RANKINGS
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1. The Renegade Lord - Score = 8.3 Tier = Good
Attempts to beat: 9
Blast off! Not only am I treated to the beginning of my first complete science fiction series, I also found myself treated to the best science fiction gamebook I have played so far. I must say, the premise of this series is really fantastic. Seeing you play as Falcon, an agent of TIME (Temporal, Investigative and Monitoring Executive) whose job it is to prevent other time travelers from changing the past and irreparably damaging or even completely wiping out the future, really opens up endless possibilities. Using the theory of the Butterfly Effect, you could argue that ANY event in history is important to our timeline and this certainly works in authors Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson's favor. This makes any moment in history ripe for the plucking and my mind races at the places and times we could potentially find ourselves visiting. Also, because you are additionally responsible for protecting timelines on various other inhabited worlds as well, this means completely made-up adventure stories are on the table too if the authors dont want to have to study up on their actual history. (This is assuming their historical narratives in the adventure are accurate? I guess I need to get on Wikipedia and hold them to account!).
So in the opening book, the authors decide to allow us to encounter Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and the mongol ruler Ogedei Khan (but curiously not his father, Genghis Khan, although he is at least mentioned). I liked how we were not sent back to view the obvious battles or events that you might be expecting to. We get to encounter Alexander and Napoleon on the battlefields, but instead of having us travel to the Battle of Gaugamela in which Alexander defeated Darius or the Battle of Waterloo which is probably Napoleon's best known battle, we are sent back to observe some less well known events. These events are still important however and wonderfully described by the immersive writing. In addition to all this, the attention to detail in the prologue section is quite impressive. All your equipment, from your helmet to your blaster to your time machine itself are laid out in detailed blueprints. Im not sure how many players will actually read all of this but it sure is a nice touch.
I've made no secret in my previous reviews about my love of a good mystery in a gamebook and this had one of the better ones I've come across. You start out with 5 suspects as to who could be responsible for attempting to change the timeline and unlike a lot of adventures in which the mystery is given away far too easily, all of the suspects here are initially viable as the culprit. I felt a very big James Bond influence here also and that is definitely a good thing. From your opening meeting where you get your assignment, to your collection of weapons and gadgets, to interaction with fellow agents and of course all the cloak and dagger action, the intrigue and excitement really runs quite high. There is one character in particular that double-crossed me and from that point on I was dying to track them down in order to make sure they took a really long dirt nap!
The character statistics at work in this book include Attack, Evasion, Thinkstrike, Power of Will and Endurance. Two of these (Thinkstrike and Power of Will) are mental abilities that your character, Falcon, can decide to use instead of his trusty blaster. Success or failure in anything you do (including combat) is determined by one single roll of the dice. The number you need to roll in order to succeed is provided by the book and because your character is not randomly generated this allows the authors to provide a good balance of easy and hard required rolls depending on what options you pick. The outcomes here are fair too as I rarely found myself scuppered by one single bad roll (a couple of bad rolls back to back however could be a different story). You are usually given several ways to overcome an obstacle with each option needing you to make a dice roll of varying difficulty depending on how wisely you chose to deal with the situation. I appreciated how paying attention to the historical information your onboard computer, HAL CAIN, provides you could give you a better chance of success, as it should.
That all being said, while putting this information to good use helps your odds and makes you feel like a clever secret agent, I wouldn't say there is a ton of strategy involved with the game system itself. There are really no useful items to acquire that I came across (the Psionic Damper Circlet and Reflex Pills I was told to mark down on my Agent Profile sheet never came up again after I got them). The modifiers you can pick up to boost one of your stats help to make things a bit more interesting but there didn't seem to be all that many places to get these. In fact I think I only came across two in the whole book. I also came across a few errors that were somewhat annoying. I was told once that I returned to my ship carrying a nuclear bomb which was news to me that I had one, and section 251 can lead to section 229 which sure doesn't look correct to me. Still, nothing that really detracts from the adventure too much and Im actually surprised this kind of thing doesn't happen in gamebooks even more often than it does.
