Item - Desert of Danger

I approached this book with some apprehension given the rather negative reviews this series as a whole receives on gamebooks.org. To my surprise, I found it quite bearable. Similar to what I've read about other titles in the series, it lacks depth and is rather badly written, but it contains a few challenging choices that make gameplay enjoyable. The text sections are very brief, but this is acceptable given that its intended audience is young kids with short attention spans (the fast story pacing is also good for adults short on time such as yours truly). There are a few choices which depend on items or information gained earlier on in the text; even if these are designed in a very simplistic fashion, I still appreciated the nods to Mr. Morris' more complex gamebooks. My biggest complaint is actually with the illustrations. I've never been too fond of Bob Harvey's artwork for the most part, and I don't think he draws Transformers particularly well. Overall, you should not expect this to be Virtual Reality or Fabled Lands, but it's an entertaining way to kill an hour if you can find it cheap.

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