Once again I have the cheat sheet for this particular game book (a book I have come to hate; 4 attempts and 4 pathetic early failures, grrr)
First point of note - the solution is 5 pages long and the furthest I ever got was half way down page one. Did I mention that I really hate this book?
Spoilers ahead...
Ok, so you are supposed to get side tracked tacking down an evil biker gang (are there ever any nice biker gangs?). Randomly shooting missiles at stuff. Kinda cool, but also sorta random.
You actually end up at the point where grumpy ghost ran out of petrol, but coming at it from a different direction means you have spare fuel to continue with.
Lots of randomly turning at t-junctions with few clues on how to proceed. Does no one have a good atlas in the future?
You randomly meet a guy (who looks like a tattooed Chuck Norris in the accompanying picture) who invites you to a race. Presumably after the apocalypse, there is little more to do than randomly race in heavily armed cars. My kinda place.
More random stuff in the race, which you need to win to get more fuel.
Heh - you come across the overturned Interceptor of some other poor soul, maybe a neat reference to how many sodding goes this damn book takes?
You visit a really expensive mechanic, are there any other sort? Maybe somewhere there is a place with nice biker gangs and cheap mechanics? Or have I wandered back into the fantasy genre?
You also meet a gentleman duelist. No idea how he's survived in the apocolypse as (a) he's a nice guy and good loser and (b) fairly crap at pistol duelling.
Hmmm, I'm not sure this cheat sheet is quite right. You need plastic tube to siphon some fuel, yet the place where you get some tubing from (the crashed Interceptor before) the instructions actually told you to drive past. I only investigated as I was curious as to the fate of the other Interceptor's driver. Anyway, that was a fairly pointless aside. Apologies and onwards.
So to get to the place that has the fuel to trade you there is a need to sabotage the vehicles of the excellently named Doom Dogs gang. You need a lot of luck along the way (which given that you have to lower your luck score by one each time you test your luck seems a bit unfair).
You make it to the town with the spare fuel, but what is this? Another attack by those dastardly Doom Dogs, darnit.
So you get the tanker to drive back, and "ignoring all distractions head north" to return to the village. If it was that flipping easy, why not just drive south in the first place? The excuse that the Interceptor has poor fuel efficiency is pretty thin to be honest.
And that is that. Paragraph 380 rather than the usual 400. Easy, eh?
Double humph.
Sunday 9 September 2012
009: That was crap, have another go (read below) OR See how it should be done (turn to 010)
Gonna have another go at Freeway Fighter. Space Ghost went back to his home planet with a dull feeling of a lack of fulfillment. In his place Future Phil pledges to do his best to help out the poor villages.
Skill: 10
Stamina: 33
Luck: 10
Firepower: 9
Armour: 31
So a bit harder than space ghost, with a car the villages have put slightly more effort into cobbling together but not much.
Future Phil decides to investigate that early shotgun blast that Space Ghost ran away from. Turn out it was a thoroughly nice bloke called Johnson fighting some feral dogs. He advises Future Phil not to stop at the petrol station up the road that Space Ghost got mugged at. Future Phil thanks him and continues on his way.
AGHHHHH
Future Phil loses his first compulsory vehicle battle and is blown to smithereens (the dice throws were ridiculous - child Phil would have cheated 100%)
A child cries back at the village in memory of Future Phil. Thankfully Mega Phil is ready to make the next attempt
Skill: 8
Stamina: 31
Luck: 8
Firepower: 11
Armour: 31
At least this time the villages have put a bit of effort into the car. Good that they seem to have an unlimited supply of Dodge Interceptors...
Mega Phil destroys the first vehicle attacker without taking any damage. Mega Phil reckons that if he stays in his car as much as possible he will be ok. Using that logic, Mega Phil ignores the opportunity to get out an examine an abandoned ambulance.
FOR FCUKS SAKE
Mega Phil drives over a booby trapped bridge and is blown up. How many sodding random early deaths does this stupid book have?!
Back at the village a child shrugs her shoulders, tiring of the constant stream of idiots screwing up the mission. Meanwhile Ultra Phil tentatively steps towards the next Dodge Interceptor of the assembly line, nervously trembling a little.
Skill: 11
Stamina: 32
Luck: 9
Firepower: 7
Armour: 31
Worst car yet. Brilliant.
Despite knowing the muggers are there, Ultra Phil goes to the early petrol station anyway, just to take out his annoyance at his SHITTY CAR on that poor thug.
And now it is compulsory early vehicle battle time. Great.
Ultra Phil is destroyed. He fired all of his rockets with not one hitting. More RIDICULOUS dice roles and his time is up.
Screw that stupid sodding village.