Ranking: A VERY good gamebook. This adventure made me feel like a cross between James Bond and Jean Claude Van Damme from the movie "Timecop", which has a similar premise and that definitely made for fun times. Some more detailed game elements could have made it great, but it's certainly not far off of that level as it is. One of the best opening books in a series I've played and I'm looking forward to see what time travel possibilities the authors will make use of next. ___________________________________________________________
2. Mechanon - Score = 6.4 Tier = OK
Attempts to beat: 24
Well...that was a bit disappointing. After the really good first book in the series I was expecting something a bit better than this adventure, but unfortunately it's a step back in pretty much every area. That's not to say it doesn't have its moments however, and it's a decent book in its own right but authors Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson didn't really build on the best parts of The Renegade Lord. The story here picks up shortly after the conclusion of the previous book as we learn that Agidy Yelov, the villain we captured to close out that adventure, has not only escaped custody but managed to do so while also stealing a time machine no less. This really makes the authorities look like morons ("honestly, you had one job to do!"). To make matters worse, thanks to the injuries we inflicted upon Yelov before his capture, he has had bionic upgrades which have turned him into basically a super powered cyborg. So once again we are tasked with hunting down this renegade before he can destroy humanity by altering the timeline.
The adventure is broken up into areas (planet and time period) and tries to give the illusion of non-linearity by occasionally giving you options as to which time and place you would like to go to next. This is really just window dressing however because if you stray from the prescribed order of how you are supposed to do things, it's game over. Breaking down the different areas of the adventure for review:
1. Crecy, France, 1346 AD - The first area of the adventure we need to visit is one of the better ones of the book. Taking it personally that we maimed him in the previous outing, Yelov is attempting to wipe out our very existence by sending an assassin droid back in time to murder an ancestor of ours. The assassination attempt takes place during a battle of The Hundred Years war and our mission here is essentially twofold. In addition to preventing our ancestor (a Sir Thomas Chandos) from being killed, we must also ensure that the English side wins this particular battle against the French lest history be changed. Achieving our goals in this area requires us making smart choices and also passing some dice checks. The dice rolling here isn't too unfair, although a couple of low rolls in a row can spell doom. Much like the previous adventure, this area was a great bit of historical fun as we get to participate in something right out of the history books. It's a bit of a shame then that this is the only such historical mission in the whole book unlike the last adventure which had several of these available to us. Not having more of these types of missions seems like a pretty big wasted opportunity.
2. Thrix - 1776 AD - This one is a real head-scratcher as to what the authors were thinking. It starts off decently enough as we travel to the planet Thrix because we learn that Yelov is stockpiling polybdenum (the main fuel source required for time travel) from the planet and we rightly conclude that this is extremely bad news. The area opens with a bit of an interesting puzzle as we find ourselves materializing in free-fall and it's one of those puzzles that makes you feel a bit clever for figuring it out. I also thought the alien we meet, Carborundum (who I kept calling Conundrum in my head), made a fantastic companion as you could really sense the extreme loneliness inside him due to watching his own race slowly dying out. He even goes so far as to practically beg you to let him come visit you at a later date. Unfortunately though, after the opening puzzle the whole area just becomes one long page turning stretch with hardly any meaningful choices to be made and no combats or dice rolling of any type to be found anywhere. Carborundum and yourself even team up to take out some robot guards but it's all done narratively with nary a decision to be made which seemed very out of place. Yelov makes an appearance here too but again, no decisions or dice rolls are required on your part. More so than any other area in the book this one makes you feel as though you are reading a novel.
3. Mechanon - 1986 AD - Our first trip to the titular planet has us investigating just what the heck is going on there. This area isn't bad with some decent decision making and skill checks required to advance through the large complex we find ourselves in. It is a bit on the bland side though as we navigate along corridors and past various industrial droids until we are rescued by fellow agents Bloodhound and Lynx because our own time machine was destroyed shortly after we arrived. We reconvene back in 3033 AD and are given a brand new state-of-the-art time machine that also doubles as a Strike Fighter craft, complete with shields (or armour), twin lasers, and 4 nuclear tipped missiles even though the Agent Profile at the front of the book mistakenly tells us we have 10 such missiles. Before we are able to pass on to the next area there is a bit of a lame grid puzzle in which we need to avoid some mines in null-space.
