|
Post by The Count on Oct 20, 2019 22:13:42 GMT
Siege of Sardath Phantoms of Fear Black Vein Prophecy Vault of the Vampire Legend of the Shadow Warriors
|
|
|
Post by deadshadowrunner on Oct 27, 2019 5:39:06 GMT
This is really tough. I love most of the books, including the sci-fi ones. My books are buried deep within my bookshelves so I hope I remember some of the details right.
Moonrunner: I'll keep the list to one book per author or else Hand will just take up nearly the whole list. All three of his books are very close but for me Moonrunner edges it out. From the start when you are caught in the office and need to find a way to escape, the book never lets up once. It is chock full of exciting encounters and characters. While these set pieces are less fleshed out compared to his previous books due to how many there are, they still remain memorable. With great balance of Special Skills, this book has both excellent gameplay and writing.
Spectral Stalkers: I am a big fan of dimension hopping and Spectral Stalkers certainly delivers. The use of items in unexpected ways is great. There are some fun puzzles too such as the Logic Dog or negotiating the final encounter with Globus.
Appointment with FEAR: As a fan Marvel comics, this book hits all the right notes. It has a very distinct superhero feel to it and it always amazes me how Steve Jackson managed to capture this. The illustrations complement the book perfectly. The design of the book is also pure brilliance with the way the four true paths for each of the powers are weaved into each other. Probably one of the most complex designs in FF alongside Magehunter.
Trial of Champions: Trial of Champions over Deathtrap Dungeon? Am I mad? Hear me out on this one. Firstly I really enjoyed the opening slave trials part, especially the blindfold sandbox fight, and it also sets up your hatred for Lord Carnuss. That bald monk guy with a staff Trialmaster was pretty cool. Lord Carnuss' revenge plot against Sukumvit and your revenge against Carnuss gives this book a bit more of a plot and purpose than the original. Honestly I just like this one more and find myself revisiting it more often but I can't explain it.
Stormslayer: Have to give Jon Green some love. All of his later books are great, but Stormslayer is probably the one I've played the most. The gameplay is this is just so good. There's secret sections, enemies with special attacks based on die rolls, plenty of interesting items, and many more. I am also a sucker for elementals, don't ask me why.
|
|
Blackheart
Squire
Formerly known as Symm. Razaak raised me from the dead.
Posts: 42
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
|
Post by Blackheart on Nov 21, 2019 12:36:25 GMT
House of Hell (my favourite as I'd like to live in that house) City of Thieves (my first...it was actually read to me as a child)
Howl of the Werewolf (best book written so far...outstanding atmosphere!)
Vault of the Vampire (as Dracula by Stoker is among my top five novels)
Masks of Mayhem (because I personally make an appearance in it...see paragraph 328)
|
|
|
Post by The Count on Dec 3, 2019 0:19:28 GMT
Trial of Champions: Trial of Champions over Deathtrap Dungeon? Am I mad? Hear me out on this one. Firstly I really enjoyed the opening slave trials part, especially the blindfold sandbox fight, and it also sets up your hatred for Lord Carnuss. That bald monk guy with a staff Trialmaster was pretty cool. Lord Carnuss' revenge plot against Sukumvit and your revenge against Carnuss gives this book a bit more of a plot and purpose than the original. Honestly I just like this one more and find myself revisiting it more often but I can't explain it. I actually prefer Trial of Champions over Deathtrap Dungeon as well and I think that it's because in Trial, the one true path almost makes more sense - in Deathtrap winning seems arbitary since the final essential item is carried by a competitor who just so happens to have gone on the most difficult route yet somehow avoided all the dangers you have to slog through (and as I keep being killed by the pit fiend even when doing everything else right, don't see why this should be the case). Deathtrap is at places too trite and banal in its descriptions - and the fact that it becomes blatantly obvious when you have taken the wrong route after the enforced friendship with a rival ends predictably spoils things.
|
|
|
Post by Peter on Dec 5, 2019 8:49:17 GMT
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain - as my introduction to the books, it seemed so full of mystery, the illustrations so evocative. I remember leafing through the book and reading about encounters I hadn't found yet while playing it through, it made the dungeon seem huge, almost endless. The bits of mythology thrown into it just added to the depth of the experience, like when I was deliberating about how to deal with the ferryman and my elder sister (who was knowledgeable about such things) quoted the Chris de Burgh song: "Don't pay the ferryman, until he gets you to the other side." Sparked my imagination and got me hooked.
City of Thieves - as others have said, it has atmosphere. You really feel like you are in a city, unlike any of the books that had come before.
Creature of Havoc - brilliantly written, great concept and great story as well. The puzzles were so hard to solve, it felt like such a breakthrough every time I got one, but then I would just run into another brick wall! It took so long to get through the book, it was like the literary equivalent of a multi-layered chocolate box - "look, there's more, it's still not finished!"
Talisman of Death - just because it was different. It took me a while to warm to it, but I eventually did. You get the crucial item, then you lose it, then you get it back again, etc. It made me re-think my hoarding habits from earlier books, where I would be loathe to use up or give up any item, just in case...
The rest of the first 7 books, because there seemed to be a big gap before the next one, so for quite a while it was as if that was the whole series. I got so familiar with those books that I knew them inside out, in fact I had a kind of mental map of them all (I never drew maps); I never managed this with any of the later ones.
|
|