Freeway Warrior Movies

[Waiting On Password]

Does anyone else think that the current world climate would be the perfect setting for the release of a FW quadrilogy ? After all, the FW setting is a rise of global terrorism, and we seem to be seeing a rise of global terrorism in the real world. The storyline of FW, a lone hero fighting tremendous odds to save the woman he loves, and then combatting the evil terrorist group before the final battle with the groups leader would go down very well in the current atmosphere.

Opinions ?

[Black Cat]

Well, this could be a good idea, even if I never read the FW series. I wish I could discover it thru the movies.

[Sarra]

I never read the FW series either. To be truthfull I never really wanted to, the concept just didn't interest me too terribly.

[The Tagazin Poodle]

Well, 1 & 3 were pretty good (3 more than 1). I can't say about 2 & 4, as I could never find copies.

[Relenoir]

Embarassed to say so, but I've had FW 1-4 for a few months now, and still have not gotten around to reading them. I think I tried 1 many years ago, and got killed so many times I just put it down and forgot about it.

[doomwolf]

I agree 100%. I have the entire FW series and Book 1 is showing some serious wear while the others are almost untouched as Book 1 is stupendously hard to complete without cheating!
This is simply because of the number of opportunities to die by random number. I think there's one potentially game-ending RNT pick every four or five sections and the whole thing is frustrating in the extreme if you are going to play it honestly. That the book is almost completely linear doesn't help matters.
The rest of the time I die in combat because the Combat Results Table has a tougher "weighting" to it and opportunities to heal are few and far between. You start with (RN)+2 Medikits which heal 3EP each but it is easy to use three or more after any one fight because combat here is harder.
I can't think of any moments where I died by wrong decision - it's always luck which does me in. Even more aggravating is the fact that if by some miracle I do beat Book 1 the rest of the series is MUCH easier because you get bonus skill points to modify random number picks with.
While I'm having a rant, there is a major glitch in my copy of Book 4 of this series. Section 111 asks you to add a random number to your Strength score and turn to the section indicated by the result. The problem is that the player character does not have a Strength score! If anyone reading this owns California Countdown, could they please look that section up and see if their copy has had this glitch fixed? Mine appears to be a first edition from 1989 so I'm sure this would have been straightened out in any later printings.

To return to the topic of this thread, wasn't the Freeway Warrior idea basically a rip-off of the Mad Max movies anyway? Even the title suggests this, as Mad Max was known as the Road Warrior.

Don't get me wrong - I actually like the Freeway Warrior books, but Book 1 would have benefited vastly from better playtesting.

PS: Apologies for the length of this post - guess I had a lot to get off my chest!

[WaitingOnPassword]

doomwolf said:

I agree 100%. I have the entire FW series and Book 1 is showing some serious wear while the others are almost untouched as Book 1 is stupendously hard to complete without cheating!
This is simply because of the number of opportunities to die by random number. I think there's one potentially game-ending RNT pick every four or five sections and the whole thing is frustrating in the extreme if you are going to play it honestly. That the book is almost completely linear doesn't help matters.
The rest of the time I die in combat because the Combat Results Table has a tougher "weighting" to it and opportunities to heal are few and far between. You start with (RN)+2 Medikits which heal 3EP each but it is easy to use three or more after any one fight because combat here is harder.
I can't think of any moments where I died by wrong decision - it's always luck which does me in. Even more aggravating is the fact that if by some miracle I do beat Book 1 the rest of the series is MUCH easier because you get bonus skill points to modify random number picks with.
While I'm having a rant, there is a major glitch in my copy of Book 4 of this series. Section 111 asks you to add a random number to your Strength score and turn to the section indicated by the result. The problem is that the player character does not have a Strength score! If anyone reading this owns California Countdown, could they please look that section up and see if their copy has had this glitch fixed? Mine appears to be a first edition from 1989 so I'm sure this would have been straightened out in any later printings.

To return to the topic of this thread, wasn't the Freeway Warrior idea basically a rip-off of the Mad Max movies anyway? Even the title suggests this, as Mad Max was known as the Road Warrior.

Don't get me wrong - I actually like the Freeway Warrior books, but Book 1 would have benefited vastly from better playtesting.

PS: Apologies for the length of this post - guess I had a lot to get off my chest!

While HH does have its fair share of seemingly random deaths, keep persevering because it is worth it in the end, despite the somewhat linear nature of it. As for the Strength glitch in California Countdown, I have that too, though that is because my copy of it is also a first edition.

As for idea of Freeway Warrior being a rip-off of the Mad Max series, while I can see the more obvious similarities, I think that there are also enough differences between the two that FW very much has its own identity.

And, while I am here, I will once again point out that the illustrations in Book 1 were very below par.

Back to the topic at hand though, does anyone have suggestions on who would be the best people to play the key roles in a FW movie series ?

[Black Cat]

WaitingOnPassword said:

Back to the topic at hand though, does anyone have suggestions on who would be the best people to play the key roles in a FW movie series ?

I suggest that you make a different thread for that in the Auxiliary Creations section, we already have a thread for the same subject about the LW series in that section, so it would fit perfectly right beside it. I'm planning to do the same thing about the GS series right now.

[HuntingWolf]

If you ask me, I think maybe Joe went and saw The Road Warrior, then wrote the Freeway Warrior series. Mhm, yup.

HW

[outspaced]

Well, he wasn't the only one. When he was writing the books, the series was to originally have been called "Highway Warrior", but Games Workshop were developing a car combat game by that name at the same time and apparently forced him to change the series title (cf. LWC Newsletter #10).

[HuntingWolf]

I see. Stupid Games Workshop destroying OUR great God Joe's ideas....

HW

[gothmog]

If i remember correctly there was a Fighting Fantasy book called freeway fighter, which came out about the same time as FW I think.

[outspaced]

Yeah, Freeway Fighter was originally FF13, but that was published around 1985-ish, about three years prior to FW1: Highway Holocaust.

[HuntingWolf]

Kate Norton is hot. Atleast in my imagination she's hot....