Roland never wanted to be in the Army. He didn't want to be penniless either. The Army wanted him though.
Roland Mellors couldn't find work. The second industrial revolution had left anyone without high-level qualifications poor and unemployed. When he tries to get just one beer to drown his sorrows he ends up in a recruitment office with an offer he can't refuse.
Shattered City is a LitRPG/LitFPS story. It is the start of a series that follows Roland as he tries to fit in within the army. That army has decided to use a full immersion virtual reality game to fight its wars. He enters the game world to fight and work off his new contract.
Will Roland survive in this virtual world of war or will he suffer for his entire career?
Find out in this first installment of the Call of Reality series.
My Opinion: 190 pages, $3.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
Technically LitRPG, but definitely more LitFPS. The only RPG aspect that exists in the story are the ability to earn points from kills and accurate shots. Those points can be used to ‘lock in’ skills that are practiced, purchase higher tiered weapons, or upgrades for those weapons. That’s the only game like progression in the story and it mostly exists in the training section of the story. As soon as the main character (MC) and his squad get into combat, all the RPG aspects virtually disappear and it becomes straightforward military combat set in VR with some game elements like respawns, objective notifications, health packs, and health notices. The military squad combat is well written and fans of that kind of story will like this, but something like 80% of the story has little to no RPG elements. It didn’t work for me.
Score: 6 out of 10
Shattered City: (A litRPG/LitFPS book) (Call of Reality Book 1)