I haven't yet mentioned the upcoming Aspyr-published Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain game here, but this week I got an interesting item—the original book of the same name by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, which will also be given as a bonus who preorder the game from GameStop—and something that was, admittedly, completely new to me as an American not quite so much into fantasy RPGs when it was published.

At first blush, it may bear a very passing resemblance to the Choose Your Own Adventure series that I do remember from my childhood, sporting 400 points to turn to depending on your choices; but it's got its feet firmly planted in dice-rolling pen-and-paper RPGs, with a character sheet and stats to manage. (Die rolls are printed on the bottoms of pages, too, so you don't even need a real pair to play, just flip through the book randomly and read the roll of the page you stop on.) It recommends you make yourself a map as you go along as you'll probably play through a few times before you make it to the end; this seems to me to be a rather good suggestion, for as thin as the book looks it can get pretty deep.

I'm told the book is only going to be available in the U.S. through the preorder bonus scheme; indeed, on the back cover there are only Canadian and U.K. prices listed. Definitely one of the cooler preorder bonuses I've seen, and the game itself—a first-person RPG—looks like no slouch either.