4. England, Earth - 1986 AD - What a missed opportunity this was. Here we follow a spaceship leaving Mechanon bound for Earth, and when the spaceship launches a capsule down to the planet we decide to follow it to prevent any future-altering shenanigans. It turns out the capsule contains an android who only needs access to a phone line in order to start a nuclear war that would wipe out humanity. The android touches down in rural England and we track him to a pub and destroy him before he can fully access a phone booth. I'm not sure if the locale here was chosen as a nod to the authors hometowns? It just seems a bit odd that no individual historical event was used as has been the case in our previous Earth escapades and I was greatly enjoying these as a history buff. And yes, I realize this book was written in 1985 and we travel back to 1986 in the adventure, but they could have easily used just a few years earlier and therefore some kind of historical event backdrop. It also didn't really do much to dispel the stereotype that every other building in England is a pub when that happens to be the first building the android comes across.
5. Mechanon - 1986 AD - Back to Mechanon we go to stop Yelov once and for all from using his newly constructed space fleet to attack Earth. This area does a great job in its first half of making you feel like you are playing a gamebook representation of a classic 80's arcade space shooter such as Defender or Galaga (but most closely resembling Zaxxon) as you fly your Strike Fighter through the tunnels of the industrial complex choosing to use your lasers, electronic countermeasures, or missiles on various obstacles as you go along. The second half of the area sees you engage Yelov in combat and it's quite an intricate and drawn out battle and the tension really runs high. Unfortunately it can be extremely maddening as well as one single poor dice roll can (and two poor rolls back to back will certainly) see you killed. Easily the best area of the book although the Yelov fight can be VERY frustrating if the dice arent with you consistently.
6. Danikos - circa 47000 BC - We aren't out of the woods once Yelov is defeated though as a huge "planet killer" spaceship erupts from inside the planet Mechanon itself and is on a collison course with Earth. Having no way to physically stop it, our only chance is to travel back in time to Danikos (the civilization that built Mechanon in the first place) and convince them not to build the planet. You are given a few options on how to convince them of this and any wrong choice spells doom. Fortunately, the choices aren't too difficult to reason out but this whole area felt tacked on and made little sense. You manage to convince them to pass a law NOT to build this planet in the future and hope for the best. Seeing as how even the smallest changes have been shown to have drastic effects on the future, not having a whole planet constructed seems like it would be pretty catastrophically future altering. Returning to your own time however. you find that other than Yelov still being alive and on the loose (I guess they want to keep their baddie around for future adventures), and no one ever having heard of Mechanon, not much has changed and we are given some much needed R&R from our boss. If only Homer Simpson with his time machine toaster had been so fortunate when he sat on that fish.
"I wish I wish I hadnt killed that fish"
From a game standpoint, there are no items to collect here at all and only one place I found to obtain a stat modifier so don't look for much strategy in this book. One other thing to note is how long this adventure felt. At 420 sections it has the same number of sections as the previous book but felt almost twice as long. On my eventual winning playthrough it seemed like I had read 350 or so of the 420 sections.
Ranking: As stated earlier, this book was a step back in all respects from The Renegade Lord. The great mystery of the first book is gone here and the first two thirds of this adventure are very light on game elements. It's still a worthwhile play but be warned as I speak from experience that the Yelov battle may not be good for your blood pressure.
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3. The Rack of Baal - Score = 7.3 Tier = Good
Attempts to beat: 5
The Rack of Baal? For real? Ok, lame groin kicking jokes aside, this book is actually pretty good, though not without some faults. In this adventure, an incredibly powerful demon-like being named Baal has been inadvertently set free from where he had been imprisoned for millennia. He was being held in place by 4 pieces of a "rack" that bound him at wrists and ankles and this rack is the only thing known to be able to hold him. Being unable to destroy the pieces of the rack, Baal decides to hide them all over the galaxy. Because one of his many powers is the ability to travel to any point in time at will without need of a time machine or time holes, this allows Baal to not only spread the pieces among different planets but at different points in time as well. So, we need to find and reunite the 4 pieces, then locate Baal and imprison him once more. A good setup really, and Baal is built up to be the embodiment of evil in an effective way so that a tangible feeling of dread upon encountering him is present. The reasoning behind how there is conveniently a timehole right where all of the pieces of the rack are located (the pieces are so powerful they cause their own holes) I thought was also well implemented.
