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Post by paperexplorer on Jul 10, 2023 8:03:53 GMT
Revisited this one today after many years.
I'm not on board with some of the early criticism in this thread. It's not meant to be an ultra realistic post apocalypse simulation, it's campy fun where you get to drive around the desert engaging in car fights and blowing up stuff. There is an element of rushedness to it (especially the incomplete artwork) but it's still fun imo. Another 20 references adding depth to the return trip would have made it better, but it is what it is.
I also really missed good old luck potions too
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jul 20, 2023 12:08:59 GMT
I don't mean to alarm anyone but in the current women's world cup in Australia, the USA and England are bookies' favourites to reach the final. Maybe Ian was just one year out...
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Post by paperexplorer on Jul 20, 2023 22:14:59 GMT
I just checked the roster for the Mets... nobody named Leonardi. I think we're safe
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kieran
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jul 20, 2023 22:42:04 GMT
I just checked the roster for the Mets... nobody named Leonardi. I think we're safe Phew!
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IoannesKantakouzenos
Traveller
Being slowly eaten alive by a Ghoul
Posts: 105
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy (Aventuras Fantásticas)
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Post by IoannesKantakouzenos on Jul 21, 2023 15:27:59 GMT
We also are nowhere near the three-workdays-per-week routine.
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Sept 8, 2023 16:11:20 GMT
The Scholastic artwork thread got me wondering who people would like to see illustrate a new Freeway Fighter book. And rather than go off-topic over there... I always did like the Carl Critchlow illustrations in Games Workshop's Dark Future books. Random search on the internet yields these:
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Post by scouserob on Dec 29, 2023 13:12:20 GMT
My Freeway Fighter exploration has begun. There is a Tin Man Games adaptation of this on the Fighting Fantasy Classics App, so I won't be making my own version this time, just playing and mapping.
I started my first play though with the usual 2D6 + 12 Stamina before realising I should have had another 12 Stamina on top of that!!! (Not that it mattered as I decided to trespass on the wrong private property. 😬)
Firepower and Armour are basically just the Skill and Stamina of the Interceptor.
It seems like the pattern is holding for removing the use of Luck in battles when there is more than one type of combat. Starship Traveller: Hand to Hand, Phaser Combat, Ship to Ship Space Assassin: Hand to Hand, Gun Battle (,Tank Battle, kind of) Freeway Fighter: Hand Fighting, Shooting, Vehicle Combat
I'm only on day one but the combat rules in the fights so far are interesting:
Hand-to-Hand: Various damage values depending on your weapon. Losing 6 Stamina results in a KO, in general, which stop things dragging on too long.
Gun Battles are a bit like Space Assassin’s Assault Blaster fights. (Pretty faced paced, with 1D6 damage, and rather fun.)
Vehicle Combat is just a Gun Battle with the Interceptor's stats but with the added tactical option of using an insta-kill rocket at any point.
I'm enjoying it so far. The vibe is more like the first Mad Max than the other 3, or perhaps the parts of the Walking Dead where the zombies are irrelevant and the danger is human enemies. The golden rule thus far seems to be: Trust No-One. Which makes sense as the proportion of raiders to honest travellers must be rather high out there.
One thing has just thrown me: Paragraph #82 ask you to roll two dice and compare to your Luck. Basically the same mechanics as with the usual Test Your Luck but without the italics and the options for Lucky or Unlucky replaced with less than or equal to your Luck or greater than your Luck. 🤷🏻♂️ So do we subtract a Luck point here? [If you roll less than or equal to your Luck here then the next paragraph (#39) is a normal Test Your Luck.]