RIP Grumpy Ghost, Future Phil, Mega Phil and Ultra Phil
Never forget
Skill: 10
Stamina: 33
Luck: 10
Firepower: 9
Armour: 31
So a bit harder than space ghost, with a car the villages have put slightly more effort into cobbling together but not much.
Future Phil decides to investigate that early shotgun blast that Space Ghost ran away from. Turn out it was a thoroughly nice bloke called Johnson fighting some feral dogs. He advises Future Phil not to stop at the petrol station up the road that Space Ghost got mugged at. Future Phil thanks him and continues on his way.
AGHHHHH
Future Phil loses his first compulsory vehicle battle and is blown to smithereens (the dice throws were ridiculous - child Phil would have cheated 100%)
A child cries back at the village in memory of Future Phil. Thankfully Mega Phil is ready to make the next attempt
Skill: 8
Stamina: 31
Luck: 8
Firepower: 11
Armour: 31
At least this time the villages have put a bit of effort into the car. Good that they seem to have an unlimited supply of Dodge Interceptors...
Mega Phil destroys the first vehicle attacker without taking any damage. Mega Phil reckons that if he stays in his car as much as possible he will be ok. Using that logic, Mega Phil ignores the opportunity to get out an examine an abandoned ambulance.
FOR FCUKS SAKE
Mega Phil drives over a booby trapped bridge and is blown up. How many sodding random early deaths does this stupid book have?!
Back at the village a child shrugs her shoulders, tiring of the constant stream of idiots screwing up the mission. Meanwhile Ultra Phil tentatively steps towards the next Dodge Interceptor of the assembly line, nervously trembling a little.
Skill: 11
Stamina: 32
Luck: 9
Firepower: 7
Armour: 31
Worst car yet. Brilliant.
Despite knowing the muggers are there, Ultra Phil goes to the early petrol station anyway, just to take out his annoyance at his SHITTY CAR on that poor thug.
And now it is compulsory early vehicle battle time. Great.
Ultra Phil is destroyed. He fired all of his rockets with not one hitting. More RIDICULOUS dice roles and his time is up.
Screw that stupid sodding village.
RIP Grumpy Ghost, Future Phil, Mega Phil and Ultra Phil
Never forget
008: Burn some rubber (read below) OR Read how it should have been done (turn to 009)
Righty-ho, time for something a little different. The vast majority of the FF gamebooks were set in the fantasy world, but my favourites were always the less frequent attempts at sci-fi. Reading modern day reviews of the books it's apparent that the sci-fi gamebooks tend to be the least well remembered, but I'm not sure if that is because of the general standard of the books or that most readers, in a book series that sprouted out of the dungeons and dragons style table top games, just prefer the fantasy genre.
So I have a copy of "Freeway Fighter", the 13th in the FF series which if I just say "Mad Max" then I can avoid having to bother to explain the plot. The lady on the cover even looks a bit like Tina Turner.
Just before I get into more awesome role play, a little bit of triva that 15 minutes on the internet earnt me: The car you drive is a Dodge Interceptor, which was actually the name of a concept car released by Dodge in the 80's (however, the pictures in Freeway Fighter make it look more like a Lamborghini Countach in my eyes). Anyway, the interceptor was featured in the 1986 film (a year after the book came out, incidentally) called "The Wraith". I'll quote the headline of an IMDB review to give you a flavour of the film:
"Best movie about a ghost from outter space who drives a race car and takes on a gang of motor thugs in Arizona"
So (a) I'm definitely going to track that film down and (b) I'm going to role play Freeway Fighter as a grumpy ghost from outer space.
It's dice rolling time, with some extra rules to learn for this book:
Skill: 9
Stamina: 28
Luck: 12
Ugh, so low skill and luck, but a lucky sod.
My Interceptor car also has some stats:
Firepower: 8 (max = 12)
Armour: 28 (max = 36)
Basically the car's skill and stamina, and equally crap as the Grumpy Ghost's I'm role playing as. If I'm the best hope this poor village has of bringing some precious fuel supplies back, they're screwed. Serves them right for giving me a crap car. Tempted just to try and drive off into the sunset never to return.
In this book there is hand combat (in which it is possible to get knocked out rather than outright killed), gun battles and vehicle battles, each of which with different sets of rules. Bit of a faff if you ask me.
Just before I don the leather armour and cool pair of shades that driving my future car demand, a quick aside. The kid that had this book before me was a DIRTY STINKING CHEAT. His pencil scrawls reveal that his stamina and luck scores were allowed to exceed their initial values in clear contravention of the rules. Scumbag.