An advantage this adventure has over the previous one is that there are several different orders in which you can visit the opening areas which allows for some good experimentation. Once again breaking up the different areas you can visit for review as it helps to organize my thoughts:
1 - Gettysburg, Earth - 1863. A really well done area whereby we find ourselves smack in the famous Civil War battle that took place here. Not only are we searching for a rack piece but we also come across our old nemesis, Agidy Yelov, who is here attempting to rewrite history once again by making it so that the Confederacy wins this key battle. So we of course have to ensure that he is not successful in this. Interestingly, we do not need to visit this time period to successfully complete the adventure so I suppose our comrade Agent Lynx (who is also at Gettysburg hunting Yelov) is capable of foiling him herself without our aid. Yelov doesn't seem to very good at this whole messing up the timeline thing. "Curses! Foiled again!"
2 - Rigel Prime - 1642 AD. Checking out the planet of Rigel Prime we find ourselves materializing within a large arena where a battle among Rigellians is taking place. This area is incredibly short with not much of note occurring. We show up, realize the rack isn't here, then try to leave without being noticed or killed by either of the warring Rigellians. Easily the worst area of the book but at least you are not required to go here so once you become aware of that fact you never have to revisit.
3 - Tenochtitlan, Earth - 1409 AD. This one is over pretty quickly and has one of the lamest 3x3 grid "puzzles" you will ever see but as usual it's always nice to visit an interesting historical period from Earth's past and this is a particularly good one to travel to. Here we get to view the Aztecs at their height, ritual sacrifices explained in great detail and all. Baal himself also makes an effectively powerful bull-in-a-china-shop type entry in this area and I like how by going back in time he has made himself into a god for so many cultures, including the Aztecs.
4 - Dustbowl - 2764 AD. A lot of time is spent on this desert like planet searching for a piece of the rack and situations change depending on how many times you have visited this place (although it's not always clear what constitutes a "visit" so this can be a bit confusing). Our task in locating the piece of the rack here is made more difficult by the presence of black robed Baal cultists and a 12 foot fly that they worship. The encounter with the fly in particular is really quite good and grotesquely illustrated (in both words and pictures) as we get to see another human sacrifice in sickening detail. There are several different paths to obtain the rack piece and while not really difficult, it rewards good thinking. The best area of the book I felt.
5 - Cave - 432 AD. Here we find ourselves on a planet made up of labyrinthian underground tunnels due to the extreme radiation on the surface making it uninhabitable. We materialize smack in the middle of a war between loyalists and rebels that is raging in the catacombs and learn once again that Baal has ingrained himself into the history of the planet by arming the rebels and having them worship him as their "Baal-mother". So once again we need to prevent history from being altered by aiding the loyalists in addition to acquiring the rack piece. There is a lot of description given about creatures of the planet and the various roles the different castes play (Workers, Warriors, Nobles). Unfortunately, I found this planet to be pretty boring as the whole area is described in a bland manner and I started to get a Chasms of Malice vibe from it. Not one of the better areas of the book.
6 - Chill 2985 AD. Ok, there is an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed with this area. This part of the adventure is a pretty blatant retelling of the 1938 science fiction novella "Who Goes There?" (which has been adapted to the silver screen on 3 different occasions, including the excellent 1982 version by John Carpenter entitled "The Thing"). One of the characters here is even named McReady, who was a character in the original novella. It hews so close in fact that I will go ahead and consider this an homage as opposed to out-and-out plagiarism. Suffice it to say, if you are familiar with the original story or one of the screen versions, you will get the gist of what is going on here. In your search for the final piece of the rack, you learn it is deep within a mine located on the Antarctic-like ice planet of Chill. (They sure are original with these place names). Unfortunately, an alien is also uncovered within the mine who can take over and inhabit anyone it touches. This alien proceeds to take over the mining crew one by one and you have to battle your way past it in order to acquire the rack piece. This whole area is really wonderfully described and the authors don't shy away from any of the grotesqueness either as jaws cracking, limbs splitting and heads exploding are given in full detail. Also much like the original novella though, the first half of the area comes across as just that...a novella. There are long sections of text back to back to back with no decisions or rolls to be made. This improves once you finally acquire the rack piece and have to fight your way back out and destroy the alien, but more interactivity overall I think would have been nice.