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Post by CharlesX on Dec 29, 2023 13:31:58 GMT
My Freeway Fighter exploration has begun. There is a Tin Man Games adaptation of this on the Fighting Fantasy Classics App, so I won't be making my own version this time, just playing and mapping. <cut for length> I'm enjoying it so far. The vibe is more like the first Mad Max, than the other 3, or perhaps the parts of the Walking Dead where the zombies are irrelevant and the danger is human enemies. The golden rule thus far seems to be: Trust No-One. Which makes sense as the proportion of raiders to honest travellers must be rather high out there. One thing has just thrown me: Paragraph #82 ask you to roll two dice and compare to your Luck. Basically the same mechanics as with the usual Test Your Luck but without the italics and the options for Lucky or Unlucky replaced with less than or equal to your Luck or greater than your Luck. 🤷🏻♂️ So do we subtract a Luck point here? [If you roll less than or equal to your Luck here then the next paragraph (#39) is a normal Test Your Luck.] Great you're enjoying Freeway Fighter. It's an FF where it can be fun to go off the true path, I always used to do that to fight The Animal and get the knuckledusters. As Sir Ian didn't specify you were testing your Luck or to lose a Luck point I imagine that's what he meant by choosing to write this Luck test in a different manner (I'm saying the balance of evidence is you don't), we work on the basis of what we are told to do, not what we aren't.
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Post by scouserob on Jan 28, 2024 12:36:06 GMT
I've finally completed this one and I enjoyed it very much indeed.
I've died and failed in multiple ways: Blown up crossing a bridge, ran out of fuel (many times), blown to smithereens during vehicle combat quite a few times), losing a four way shootout with the Doom Dogs, getting pummelled by Lord Humungus/The Animal, getting crushed to death by Lord Humungus (forgot to use a med pack after barely surviving the shootout with the Doom Dogs 🤦🏻♂️), failing to inspire the denizen of San Anglo to fight the Doom Dogs, losing a quick draw competition with a raider.
Running out of fuel was annoying, but it helped structure the adventure into sections, each of which required you to find fuel to continue on to the next. I like a bit of structure, and a it made a good reason to try again and explore new paths. (Assuming I didn't find the fuel first time.)
The Blitz Race was great fun and it took me a good few goes to win it. (Before failing a few times afterwards even knowing the best route through it.)
In fact the vehicle combat throughout was really good, often giving you multiple tactical options with the oil, spikes, rockets and guns without overwhelming you with rules. The 1D6 damage helped make every round interesting, adding greater variance to fights than with the usual 2 damage, and meaning that it didn't need too terrible a run of luck to see the Interceptor brutally damaged or destroyed by weaker opposition whilst all your shots keep doing minimal damage. (That unavoidable Red Chevvy with its measly Firepower of 8 routinely got two or three shots in dealing double figures worth of damage to my Armour before I'd even got into the adventure proper. 😂)
The Shootouts were also good to play through, though the mechanic of losing an Initial Skill point if you were shot twice in combat meant it was sensible to avoid them if possible.
The Hand to Hand combat confused me a bit, with paragraphs saying that fights were to the death and the rules at the front telling you stop combat after somebody loses 6 Stamina. I tended to interpret this as meaning you would be killed whilst unconscious in the fist fight against the Animal, though the knife fights against Wolves and Wild Dog seemed a bit more ambiguous. I don't like rule ambiguity. Thankfully you can get through to end without any hand to hand combat.
I may be wrong but there seemed to be one hell of a lot of Luck and Skill Tests in this one, probably more than in any of the other books I've played so far. It really added an edge of nervousness to things even with a Skill of 10 or 11, knowing that just one bad roll could mean the end of a great run.
Overall, out of the first thirteen I would probably place this the highest of the non-fantasy three. My quick ranking of the first thirteen: 6, 2, 10, 5, 11, 8, 1, 7, 13, 3, 9, 12, 4
Which, considering that I really enjoyed Space Assassin down in 12th place from 13, says a lot about how much fun I'm having with these early books.
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Post by paperexplorer on Feb 3, 2024 6:26:24 GMT
My favourite part of the book was the raid on the doom dogs camp. It's a scene straight out of an action movie and I really like the way Ian described the headlights searching for you
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