Gamebook Reviews

This review was written by guest writer Neil McGrory, to whom my thanks goes out to!

AVENGER!

Knight Books, 1985

Ninjas were very much in vogue in the 1980s, and gamebooks were no exception thanks to the Way of the Tiger series by Smith and Thomson.

You are Avenger, Ninja of the Way of the Tiger, raised since infancy by the monks of Kwon, who have trained you in the deadly arts of stealth and assassination.

In Avenger!, the first of six books in the series, you quest for revenge against the evil Yaemon, an evil martial arts master who slew your foster-father. However more than personal vengeance is at stake as Yaemon is about to perform a rite which, if successful will imprison your god and DOOM the WORLD.

The book begins by asking you to select ninja skills, which work along similar lines to the Kai Disciplines in the Lone Wolf books. Standout abilities include being able to spit deadly poison needles at your enemies, or use your martial arts skills to deflect incoming arrows and missiles.

The combat system is, in my opinion, one of the best of its kind. During encounters you usually get to choose between kicking or punching your foe (kicking does more damage, but enemies generally have more chance of hitting you in return) or throwing them, which usually does no damage but makes it easier to land a follow-up attack. You can also attempt to block successful attacks from enemies, but this makes it harder to retaliate. Lastly, you have a limited amount of Inner Force which can allow you to do double damage and is a real life-saver on occasion.

The Way of the Tiger series doesn’t require you to roll your starting stats, which is a nice way of avoiding that sinking feeling of impending failure that random stats sometimes give, but this book, like the others in the series is no pushover as there are several potentially-fatal situations where you have to get lucky rolls to survive, and you can also expect to die many times until you learn the routes through the book.

In Avenger! it is possible to make life much harder for yourself by choosing the wrong ninja skills. Also, there is an optimum route through the book which must be followed to maximise chances of success in later books, and it requires a combination of choosing certain skills and lucky rolls to successfully complete.

Like many of the other books in the series, Avenger! often feels disjointed, as random stuff “just happens” for no obvious reason. Sometimes these transitions can be quite jarring – for instance there is a good chance you will end up in a deadly gladiatorial tournament without meaning to be! The book starts well, with you competing for the right to become a Ninja Grandmaster before setting out on your mission of vengeance, and the climactic showdown is also fun, but the middle sections of the book suffer from this feeling of inconsistency.

However the book is still recommended – as mentioned, the mechanics are excellent, and you get to be a NINJA!

RATING: 7/10