7 - Baal Fortress. Once we have all 4 pieces of the rack, it's on to Baal's fortress (of which the rack itself takes us). This final area is VERY short and the final confrontation with Baal himself I found anticlimactic. I thought it was clear what you are intended to do in the final choice of options you are given for how you want to deal with him and then that's it, Baal is imprisoned once again and you have saved the galaxy. This area is a letdown but at least we have encountered Baal several times along the way in the adventure before getting to this point so there is that.
The biggest positives this book has going for it is the at times strong horror atmosphere and suitably stomach turning descriptions along with the different order in which you can obtain the first 3 pieces of the rack. However, the villain Baal, though initially frightening and with incredible powers, seems like a bit of a clod by the time the adventure is over. He had the ability to travel to any point in time at will and still couldn't win? And whats with the earring? Is he a pirate? Your blaster also seems to do an inordinate amount of damage to him. I also came across a couple of incorrect section references which were maddening as always. And why does Mechanon appear on the map at the front of the book? I thought it now never existed? In short, the book does not appear to have been edited very well.
Ranking: Better than Mechanon but not as good as The Renegade Lord. Some good non-linear game design and effectively gory writing is offset somewhat by the villain ultimately being a bit of a letdown after such a good buildup, along with a large area of the story that is ripped clean from a famous piece of fiction. The numerous editing errors don't do it any favors either. Overall it's still in the good tier though as it's an enjoyable ride with a fair amount of fun to be had.
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4. Lost In Time - Score = 5.3 Tier = OK
Attempts to beat: 13
Ok so yeah, this book is a bit of a mess. The story here sees us attempting to become the first person to travel into the future as opposed to the past, which is the only direction that has been done successfully so far. Although, if you travel to the past, then come back, aren't you then travelling into the future? Assuming the whole point is to travel into the future beyond 3034 AD which is the time our character lives in, I have to ask....why? This seems to contradict everything the TIME agency was set up to do. That is, protecting unauthorized time travelers from messing up the timeline. Attempting to do what Agent Falcon is trying to accomplish in this adventure seems like the definition of just asking for trouble. Well, ask and ye shall receive as things predictably go awry (not that the title didn't already give that away) and we find ourselves adrift in time unable to locate our way back to 3034 AD. The goal here is about as simple as it gets. Get back alive.
I can't review this adventure as I did the previous two books, by breaking the areas down into planet and year, because here you find yourself bouncing around from unnamed planet to unnamed planet, often not even knowing what year it is. To make things more confusing, you can travel between different dimensions as well. I assume this was done so that the adventure could include a meeting with yourself without causing a mind destroying paradox that doing so would suggest if it were to happen within the same timeline. There is really no villain to the adventure per se either, although our old nemesis Agidy Yelov makes another appearance. I guess he has given up on his attempts to destroy you by messing up the past as now he just follows you around in his own time machine trying to assassinate you. He is starting to feel overused and is becoming a bit cartoonish (Wile E Coyote to our Roadrunner if you will).
There also seemed to be a bit of a wasted opportunity in the form of your onboard computer, CAIN, who throughout the adventure starts to convey various emotions such as exasperation, concern, and annoyance and there is a bit of a small mystery as to what is going on with him (or her, or it). It seemed like this was leading up to an interesting subplot whereby somehow CAIN was becoming self aware and this could have opened up some interesting possibilities such as maybe even having him become a villain. Alas, this whole device seemed to be explained in a throwaway line in the final section where you are told CAIN was purposefully given some personality to make him a better traveling companion. You basically then say "thanks a pantload!" and storm off. Having the adventure end with you being pissed off was a nice change of pace at least. Maybe the authors will return to this angle of CAIN's development in one of the last two books, but as it stands, this was kind of a deflating end to this story thread.
