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Car Wars Adventure Gamebooks #4
Badlands Run
Chance and the reader's decisions will determine whether he or she can escort Orson Whitney, an elder of the LDS Church, safely across the Arizona desert to San Francisco
192 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 31, 2021
This is another of the “adventure gamebooks” based on the popular Steve Jackson game “Car Wars,” in which a future dystopia exists where everyone on the freeways is armed and ready for combat. This one is based on the West Coast, with your goal being to get a Mormon leader safely from Salt Lake City to an important conference in San Francsisco. As with the others in the series, you have a limited amount of time in which to accomplish this task, and there are enemies who want to stop you, as well as the usual hazards of random biker gangs, scavengers, and bandits on the road.
I’d give this one more of a three-and-a-half star rating. It isn’t great, but by this point in the series they’ve gotten past a lot of the problems of how to make a playable adventure, and it is a solid game. One criticism is that there is no way to change vehicles (you have the same Security Six van no matter what) and very little opportunity to pick up new weaponry along the way. Pretty much you’re stuck with what you start with for every adventure. Also, there are several points in which a single failed driving roll can end the adventure, and the van has a terrible handling class, so you need to put a lot of your starting points into your driving skill, at the expense of other characteristics. Still, most of the enemies you fight are outclassed by your vehicle, so you’re more likely to lose by a slow process of whittling away your armor and ammunition than go out on the first battle. There are some interesting sub-plots, if you choose them, but they don’t really benefit you all that much, so the best thing is often just to drive as fast as you can to your destination.
Most people who would have bought this in the 80s would now prefer video games, but for anyone who likes the experience of a book-that’s-a-game, this is a good example, if not the best.
I’d give this one more of a three-and-a-half star rating. It isn’t great, but by this point in the series they’ve gotten past a lot of the problems of how to make a playable adventure, and it is a solid game. One criticism is that there is no way to change vehicles (you have the same Security Six van no matter what) and very little opportunity to pick up new weaponry along the way. Pretty much you’re stuck with what you start with for every adventure. Also, there are several points in which a single failed driving roll can end the adventure, and the van has a terrible handling class, so you need to put a lot of your starting points into your driving skill, at the expense of other characteristics. Still, most of the enemies you fight are outclassed by your vehicle, so you’re more likely to lose by a slow process of whittling away your armor and ammunition than go out on the first battle. There are some interesting sub-plots, if you choose them, but they don’t really benefit you all that much, so the best thing is often just to drive as fast as you can to your destination.
Most people who would have bought this in the 80s would now prefer video games, but for anyone who likes the experience of a book-that’s-a-game, this is a good example, if not the best.
December 9, 2012
This is basically an advanced "Choose Your Own Adventure"-style book that uses dice in addition to making choices to achieve success in the story. Set in the future game setting of Car Wars, this was a fun read and of the books in the series I have read so far, the easiest adventure to complete.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews