Item - Break into the Internet!: Pick Your Player, Start Your Quest

This book has an atypical format, being almost 300 pages long with small print (also illustrated in full colour, even if the illustrations are all generic images of different Wreck-It Ralph characters). The extra length does not mean the book is terribly deep or complex, though. This is pretty much a typical choose-your-path book for kids, except that the text sections between choices stretch for many pages. This can make starting again from the beginning and trying to locate a path you did not take before feel like a chore. Section length wouldn't be too much of a problem if there was a good interactive adventure underlying it all, but the book boils down to a random events story with no strategic gameplay whatsoever. Whether the reader succeeds or not does not depend on logical decision-making, but rather on the whim of the author. Adding insult to injury, the book's different paths feel long and rather tedious.

For most of the book the reader will be playing either Ralph or Vanellope. However, at certain points the book will switch to having the reader play other characters from the original film. This design feature is not unheard of (An X-cellent Death in the Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Gamebooks works in a similar way). Unfortunately, in this case it does not add much interest to either the story or the gameplay. I would have liked the chance to at least play Sergeant Calhoun, but unfortunately she is not among the playable characters.

Overall, some young readers will enjoy spending a little more time (or rather, a lot more time) with the film characters, but experienced gamebook fans will find little to enjoy here.

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