One interesting aspect to the book was the use of polybdenum rods which power your time machine. You begin with 8 of these and each time you make a jump through time, one is used up. If you run out, you are obviously screwed, but fortunately there are a couple of places in the adventure where you can acquire additional rods. The book can make this a bit confusing though by frequently asking you how many rods you have used as opposed to how many you have left which seems a bit counter-intuitive to me. Also, sometimes you are reminded when you have made a time jump that you need to mark down you have used a rod, and sometimes you are not.
Overall though, the design of this book is really not very good. You jump from planet to planet, just trying to stay alive on each one. When the book finally decides you have spent enough time futzing about at your current location you are allowed to leave and move on to the next planet. There are absolutely no stat modifier gains that I found anywhere in the adventure (although there is one place you can lose stats) and other than the rods, not much to collect. Well, there was one incredibly useful item in the form of a tear drop gem that can ward off mental attacks, but in order to obtain it you need to flat our murder the person who has it in cold blood. This makes for an incredibly jarring sequence. I'm not sure if the gem is absolutely necessary to win the book but I was having no success without it and the adventure seems to imply you have done the right thing for the "greater good" by acquiring it. I was half expecting this act of murder to come back and haunt me at some point later in the story but it never did. I also came across some sections where characters I met repeated what they had just said to me 1 or 2 sections previous which only contributes to the adventure's messiness.
However, the book is somewhat bailed out a little bit with the final end sequence which is a highlight. Firstly, in order to get you back safely to your own time, CAIN comes up with a brilliantly ludicrous plan that Rube Goldberg would have been proud of and despite you acknowledging how fraught with holes the plan is, you shrug your shoulders and just say "What the hell". Five different courses of action are given as to what message you want to leave for your TIME bosses before implementing CAIN's crazy plan and you really need to think carefully about what to say, with the correct response being different depending on which planets you may have visited previously. This helped the adventure to go out on something of a high note at least.
Ranking: The weakest in the series so far for sure. The design is a bit of a flop and the story really isn't very interesting either. Id consider it more bland than bad though and the final sequence I thought was pretty clever and made you think about what you needed to do. The series villain has lost a lot of his cache so it will be interesting to see how the authors conclude his story arc in the final two books.
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5. The Dying Sun - Score = 7.6 Tier = Good
Attempts to beat: 7
He's baaaack! Hot on the heels of my previous complaint that series villain Agidy Yelov had lost a lot of his impact, his story is concluded here as he regains a lot of his deadly menace that was present in the first two books. Our mission this time out is another straightforward one.....to find and kill Yelov. It's not just him we have to worry about though, for Yelov has allied himself with the underground criminal organization known as SPECTRE CYBERNET. More than that, he has also gathered a deadly array of henchmen to his side that you will need to navigate through. These include: the monstrous spider-like Thaccoid; the teleporting Dark Star who travels with her lethal combat organism known as "The Pet"; and probably worst of all, the tortured and sadistic half-man half-alien known as the Symbiont.
After an exciting intro, the book then curiously opens with an administrative "job interview" piece where you can view various files of candidates you will be interviewing for a newly opened special agent position in the TIME executive. After reviewing their files you then interview the 3 candidates one by one before you decide which one of them you will grant the position to. This choice isn't just cosmetic as later events will be influenced differently depending upon which one of them you select and this made me want to go back and see what happens if I picked someone different on another playthrough. More than just files on the candidates though, you can also view files on the agents you already have at your disposal (Bloodhound, Lynx, Chameleon, Leopard, and Sparrowhawk) along with the files for the new henchmen that Yelov now has working for him. There comes a point where all of this can seem overlong and like a pretty big info dump. Fortunately, you don't have to view all these reports although I did find they added a lot of flavor and intrigue to all the characters in the adventure.
