Item - Risk Your Life Arcade

This isn't too badly written (and the Worm Wars game is fairly well thought-out), but it has no point at all; it's just a series of random, unrelated events. This could have been made much better by the inclusion of visual puzzles or other non-standard game elements.

More reviews by Demian

I'm a bit torn with this one.

Each of the primary paths has a different story to it, all of them having to do with the pinball game you're great at - Worm Wars.

They aren't great, but there's a real charm to this book, mostly for a very dated sense of what video games are like.

So I can't recommend this with any sense of seriousness, but it's otherwise campy fun.

More reviews by Jordashebasics

Atmosphere is key to any gamebook, and Risk Your Life Arcade is set up for success by its setting. The flashing lights and submersive sound at a 1990s-style video game arcade are an evocative background as our story gets underway. You and your friends Sara and Joey love the Risk Your Life Arcade in the Bristol Pines Mall. The place was dreary before Mr. Sticks bought it and installed modern games; your favorite is Worm Wars, an innovative pinball machine. Today you are training for a Worm Wars Tournament when Lefty, an oddball employed by Mr. Sticks, snatches the Worm Wars baseball cap off your head. He accuses you of cheating at the game and gives the hat to Mr. Sticks. Should you swallow your outrage and resume practicing at the arcade, or go to Mr. Sticks's house and get your hat back?

Returning to practice, you're surprised when Lefty approaches, showing a conciliatory attitude. He offers free tokens to make up for swiping your lucky hat; accept them, and you immediately beginning playing the best you ever have at Worm Wars. You might break the all-time record...until Eddie Wrigley, a kid who often acts as Lefty’s crony, shoves you off the machine. Should you push back and stake your claim, or are you better off not picking this battle? It could mean the difference between dire consequences for you...or Eddie. Maybe you never took Lefty's tokens, and instead left the arcade. Sara invites you to stay the night with her family, but if you do, they develop a disturbing fixation on worms. What is going on? Decline Sara's sleepover invitation and you have a run-in with Mr. Sticks that reveals more about him than you ever wished to know.

If you couldn't resist going to Mr. Sticks's house at first to retake what he stole, you slip inside an open window and grab the hat. Should you leave, or explore his weird old home first? Mr. Sticks may catch you, but he won't phone the police. He has a more satisfying way to handle your trespassing. If you don't cross paths with him, you discover a room of classic arcade games. After playing for an hour, all the lights wink out. Try to exit out the window and you run into Eddie, who followed you here. It turns out Mr. Sticks has set up a real-life Worm Wars game for you both; the first to lose will die. When Eddie makes a blunder, should you intervene, or let him die so you survive? If you never saw Eddie while trying to exit Mr. Sticks's house, you get pulled into a life-size version of Rat Race, your friend Joey's favorite game you know little about. You may be doomed if the game is anything but Worm Wars.

Fond memories attend to my earliest reads of Risk Your Life Arcade, but it isn't a good book. Author Ken McMurtry seems to have had many distinct plot ideas he threw all into the same story; reality fundamentally changes with each choice you make. In addition to rampant inconsistency, some endings are wildly overdone, notably with Sara's family and the worms. I like Risk Your Life Arcade, but can't objectively praise it. Considering the atmosphere, this book could have been excellent.

More reviews by KenJenningsJeopardy74