Step inside a new reality... A Virtual Reality
A Reality that Could Change Michael Forever!
Archaic Venture, a brand new virtual reality video game, is hot off the press and it is selling like hot cakes. However, the creator of the game, Soto Akiyama has thrown in a twist. The game will no longer function correctly until someone defeats the evil spirit plaguing the lands of Archaic Venture. Along with returning Archaic Venture to normal, there is a cash prize that goes with it.
For Michael Maddox, a sixteen-year-old that suffers from Cerebral Palsy and a dysfunctional home life, this game, and that money, could turn his entire life around.
My Opinion: ?? 100 pages, $0.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
The first 20% of the novel is character development for the main character (MC), Michael. It’s not bad. The real life story of a teen with cerebral palsy who feels like a burden to his parents. The costs of his physical therapy are creating both a financial and relationship strain on his parents. The MC buys a VR system with his after school job money hoping to just escape his life and feel normal. It a well written section, that makes the small town the MC lives in feel fleshed out. The judgmental attitude of others, the MCs frustrations with his life and his parents. Empathy for the character is established.
However, once he get into the game world, the writing takes a serious nose dive in terms of both quality and content. The game world isn’t described well, the dialogue feels forced and awkward.
(Excerpt: “‘Excuse us, do you mind give us a second to talk privately?” Komodo said politely.” ) Not only that but there’s a lot of technical writing problems. Missing words, wrong words used (Through instead of threw), and bad sentence structure.
On the game mechanics side, there’s not really one. The story is definitely set in a VR game world. The word “level” is used, but it doesn’t mean much. In his first fight, at level 2, the MC kills a character much higher level with a single attack. He then skips ahead in the space of a paragraph to level 30. There’s no other game mechanics in the story. No character sheets, stats, health bars, ability descriptions, item descriptions. None.
The game story itself is also weak. There’s a contest to defeat this bad monster. Honestly, not even worth mentioning. Fairly boring.
Overall, outside the decent real world beginning, the story was boring. The almost non-existent game mechanics and repeated technical errors knocked it down another point for me.
Score: 4 out of 10
Archaic Venture: The Myth Of Cerberus (A LitRPG Adventure) (Fantasy MMORPG LitRPG Series Book 1)