Item - ULTRA Deadly

Well, I thought, this can't be worse than the last book in the series. In a way, I was right -- there weren't as many technical flaws as before (though there certainly were some). There was even a bit of innovation -- as mentioned above, the book is historical, which is at least something of a change of pace (though now that the USSR is gone, I suppose all of the books could be considered historical). Unfortunately, the book's flaws are countless and far outweigh its virtues. Although the writing is occasionally interesting, it is also occasionally awkward and hard to understand. The book's real failing is its ultra-linear design. After a mostly-linear introduction and a totally linear (and incredibly long) mission briefing, you finally get to make what seems like a real choice... except that one of the options leads to a sudden and unsatisfying failure. This would be okay if not for the fact that you keep getting offered this choice. You might pick it once, but after that, you know it's an ending, so you always have to pick the other choice, even if you don't like it. Really, during the entire period of time that this choice is offered, the author might as well have put in "Turn to page xx" text instead of options, as it would have made no difference! And it gets worse... after a while, you inevitably come to a point where you have to roll the dice. If you make a low roll, guess where you go? Yep, right to the bad choice that ends the game! What was the author thinking here?! This isn't interactive fiction, it's linear frustration! Things get a little better after this point, but not by much. For the rest of the story, you make choices here and there, and either you live or you die. The problem is that endings vary wildly in their level of detail. Although the book has multiple successful endings, only one of them is written in a satisfying way, making the book end with a dull thud most of the time. It's a shame. This, like the rest of the series, could have been good. It's not, though, and I recommend staying far away from it.

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