Another interesting budget
adventure from
Mastertronic, the first
challenge being to figure out
what the *)#! the title
means, though the inlay says it's the
final trial for those who would be one
with the immortals. Fair enough. This
is one of those attempts to produce an
icon-driven game that's pretty close to
your conventional text adventure,
presumably on the grounds that
anything you can do, icons do better.
I'm not convinced this is a good
thing, as what's the point of taking up
memory producing pretty little pictures
representing GET or DROP when you
could just type the thing in at the
keyboard?
I'm not knocking the game, though,
as I liked it, though that's maybe got a
lot to do with its novelty value as well.
The game's compatible with the
Kempston joystick, or you can use the
cursor keys to move around the
screen. At the top and sides are 23
icons, and you move the cursor round
to choose the one you want. As well as
the obvious EXAMINE, GO NORTH,
QUIT and so on, there are some like
ANALYSE which work in conjunction
with the text that appears below the
picture in the centre of the screen.
Choose ANALYSE and the cursor
highlights the first word of the text
description. It can then be moved
about so that you can analyse
whatever's there. In one place, for
example, there's "a myriad of tiny
creatures scurrying about." Select
ANALYSE and move the cursor to
highlight 'creatures' and you're told:
"Small animals capable of great
speed." Other commands include
THROW, SWIM, JUMP, USE, PUSH,
PULL and so forth.
In the adventure itself you're initially
presented with three portals marked
WISDOM, KNOWLEDGE and
UNDERSTANDING, and through each
is a quest that has to be fulfilled before
you'll be allowed back through the
portal - unless you quit, of course.
Some people might hate the restriction
on the problem solving that an icon-controlled game offers, but to make up
for that the problems do seem to be
pretty devious! Definitely worth
checking out at this price.
| Ratings given by other magazines |
| |
8/10
|
|
8/10
| |
|
| Info supplied by the SPOT*ON database |
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