy win only to discover that I would be bizarrely denied the opportunity to loot his corpse and instead jumped straight back in my car and drove off. Grrrr. After that things progressed as normal until I reached the race track, where I was finally able to win the ultimate prize – a canister of fuel. Getting out of there before things turned ugly I moved on to Pete’s garage where I had him install the supercharger, hoping it would come in more useful this time.

Later on I came across my own car from a previous attempt, overturned by the roadside. Harvesting one of the wheels, I casually reached into the glove compartment and was bitten by an unfriendly rattlesnake, which apparently had fallen in love with a length of plastic tubing. Its romantic efforts were ruined when I shot the dastardly thing in retribution, and took the subject of its affection with me.

After a brief altercation with a pair of astronauts on a motorbike and sidecar which an oil slick dealt with quite effectively, I refilled my fuel tank again, knowing I still had to find more in order to reach my destination. With that in mind I searched an abandoned police car by the roadside, but found the tank empty and a locked trunk which I was unable to budge. Further down the road I was confronted by a couple of members of the local Roman re-enactment society, driving a pickup truck that had been converted into something resembling a chariot. Before I had the chance to point out that double-barrelled machine guns were somewhat rare in ancient Rome they engaged me in combat, where I was sadly forced to destroy their impressive (and hilarious) creation.

Further south I came across a sign pointing east, advertising car engine and body repairs. Shrugging, I headed in that direction and arrived at the garage, where a man tried to extort the princely sum of 200 credits for his services. Unable to afford the price, I continued driving until I arrived at a tunnel entrance blocked by a bus. For some reason not suspecting any kind of trap at all, I wandered casually up to the bus, wondering if it could be moved out of the way. To my surprise (or not) a man leapt out of the bus and tried to extort money from me for the privilege of entering the tunnel – failing that, a duel with pistols would do. Reflecting that I had now at least entered the 19th century, I reluctantly agreed to the duel, which I won. The man thanked me for shooting him in such an honourable fashion, and warned me about potential landslides up ahead before reversing his bus out of the way and allowing me to continue.

After successfully avoiding the landslides, I came to another roadblock where some men informed me that I would be forced to turn back the way I came unless I could beat a chap called Leonardi in a race. Wondering why everyone was so determined to prevent me travelling along a public road, I reluctantly agreed to the race, winning by a hair thanks to the supercharger I had fitted. Further down the road, half expecting to find a pot of gold in the middle of it, possibly guarded by kimono-wearing, assault-rifle wielding Japanese women on motorised rickshaws, I came across an abandoned truck, from which I was able to siphon some much-needed fuel.

Stopping for a refill and some minor repairs, I headed south through the increasingly unpleasant desert landscape. Eventually I came across a flaming Corvette, and its ex-driver, a woman named Amber who had been attacked by a gang of road warriors, who for unexplained reasons had destroyed her car but left her alone. Apparently she was from San Anglo, my destination, and explained that the town was under constant attack by the gang, called the Doom Dogs, who were determined to massacre everyone living there (except her, obviously). I gave her a lift, and we came up with a plan to break into the gang’s camp and sabotage their vehicles.

Sneaking into the camp with the help of my wire cutters, we attached mines to the Doom Dogs’ cars and ran for it. The explosions started much sooner than expected and we were chased back to the car, barely making it in time before a huge armoured car came into view. Engaging in vehicle combat with the intimidating station wagon, it soon rammed a spike into the side of my car, pinning us in place. Then a voice demanded that we either have a shoot-out or I fight ‘The Animal’ in hand-to-hand combat. Opting for the former, we were remarkably successful and won without more than a slight graze – however the bare-chested Animal then emerged from the car and went into full berserk mode, charging at me and locking me into a bear hug before I could react. How he thought this was a sustainable form of attack I wasn’t certain, but Amber soon knocked him out with a spanner and we tied him up, leaving him for the rest of his gang to find.

