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Item - Three Strikes and You're a Monster!

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Series: Scream Shop Pick Your Path — no. 5
Author: West, Tracey
Illustrator: Dow, Brian W.
Date: February, 2004
ISBN: 0448433591 / 9780448433592
Length: 144 pages
Number of Endings: 15
User Summary: Baseball fanatic Matthew Carter is a great catcher but can't hit to save his life... until he finds an unusual baseball bat in Sebastian Cream's Junk Shop.
Demian's Thoughts:

Like many of the Give Yourself Goosebumps books, this is structured so that it contains two completely independent stories separated by the first decision -- depending on which bat Matthew picks up, completely different adventures await him. Of course, in one path, it is possible to exchange a bat at the store and thus start over on the second path. The actual content of the book is, as usual, not bad but not too special. There are some missed opportunities for more interesting gameplay (the exploration of a cave, for example, which offers three openings to enter but doesn't bother to distinguish them in any way) and more sheer stupidity than usual for the series (the solution to a quest for a monster's name was not only a missed opportunity for some sort of puzzle but also made me cringe). I'm glad to see that this series is selling well enough to make it into a second year of publication, but I hope it gets a little livelier before it comes to an end -- with just a little more creativity or quirkiness, I think this series could produce something memorable.

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Waluigi Freak 99's Thoughts:

I really didn't like this book. While most plotlines were forgettable, the one about the monster in the cave stands out, not because it was good, but because it was pretty poorly below par.

More reviews by Waluigi Freak 99

Users Who Own This Item: Darth Rabbitt, exaquint, katzcollection, knginatl, ntar, waktool (Paperback, US 1st printing), Zolika
Users Who Want This Item: NEMO, Pseudo_Intellectual

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