Item - Treason at Helm's Deep

(review based on the Spanish translation)

Instead of the interesting exploration and movement, map-based system of the previous book, this one uses the more standard gamebook format of numbered sections with "turn to" instructions. It's a good book, although it has serious flaws. Let's start with the good parts. The adventure is, for the most part, exciting, interesting and well-written. The book manages to include a lot of player agency (since there are many different possibilities to experience depending on the choices you make) while preventing the basic events from deviating from those described in the second The Lord of the Rings novel, The Two Towers. The adventure makes use of all the player character's ability scores, and it includes combat, nonplayer character interaction, and even a bit of dungeon exploration. Since a substantial part of the adventure involves participating in the Battle of Helm's Deep, there is a lot of combat involved, and a weak character may have a difficult time prevailing. For this reason, my advice would be to try this book with a character with high combat attributes (if possible, one with experience earned in other books in this series).

Unfortunately, a combat-heavy adventure such as this makes the flaws of the combat system show more. It's possible even for weak opponents to defeat the player character with a single blow if the dice go against him / her, which only serves to increase frustration and is simply a result of a badly-designed combat system. The adventure also has serious design flaws, such as instances where simply choosing to go down one corridor or failing one skill check lead to instant death.

Despite these problems, the adventure is entertaining and it might be worth trying more than once, since there are many possible ways the story turns out depending on your decisions and some random (but not illogical) outcomes. It's not a classic of interactive fiction, but it's an interesting proposal and can be recommended.

More reviews by Guillermo

No map this time - a more straightforward gamebook. In the opening sequence - most of the adventure - you are a watchman who investigates a possible spy. While technically linear compared to the mapped adventures in the series, the choices you do make feel more impactful than rolling differing encounter tables; one core element can be randomised, and there are totally divergent routes your adventure can take which don't cross over until, possibly, the finale. The other side of this is that it's quite short on a given run; on certain paths, very short.

This is followed by a sequence where you fight in the battle of Helm's Deep that is rather perfunctory but functional (as a way you might die, anyway); but the first half is the meat of the book and its pretty good, albeit your investigation is nowhere near as sophisticated as in A Spy in Isengard.

The writing is reasonable and unusually for this series your character, a callow but enthusiastic young Rohirim, is actually somewhat communicated. Compared to other MEQ books, this one is significantly more enthusiastic about killing you. The time mechanic continues to require lots of book keeping but delivers very little here save on one specific route where it leads to a quite interesting "mediocre" ending; it's not really a worthwhile trade.

While notionally it should be less replayable than the more "non-linear" map based members of the series, the divergence in the first half is more substantial. It's not as good as A Spy in Isengard's first half, but it is the only one I did a full replay of. A worthwhile play for LotR and gamebook fans who don't mind the minor lore divergence inherent in side works of this kind.

More reviews by mulahey