Feeling optimistic about the mission, we entered San Anglo and were greeted enthusiastically, given a hero’s welcome and a comfortable bed to spend the night. The next morning I awoke to the sounds of the Doom Dogs attacking the refinery. They managed to blow the doors open with an exploding truck, and then swarmed through the gap, terrorising the citizens. Attempting to rally them to action, I failed to shout loudly enough at them and they surrendered to the Doom Dogs without resistance, putting an end to my hopes of completing my mission.

Conclusion: Failure. I came this far to fail a SKILL check where anything other than a double 6 would have been fine…
Number of combats: 7







Attempt #7
Stats rolled: SKILL 10, STAMINA 30, LUCK 7, FIREPOWER 8, ARMOUR 31

This attempt ended during the Blitz race, after my car, already battered by the encounter with the Red Chevvy early on, failed to survive being rammed repeatedly by the yellow Ford.

Conclusion: Failure.
Number of combats: 3


Attempt #8
Stats rolled: SKILL 8, STAMINA 30, LUCK 11, FIREPOWER 7, ARMOUR 29 

Lost the Blitz race again after chickening out at the bridge.

Conclusion: Failure.
Number of combats: 4


Attempt #9
Stats rolled: SKILL 9, STAMINA 29, LUCK 7, FIREPOWER 8, ARMOUR 33  

A poor LUCK score led to a couple of new experiences this time – one was being shot with a bazooka outside Rockville and the other was meeting an outlaw straight out of a spaghetti western and stealing his Magnum. However, the mission ended much as usual, in another fiery Blitz race explosion.

Conclusion: Failure.
Number of combats: 4


Attempt #10
Stats rolled: SKILL 11, STAMINA 28, LUCK 7, FIREPOWER 12, ARMOUR 33

A combination of poor LUCK and terrible dice rolling meant my car failed to survive the Blitz race yet again.

Conclusion: Failure.
Number of combats: 5


Attempt #11
Stats rolled: SKILL 10, STAMINA 34, LUCK 10, FIREPOWER 11, ARMOUR 34

My decent stats weren’t enough to get me through as the Animal’s station wagon out-manoeuvred me and its pointed ram bar penetrated my car door, killing me instantly.

Conclusion: Failure.
Number of combats: 7


Attempt #12
Stats rolled: SKILL 12, STAMINA 27, LUCK 10, FIREPOWER 11, ARMOUR 31
This time my stats were rolled by allocating 7 dice however I liked.

Managing to reach San Anglo once more, I was this time able to rally the defenders and avoided the defeat by meek surrender which occurred on a previous attempt. Capturing one of the Doom Dogs I held him at gunpoint and was able to persuade them all to leave nicely. Hurrah!

After repairs to the gates were carried out I jumped into the fuel tanker and began the long journey home. Given the choice of spending the night in the fuel tanker or a dodgy-looking motel, I opted for the vehicle again as leaving such a large amount of a precious resource unguarded in a car park seemed like a poor idea. The next day saw me attacked by a pair of would-be hijackers on motorbikes. One of them soon paid dearly for the attempt when, in a masterclass of multitasking, I used the roof-mounted machine gun to destroy his bike while continuing to drive the fuel tanker in a straight line. He did, however succeed at bursting one of my tyres, causing the tanker to veer wildly and come to a stop with me stuck in the cabin. The other biker called me out for a duel, which seemed like the best option at that point. Fortunately I was still quick off the mark and successfully dropped my opponent.

Continuing the journey, I encountered very little resistance on the way back to New Hope, where I soon arrived with the fuel tanker intact. I was hailed as a hero and offered the hand of Sinclair’s daughter in marriage. Or I just imagined the last bit.