At many points, this book gave me the feeling like I was playing through a Hollywood blockbuster movie. There are several interesting set-pieces here including:
-The investigation of the Ark spaceship. This is where we encounter the Thaccoid and this section appears to be heavily influenced by the movie "Alien". I found the descriptions of the vast empty ship traveling eerily through space along with the battle against the Thaccoid itself to be quite gripping. There is also a timer ticking down in this part that helps contribute to the tension.
-The battle on top of the TIME executive building. This one definitely seemed ripped out of a blockbuster with snipers training lasers on you, guys with rocket launchers, and heavily armed jetcopters with their guns blazing. It's a short set-piece but I could almost smell the popcorn in the theatre.
-The solar race around Sirius (depicted on the cover of the book). Okay, admittedly the plan Yelov has to kill you in this part is one only a Bond villain could have approved of, but because this series has such a James Bond feel running through it (and in this book especially) I was willing to go along with it. Being handed a box with a "special surprise" in it was a pretty intense moment that I didn't see coming. The race around the sun itself gives you several options as to what to do and I found it to be quite exciting, at least the first couple times I went through it.
The henchmen of the book were set up incredibly well. Making us believe we would have to deal with all these vicious criminals one by one before taking on Yelov himself was a great idea and I kind of wish the adventure had gone this route. Unfortunately though, the Thaccoid is the only one of the henchmen that we get to deal with that provides any real sense of satisfaction. The Symbiont in particular I felt was a great creation being a former human member of the Earth space navy named Coin Helm, who while exploring the planet Hel was attacked by a parasite that fused itself to his back, causing Coin incredible pain unless he himself inflicts pain on others. Basically this man is in a living hell and his situation is quite suitably horrific. It's unfortunate then that he goes out with a bit of a whimper. Similarly, the henchmen Dark Star is taken out of the picture incredibly easily and with very little narrative impact which is all a bit of a shame.
There are only a couple of historical Earth set visits here, namely the Trojan War and later the final confrontation which takes place in 1881 AD at Tombstone, Arizona. The Trojan War area is done well as we get to encounter some of the heroes from this event although the whole area is one of those red herring ones that we don't need to visit (and in fact I don't think we are supposed to). The Tombstone section was a bit of a puzzler though. When we arrive, CAIN predictably gives us all the historical information surrounding the famous gunfight at the OK Corral even though we do not experience this event nor even get to meet any of its participants. Instead, a ranch on the outskirts of town is used as the backdrop for the final battle with Yelov. While this final gunfight is well done for the most part, with how difficult it can be varying depending on which agent you may have hired at the beginning of the book, it did seem to be a bit of a letdown that the ultimate showdown with our mortal enemy that we have been battling for 5 books now comes down to a wild west gunfight complete with six-shooters.
As usual, there isn't a ton of gameplay elements at work here from a traditional gamebook sense. There are dice checks along the way that you have to pass to be sure but none of them are particularly difficult and they can be spread out quite a bit at times. Success in the adventure comes down to choosing the correct options and making your way through the book in that way. Once again there are no stat modifiers to obtain that I came across. I guess the authors by this point figured that if you had been collecting modifiers in every book in the series you would be overpowered to the point of making the dice checks meaningless. Still, there are no items to collect either which seems like a bit of a miss although you can select from a list of weapons at the start of the hunt for Yelov which can open up a few different options for you at various points within the story.
Ranking: One of the better books of the series. There are some very cool action sequences, well fleshed out characters, and various options you can experiment with. Considering the buildup to this point, the ending battle fell a bit flat as did the resolution with some of the henchmen, but overall I enjoyed this one quite a bit.
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6. At the End Of Time - Score = 5.7 Tier = OK
Attempts to beat: 4
At first the planet now seems quite desolate, but we soon discover that we are not alone as other groups and individuals have also been transported here against their will. There is a big "Land of the Lost" vibe here with these disparate groups seemingly plucked out of time and pulled into the distant future at random. These groups include:
-A battalion of German SS soldiers from World War 2. One of the better described encounters in the book, this group was transported here from 1944 while on their way to the Russian front. They encountered Bloodhound when he arrived and managed to extract by torture from him that he was a time traveler. They eventually lost Bloodhound, but because you wear the same uniform as he does, they correctly figure you are a time traveler as well. They want to take advantage of this to go back and change history so that the Third Reich wins the war. Their tanks and weapons were transported with them and they thus spend the first half of the story hunting you.
