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Carregando... User Unfriendlyde Vivian Vande Velde
Books Read in 2022 (4,730) » 1 mais Carregando...
Registre-se no LibraryThing tpara descobrir se gostará deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. Arvin and his friends (and his mother) are playing a pirated version of a full immersion virtual reality game where they're all characters on a quest to rescue a kidnapped princess. However, when Arvin's mother becomes seriously ill during the game, the only way to get her to the hospital is to finish the game as quickly as possible. I've read a few books about video roleplaying games. This one is different because it was written in 1990. The main character a few times would draw comparisons with tabletop gaming, which frankly is a more likely to be unfamiliar to the modern reader than the concept of a full-immersion video one. There were also a few instances where someone had to explain different concepts like the idea of the program being stuck in a loop. Still, it didn't seem too dated beyond that. Oddly, compared to other books I've read, very little of the action took place outside of the game. So that I never even really had a clear picture of what the 'real' world was like. Related to this, I felt the ending was very rushed, so that it almost had the element 'and then I woke up and it was all a dream'. The other real negative I have to say about it is that one of the characters plays an 'Indian' and another a 'gypsy'. Even though the setting was more typical D&D type setting with wizards and orcs and whatnot. It's explained that the players can be whatever type of character they want, even if it doesn't fit with the setting. Which seems silly to me. And so it was unnecessarily racist. There's no reason that character couldn't have been a ranger or a huntsman or something, since the only thing he seemed to use his character type for was tracking and being stealthy. :P Also, the blurb on the back is misleading and does not represent the contents of the book. The main character is not a 'hacker'. His friend is the hacker, although not even really that, since all it is is a pirated copy of the game. He doesn't seem to have done any actual hacking personally. Oh, there was also a lot of fighting and action scenes and I find too much of that boring. So, yea. sem resenhas | adicionar uma resenha
Pertence à série
It's the most advanced computer role-playing game ever: When you play you're really there--in a dark dream teeming with evil creatures, danger-filled fortresses, and malevolent sorceries. The game plugs directly into your brain--no keyboard, no modem, no monitor. And for game hacker Arvin Rizalli and his friends, no cash up front, no questions asked . . . and no hope of rescue when the game goes horribly, deathly wrong. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — Carregando... GênerosClassificação decimal de Dewey (CDD)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Classificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos E.U.A. (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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The book barely introduces us to the main character, Arvin Rizalli. He wakes up in a stable in-game and we receive a long list of the people huddled in his "hacker" friend's basement den. We receive no information about them other than a couple references to grade level, two are a couple, and one of them is his mom. Why is his mom in his friend's basement den? At the end of the book we have a reference to her "begging" him to let her play the game with them, but it was weird. That long list of names ends up not mattering because there's an odd choice to have most of the characters have secret identities. Their digital selves look completely different from their physical bodies and they call each other by their character names. Arvin speculates about identities, and it just adds to the general confusion. Oh, right. One of the many characters is actually Giannine from 'Heir Apparent', for what it's worth.
The book isn't that long, but it took forever to get anywhere and the very little of the humor landed. There was one good bit about the other party having zero issues in catching up to the lead. 'Heir Apparent' at least had some knowing gamer winks and playfulness, but 'User Unfriendly' just makes a couple of tabletop game references. Arvin's self esteem issues don't make me feel for him, they just make me want to skip ahead a few paragraphs every time. The glitches also don't seem that severe, except where Arvin's mom is concerned, and there is no sense of urgency until the last few pages. Read with caution.
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