Conclusion: Success!
Number of combats: 8


Review

Writing: A post-apocalyptic setting is new to the Fighting Fantasy series and while there’s nothing particularly deep here, it sets the scene quite well, with a specific mission that makes sense given the times being lived in. Pretty much everyone you encounter during the book is motivated by greed – in a society where resources are scarce it makes sense for people to be out to get whatever they can, whatever the cost. The characterisations don’t go much further than that and are pretty thin, even when you meet the brief sidekick Amber and the barbaric Doom Dog leader, The Animal, which are quite one-dimensional characters, but then we shouldn’t expect too much from a Fighting Fantasy gamebook. Overall it’s pretty fun and engaging in parts – the Blitz race for instance – while a bit dull in others (oh look another abandoned car to investigate).  A shameless Mad Max rip-off that doesn’t pretend to be anything else.
Writing: 3/5

Artwork: Some of the art is extremely simplistic in places and while not terrible, doesn’t really depict the post-apocalyptic world in any kind of memorable way. The cover isn’t bad but has a slightly odd flat quality to it which doesn’t quite hit the mark for me.
Artwork: 2/5

Design: In true Ian Livingstone style, we have a mappable multi-route layout, throughout which are scattered the items necessary to succeed in the mission. The main problem is finding three canisters of fuel during the book. The first requires the correct choice of road heading south after coming off the highway near the beginning of the book – there are about six options here and only two of them can result in finding it (and then not necessarily). The second requires you to win the Blitz race, which is fairly hard unless you have extremely good car stats and haven’t already suffered too much in previous combats. The third, annoyingly, requires not only that you take the correct road (out of two options), but that you also make a choice that loses you a SKILL point, in order to find an item which will help you obtain fuel later on.

I’m not sure how I feel about the fuel mechanic, notwithstanding the fact that it makes little sense to even start driving without nearly enough fuel to reach the destination. On the one hand we wouldn’t want the book to be too easy, but on the other, considering that the first fuel canister can only be found by taking one of two of the six available routes, it seems a shame to restrict the content of the book in such a way that some of the encounters are only found along ‘wrong’ paths which result in defeat shortly after. This isn’t uncommon in Fighting Fantasy however, and doesn’t seem as severe as it is in some other books. It doesn’t quite suffer from ‘one true path’ syndrome, but it’s pretty close.

Apart from the fuel situation the book is quite easy to complete if you have decent stats – but you do need to have good SKILL, LUCK and FIREPOWER to have a good chance of getting through, and perhaps ARMOUR too. There are quite a lot of SKILL and LUCK tests, the latter being a bit problematic especially when you’d rather not waste LUCK testing to see if you lose 2 ARMOUR or gain 4 STAMINA and would rather save it for life-or-death situations, however there are ways to regain LUCK as well which are welcome.

I would have liked to see a bit more excitement on the journey back home – the single encounter wasn’t bad but the rest of the journey is waved off as a series of incompetent ambushes and blockades which the reader doesn’t need to know about. It seems like a missed opportunity to not have a desperate race for New Hope with enemies all around, especially when the book was 20 sections short of the usual length.
Design: 3/5

Fairness: Other than turning down the wrong road and missing out on fuel there are very few situations where random choice leads directly to defeat and instant death paragraphs are usually the result of failing a test of some sort, or making poor choices. The difficulty depends mostly on your stats, and finding the fuel canisters. The fact that one of them requires you to unavoidably lose a SKILL point to find an item which helps you get it later is a bit unfair and might cause you to ignore the item on a future playthrough until you discover what it’s for.
Fairness: 3/5

Cheating index: 1 Razaak 

Average enemy stats
Successful path: 9 enemies, SKILL/FIREPOWER 8.1, STAMINA/ARMOUR 13.6
Entire book: 39 enemies, SKILL/FIREPOWER 7.9, STAMINA/ARMOUR 12.6

Instant death paragraphs: 24

Any player can win no matter how weak initial dice rolls: Although there are no unavoidable combats against exceptionally difficult opponents I doubt anyone would survive this adventure with minimum stats simply because there are so many tests which can result in failure or crippling loss of the car’s ARMOUR. Therefore if the book had made this claim (it didn’t) then it would be a LIE.



Final thoughts: Freeway Fighter is a fairly enjoyable post-apocalyptic romp, and if you persevere with it, just about engaging enough to get you through to the end.

Final score: 6/10