Ok, here we go. A space ghost decides to help some poor town in a post-apocalypse future where society has broken down, yada yada. Let's go kick some arse.
Space ghost is well aware of his lack of fighting prowess and crap car so when he hears a shotgun blast in a remote town he stopped in, it's foot down and get the hell out of there. Maybe playing as a coward will win the day here.
Space ghost tries to chat up some lady he meets at a gas station and is promptly mugged. Give up his car keys within 5 minutes of starting the damn book, or knife fight? Space ghost quite probably cuts himself pulling the knife out of his trousers, but here goes nothing.
It all comes down to the last dice role and space ghost knocks the thug spark out. The girl gets away while space ghost is doing a victory dance at winning he first ever fight on planet Earth. Onwards (after using a medpack)
And immediately into some vehicle combat. Crappit.The interceptor gets a bit beaten up, but space ghost perseveres and continues on.
Space ghost miscalculates and an event he thought would depend on his good luck actually turns out to be based on his rubbish skill. Nevertheless the dice gods are favourable and he escapes in tact.
Space ghost runs out of petrol and that's it.
WHAT THE FECK?!
What a shitty end to the story. You're basically driving around at random then arbitrarily die. That is rubbish.
The story says you can make it back home on foot to start again, so slightly better than dieing I guess, but still annoying so early into the adventure. I think it would be better to hook people in more first. And, if you are going to kill them early on, make it feel less random.
Humph.
So I have a copy of "Freeway Fighter", the 13th in the FF series which if I just say "Mad Max" then I can avoid having to bother to explain the plot. The lady on the cover even looks a bit like Tina Turner.
Just before I get into more awesome role play, a little bit of triva that 15 minutes on the internet earnt me: The car you drive is a Dodge Interceptor, which was actually the name of a concept car released by Dodge in the 80's (however, the pictures in Freeway Fighter make it look more like a Lamborghini Countach in my eyes). Anyway, the interceptor was featured in the 1986 film (a year after the book came out, incidentally) called "The Wraith". I'll quote the headline of an IMDB review to give you a flavour of the film:
"Best movie about a ghost from outter space who drives a race car and takes on a gang of motor thugs in Arizona"
So (a) I'm definitely going to track that film down and (b) I'm going to role play Freeway Fighter as a grumpy ghost from outer space.
It's dice rolling time, with some extra rules to learn for this book:
Skill: 9
Stamina: 28
Luck: 12
Ugh, so low skill and luck, but a lucky sod.
My Interceptor car also has some stats:
Firepower: 8 (max = 12)
Armour: 28 (max = 36)
Basically the car's skill and stamina, and equally crap as the Grumpy Ghost's I'm role playing as. If I'm the best hope this poor village has of bringing some precious fuel supplies back, they're screwed. Serves them right for giving me a crap car. Tempted just to try and drive off into the sunset never to return.
In this book there is hand combat (in which it is possible to get knocked out rather than outright killed), gun battles and vehicle battles, each of which with different sets of rules. Bit of a faff if you ask me.
Just before I don the leather armour and cool pair of shades that driving my future car demand, a quick aside. The kid that had this book before me was a DIRTY STINKING CHEAT. His pencil scrawls reveal that his stamina and luck scores were allowed to exceed their initial values in clear contravention of the rules. Scumbag.
Ok, here we go. A space ghost decides to help some poor town in a post-apocalypse future where society has broken down, yada yada. Let's go kick some arse.
Space ghost is well aware of his lack of fighting prowess and crap car so when he hears a shotgun blast in a remote town he stopped in, it's foot down and get the hell out of there. Maybe playing as a coward will win the day here.
Space ghost tries to chat up some lady he meets at a gas station and is promptly mugged. Give up his car keys within 5 minutes of starting the damn book, or knife fight? Space ghost quite probably cuts himself pulling the knife out of his trousers, but here goes nothing.
It all comes down to the last dice role and space ghost knocks the thug spark out. The girl gets away while space ghost is doing a victory dance at winning he first ever fight on planet Earth. Onwards (after using a medpack)
And immediately into some vehicle combat. Crappit.The interceptor gets a bit beaten up, but space ghost perseveres and continues on.
Space ghost miscalculates and an event he thought would depend on his good luck actually turns out to be based on his rubbish skill. Nevertheless the dice gods are favourable and he escapes in tact.
Space ghost runs out of petrol and that's it.
WHAT THE FECK?!
What a shitty end to the story. You're basically driving around at random then arbitrarily die. That is rubbish.
The story says you can make it back home on foot to start again, so slightly better than dieing I guess, but still annoying so early into the adventure. I think it would be better to hook people in more first. And, if you are going to kill them early on, make it feel less random.
Humph.
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