Item - You Are Slaine in Tomb of Terror

(This review covers the entire You Are Slaine in Tomb of Terror miniseries).

This interactive adventure, which uses the same game system as the Slaine stories included in the Diceman comic book series, was first serialized over fifteen issues of the legendary 2000 AD comic strip. It was later collected into two volumes of the The Best of 2000 AD series. To my knowledge, this is the longest Slaine interactive adventure available.

Because this adventure was featured in the main 2000 AD comic, it is designed differently from the Diceman mini-gamebooks. Every chapter begins with a fully linear comic book story. Meanwhile, the final couple of pages in each issue contain the game instructions, branching paths, and monster stats. This allows faithful readers of the strip with no interest in interactivity to read the story without being bothered by the game part. It also allows players to choose paths that deviate slightly from the comic book storyline. Fortunately, this unusual design works well enough so that both types of readers can get a satisfying experience out of the miniseries. The story is action-packed and entertaining, and while the requirements of the format mean that the adventure is quite linear, many of the choices are still quite challenging. If you are a fan of dungeon-crawling, this adventure will be right up your alley.

The biggest letdown for me was the fact that challenge level posed by the opponents you face is very low, so much that it almost feels as if you are reading a Sagard gamebook. This made the series less engaging than it should have been.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this adventure, but it would have been better if it had the same challenge level as many of the stories in the Diceman series. This is worth getting only if you don't have to spend a ton of money on it.

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