Chooseco, $6.99, ISBN 1-933390-23-9
Suspense, 2006
Are you up for some high-flying shenanigans? Well, you’re in luck. You play a young lad who are in the Arbor Field Soaring Club with two friends Joss Buckram and Penny Mosberg as well as your History teacher Peter Moslowe. All four of you plan to fly off to Baja, Mexico, in two silver-winged motor gliders for a three-day trip. You and Penny take one glider (with you being the pilot, since Penny is a girl and all girls are useless) while Joss and Peter take the other. The fun starts when Joss and Peter’s glider goes down two hours into the flight. What you do will determine the story you will be plunged into.
Silver Wings is an unexpectedly coherent gamebook for the Choose Your Own Adventure series, especially for one by RA Montgomery. There is basically only one story line here, and each path you take leads to slight variations of this story line. The downside to this coherency is that there are far less options available to you as the coherency gives rise to a pretty linear adventure.
There are some oddities to this one, though. At one point, you are given a choice to steal a villain’s 4×4 to make your escape, but Peter is against the decision because that would be stealing and stealing is wrong. Cue heads being hammered against the wall in frustration at such stupidity. And since Penny is a girl, expect her to be a useless burden to you. There is a dated feel to this one, making it more at home with your collection of Enid Blyton’s books than something contemporary.
Not the most exciting entry into this series, this, but perhaps the kids won’t mind.