What would you do if the biggest and baddest boss from your favorite video game was real and it went after you and your friends? In
Echo's Revenge: The Ultimate Game, two brothers Reggie and Jeremy encounters the same dilemma as they run away from their abusive home.
The Ultimate Game is the first book of the
Echo's Revenge series written by Hart Getzen that follows two brothers Reggie (Age 14) and Jeremy (Age 11) on a journey they will never forget. Both brothers are hardcore fans of the fictional game, Echo's Revenge; Reggie is considered one of the "Master Gamers" of Echo's Revenge. Life isn't just a video game, every one tells Reggie and Jeremy, but they both will find out that it just might be. Both brothers live with an abusive step-dad and an absent minded mother who is ignorant on what goes on in her household, Reggie and Jeremy finally have gotten tired of their step-dad's beatings and decides to run away to a happier life with their biological father. During their journey the brothers find out that something is kidnapping Echo's Revenge players and that they are next.
When it comes to book, I am extremely picky; the majority of my book are mainly Star Wars ones with a few that I haven't finished because they failed to hold my interest, but
The Ultimate Game was able to hold my interest and led me wanting to finish the book. Since this book is a young adult book, there will be a younger demographic, which are preteens to teens, so the dialogue is going to be more appealing to younger kids which is something that is not really much for me. The dialogue for
The Ultimate Game reminds me of shows and movies that are aimed for kids and families in the sense that I cannot imagine people actually talking that like, especially in a given situation. At other times though, the dialogue and actions of Reggie and Jeremy reminds me of what older teens would be saying and doing, instead of a 14 and 11 year old.
I can get over the dialogue though, the book is aimed at a younger audience than me and that is how other forms of media are it it, so it is what it is. One thing that bothered me though, what the lack of detail for certain parts. For example, we don't know what kind of game Echo's Revenge is. All we know is that it is an online game where you have an arsenal of RPGs and EMPs to take down ECHO, who is the big bad boss in Echo's Revenge. Even though it is not entirely necessary to know what the world in Echo's Revenge is like, it still would be nice. One important lack of detail though, was what Echo looked like. The best description we got of him is that he is a kidnapping evil boss that has a face of an alien reptile with green menacing eyes and razor sharp teeth that grind mechanically. He also is a machine that wears some sort of armor that is covered in scales that allows him to go invisible with the ability to shape shift into non-complex items. He also has claws and retractable arm with hydraulic fluid that spews out of it. I can kind of imagine some sort of machine at first, but once reptile was thrown in, I had a rough time imagining what ECHO looked like; everything else was pretty well detailed though, the settings and characters were easy enough to visualize.
The book is a straight forward book with an easy to read style that leaves no questions unanswered, except those that were purposely left unanswered. I'm not going to spoil anything, but this is one thing I really liked about the book - it left me wanting more. Getzen alludes nicely to what happened to the fate of one of the characters along with what we will be expecting in the sequel to
The Ultimate Game, which is
Echo's Revenge: The Other Side.
To me, I see two different topics in
The Ultimate Game: video games and running away from your problems, and in all honesty, I preferred the latter than the former. A few of the characters that Reggie and Jeremy meet along their travels were great, each character doesn't just help the brothers get to their dad's house, they also help them by giving them advice on life. Most of the characters were great support charactesr to Reggie and Jeremy, they helped them by giving them advice that deals with things such as loyalty their step-dad's abusiveness, having no regrets in life and so on. The advice that Reggie receives reoccurs throughout the book as he thinks back on what has happened so far in his travels.
Overall
Echo's Revenge: The Ultimate Game was a pretty solid book that takes you on a journey of two brothers running from their troubled home where they find out that the main boss from their favorite video game is made real and is coming after them and their friends. There is a lack of detail in the book, but it makes it up with a great set of supporting characters and the fact that it leaves you wanting more with the sequel. If you want a book that is quick to read with a hint of mystery, then you might want to check out
Echo's Revenge: The Ultimate Game today.
Echo's Revenge: The Ultimate Game - 8/10
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