-A group of medieval crusader knights. This group has constructed a mini-castle where they are slowly running out of food. They have a similar motive as the German soldiers, who they appear to have an uneasy truce with, as they wish to return to their own time, although unlike the Germans they don't appear to want to alter history. They are also hunting for you over the first half of the adventure.
-A group of Ardann. One of two groups of non-humans in the adventure, this squirrel-like forest dwelling race with powerful mental abilities from the planet Ardann is in a similar situation as the knights and soldiers as they are barely surviving on the barren planet. Unlike the previous two groups though, instead of trying to kidnap you, they actually ask for your aid in helping them return to their own time and planet.
-Lieutenant Kowalski, an individual United States Air Force pilot. This pilot from the early 21st century also has his advanced fighter jet and can be a particularly powerful ally (just don't cross him). He offers to put himself and his jet at your disposal if you agree to take him with you when you travel back to your own time. This book was probably written a bit too early for this to be based on Tom Cruise in Top Gun but I still enjoyed this character's sunny-side up disposition.
-A group of future-Earthers who reside in a massive tower. This group from later than your own time period, has apparently been here for many years as they have had time to construct the huge tower they live in. This is the only group or individual in the book that doesn't want anything from you as they are resigned to their fate. They explain that at this distant future date, the universe is contracting and will eventually explode and they actually look forward to experiencing this. You can gain a useful item and some necessary information from them though if you can help them out with a mechanical problem they are having with their air filtration system. They also apparently provide fuel for the Germans and the fighter pilot (though I'm not sure why really) which helps to explain how the tanks and jet in the adventure are still operational.
-A group of Gra'ak. Continuing with the Land of the Lost parallels, the Gra'ak are the other group of non-humans in the adventure and are basically the Sleestak from that show. They are large lizardmen creatures who have captured Bloodhound from the Germans and are also torturing him in an attempt to get him to give up the secrets of time travel, presumably to return to their own planet and use the technology for their own ends.
Once you finally rescue Bloodhound, you need to then destroy the time destabilizer (a large black monolith) that is preventing your time machine from leaving. Once this is accomplished you are able to return to your own time and have succeeded. The story really leaves a gaping hole when it comes to an explanation for all this. Why were these seemingly random groups transported into the distant future? Who was responsible for the time destabilizer? Your guess is as good as mine.
For a 420 section adventure, this one actually feels quite short. Several of the encounters can be completely bypassed and the couple of items you need to obtain seemed quite easy to find. This is also very much a "find the correct path by choosing the right decisions" type of book as I only rolled the dice a whopping two times on my winning playthrough. For me, it is this lack of more gameplay elements (a common criticism of mine throughout the series) that keeps any of the books from reaching a higher level than they may have otherwise. In fact, the gameplay elements seemed to get less and less as the series wore on and I'm wondering why the modifiers on the Agent Profile even bothered to go all the way up to a maximum of 9. Playing all the books and starting with modifiers of 0 for all abilities, I finished the series with an Attack = 0, Evasion = 1, Thinkstrike = 1, Power of Will = 0. The acquiring of modifiers was completely abandoned halfway through the series. It's a bit of a shame that none of the books really built upon what made the first book, The Renegade Lord, so good and which proved to be the best book of the series in my opinion.
Ranking: It's solidly OK, but the lack of more gameplay elements really hobble any attempt to make it much more than that. The story is a bit "out there" too with not much being really explained. I have to admit though, this book does have a certain charm about it thanks to the mishmash of different groups and characters.
Never played one of these but reading your review has made me want to try at least the first book which has a great sci-fi / fantasy mash up cover.
ReplyDeleteDid you acquire these on ebay ?
ReplyDeleteThis series seems to command a very high price.
Yes I did but it was a couple of years ago and prices have gone up since then it seems. The first book was reprinted not too long ago and can be had from Amazon though I believe.
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