Item - Skull Island

This is the second book I have read by Barlow and Skidmore (after Werewolf Hunter). Since this book is more about investigation and has practically no combat, I had vague hopes that it would be more intelligently designed than that other one. Alas, my hopes were in vain. Once again, we have cringe-inducing writing and a complete lack of meaningful interactivity. At every single choice point, there is only one choice that is "correct" and allows the story to move forward. If you make a single wrong choice, you will either receive a warning or will be berated by the authors, and the story will steer you on to the choice you should have taken. This extremely railroady design makes for a frustrating read. There are a couple of points where it is possible to die or be thrown off the case if you make a dumb choice, but these do not make up for the rest of the book.

For what it's worth, a few of the choices rely on logic, though quite a few are still completely arbitrary. The book compares somewhat favourably to Werewolf Hunter in this regard, though the authors' habit of dropping extremely obvious clues prevents this from being a good mystery gamebook. If you are looking for that, try the Webs of Intrigue series instead.

Taking the above into account, the best thing I can say about this book is that, at 46 sections, it is much shorter than Werewolf Hunter. This means that, while the adventure sucks, it at least goes by pretty quickly. Don't expect me to review other books in this series anytime soon - I have better things to do with my time.

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