Item - Ultraheroes

Ultraheroes is built on Space Olympics in a way, because Andromeda, the athlete you rescued from Gresh in the Space Olympics, is back as a member of a super group that will fight evil in the galaxy in their own way. Each one has superhuman powers which just can't be taught at Spy Center, but Spy Center will help them control said powers: superintelligence, freezing time, mechanical genius, teleportation, and superathleticism (Andromeda.) And you, once again, are recruited as a ringer! This feels like an obvious and good entry to add to BaIS, though though trying it twice would be overkill, and overall it works.

You see, Tunk from The Star Crystal has summoned you to find who has sabotaged the training. He suspects his twin Kort, who failed to join the Interplanetary Spies and turned evil, is using mind control. Alas, your special skill is hand-waved away. You're just a trainee. But so what? It was fun as a kid to figure out the saboteur who and neutralize them, though it's not particularly tricky for an adult. My young self also felt smart being able to note and remember the difference between Tunk and Kort and solve the puzzle late in the book. Your time with the traitor has some neat moments too.

After two failed training missions, finding out Kort's plan takes up a good part of the book.

Ultraheroes's layout and progress are unusual for the series. It's relatively forgiving, even with one fun well-drawn detour to get back on track for a wrong choice, and some of its pages are text-dense to give more of a backstory. A lot is crowded around the edges. I sort of welcomed it. And having the other Ultraheroes deservedly laugh at you for whiffing an easy puzzle actually does make you feel like part of the group--or worried you might get exposed! (Small spoiler: nobody figures it out.) Though looking back, one of the bad endings where you wipe all the data and Tunk gets mad at you isn't totally your fault, as we in the future know. I mean, such a big organization and nobody backed data up?

But I'm being pedantic with the benefit of future knowledge. (It's always fun to see what sci-fi misses.) The teamwork aspect is pretty fun, and it's impressive that everyone gets a turn to shine and be in peril in a relatively short book. Having everyone in at least one death scene again made me feel like all the Ultraheroes were in it together. The chase to find Kort is relatively well-paced, also. You really zip across the galaxy.

And it does have a Saturday Morning Cartoon feel for me, mostly for the better. My favorite picture is you and the actual Ultraheroes getting weird suction things on your head so you can read each other's mind for the final conflict. I can picture an animated Saturday Morning cartoon sequence. In the slightly more corny department, everyone has a good laugh at the expense of the now-harmless bad guy at the end, which any adult recognizes is overplayed, but we can't hate on it.

I'm probably being harsh here, since these books WERE directed at kids. And Ultraheroes helped bring back the kid in me, when I knew I wasn't going to get superpowers but still dreamed about them anyway. I also liked the whole "hey look I walked in with no superpowers and stole the show" of completing the book, though on rereading as an adult, I appreciate your time with the saboteur a bit more. Most of the other character dialogues explain something cataclysmic or monumental, and this slipped in more human connectivity and admitting frailty than I expected.

More reviews by andrewschultz

Similarly to book 6, this entry features a 'whodunnit' mystery for the player to solve. Tunk from book 6 also makes a reappearance, along with Andromeda from book 4.

The 'whodunnit' loses some of its flavour when the answer is essentially given to the player in the course of the story (if you survive), rather than ever requiring a choice of decision. The 'Ultraheroes' of the title are similiar to comic's Justice League, with the idea of complementary abilities.

The ending is suitably melodramatic, with an attempt to write a tragic end for the villain having middling results.

More reviews by Aussiesmurf

This isn't a bad entry in the series; while many of the puzzles are pretty pointless, enough are interesting to make up for the book's shortcomings. My biggest complaint, though, is that the comet swarm puzzle on pages 84 and 85 doesn't make any sense; neither of the solutions seem right to me.

More reviews by Demian