Fans of The Jung Ones should love this. Or will they? Who
cares? As ID himself (but is he a "he"?) would say - and
frequently does, if you're as good at this game as me! This is one
for those people who like to engage in long surreal
correspondence with the gas board as to why they plumbed your
cooker into the bathroom. Hours of mirthless endeavour will come
to no fruitful end - and you'll still end up making omelettes in
your shower cap.
In its own immortal words the game plan is to piece together
ID's shattered memory to discover "who I am, who I was, who will l
be". The poor thing is an intelligence left on earth before time
began and needs your help to remember his and our history. To
do this you can use a line of text to ask pertinent questions.
Warning: ID's idea of pertinent won't be yours.
The screen will go different colours according to ID's response
- black for depressed, red for angry - and the amount of trust
you win is shown as a percentage. Abuse or nonsensical
questions lose trust. ID will want to know those closest to you (or
the weirdest or fiercest) and will "think" about your answers and
bring them up at the most unexpected times. It's sophisticated 20
questions, though "give us a clue" might be your plea.
The blurb hints that ID's persona is more sinister than it first
seems - and some pains (in the neck, most of them) are taken to
endow him with human qualities. He gets scared, crazy, confused
- even dribbly and scrungy. And he often gets annoyed, nay
incensed, and demands that you speak to him. Aeons of amnesia
have done nothing for his manners. ID even dreams and babbles
with arcane clues secreted therein. But forget the pseudo-psychology - it's nearer Fraud than Freud. It provides a veneer
of sophistication and a lot of red herrings. ID is a straightforward
lateral thinking game. And like so many it ultimately fails because
it takes itself too seriously. It
lacks wit, humour and
fundamentally, charm. Charm?
Yup. Spock is logical and
lovable. ID is just a smartass!