Cheet Sheets 1995 June/cheet41.zip/1DVJOUR2.TXT

Text File | 1995-09-26 | 6KB | 123 lines

~The Adventurers Journal

By Martin Keen

As promised this month's journal contains a preview of the graphic
adventures set to be released sometime this year. Roughly in
chronological order, these are the games that you may (or may not)
be playing in the months ahead.


~THE ORION CONSPIRACY · Domark · Due Out: Any Day Now

Promoted as an "adult" adventure containing "adult" themes. A bit of
swearing has crept into the dialogue, and a dark and sinister plot
is set to unfold. Whether all this is just a way of trying to cause a
bit of controvesy, or is actually trying to cater for a different
market remains to be seen. But the SVGA graphics look nice.


~SIMON THE SORCERER 2 · Adventure Soft · Due Out: Now

This all-British sequel promises to follow in Discworld's footsteps.
The original game suffered from poor puzzles and a lack of pace. Most
of the time was spent getting stuck because the player did not spot
a vital object that was blended into the scenery and only about 3
pixels wide anyway! Still, the last section of the first game was
good and hopefully this will pick-up from where it left off. Chris
Barrie again plays Simon. The game will contain 80 locations and
about 100 characters (which could require the other voice-over
artists to have a pretty wide range of voices!)


~STAR TREK: TNG "FINAL UNITY" · Spectrum Holobyte · Due Out: Very Soon

All eight main crew members from the series appear in the form of
voice-overs. The game has the look and feel of an episode from the
series, even the intro sequences are nearly identical. The graphics
used for the cut scenes are fantastic but the characters in game
are simply digitised faces which have later been animated. But if all
goes well this one could be a cracker.


~SPACE QUEST 6 · Sierra · Due Out: June

Sierra take the series one step further with yet another Space Quest
game. Initial reports have been quite a shock because they hint at
this Space Quest game actually being quite good. The graphics are a
cartoony SVGA affair with a similar feel to Kings Quest 7. The plot
features take offs of Star Wars, Aliens, and Street Fighter 2. The
game is bound to do well in the USA but the American humour may not
be quite as successful over here.


~TOTAL DISTORTION · Mindscape · Due Out: July

This one just about makes it into the graphic adventure preview, but
it's pretty hard to slot it into any category. Its a game about
rock music, the idea being to set out in search of the perfect music
video. Its all very weird indeed and will either be brilliant or a
complete pile of tripe (thats if its possible for a computer game to
resemble a collection of fish).


~KINGDOM O' MAGIC · Sales Curve Interactive · Due Out: August

Wacky. Mad. Silly. None of these words are sufficient to describe
the plot of KOM. Its all set in a not-at-all-serious fantasy world
filled with magic, dragons, and err.. Rincewind (oh no - wrong
fantasy world!). In an attempt to make the game non-linear three
seperate quests are available which can be completed in any order.
And as an added bonus the music has been bought up from those
weird Guinness ads. SCI have never produced a graphic adventure before
and the games they have produced haven't exactly been brilliant
(The Lawnmower Man 1 and 2 for example) so don't expect this to
be up to much - but then you never know.


~I HAVE NO MOUTH & I MUST SCREAM · Cyberdreams · Due Out: Summer

This adventure is based on an extremely popular book of the same name.
Apparently this short story is one of the ten most reprinted stories
in the English language. Question is, have YOU ever heard of it? Its
another one of those "adult" interactive entertainment affairs but
just for once this game may live up to its inevitable 18 rating. This
will be no twee Kings Quest-type story.

~ALIENS - THE COMIC BOOK ADVENTURE · Cryo · Due Out: Summer

Now here's a game that looks promising.  Its even promising they'll
be no need for the usual tactics of picking up every object come
across then trying to use it on every other object whenever a puzzle
element comes up. In this game if you don't need an object immediately
you can't pick it up. Whether this will really be effective in
practice is another thing entirely, but with a solid storyline and
gameplay oozing with atmosphere this might be one to look out for.


~THE DIG · LucasArts · Due Out: Ever? The official date is December

Origin's Strike Commander set a new record when it was released two
years later than promised. LucasArts look set to beat it. The game
thats redefined "delayed" seems determined to see off all comers.
It was originally scheduled for release a couple of months after
Sam & Max - which was back in 1993! Since then there has been talk
of a new game engine, namely StoryDriod, which was subsequently
dropped so the team started all over again. If you've not already
heard The Dig is based on a short story by Steven Spielberg who
is a great fan of LucasArts so when he was told the tale was too
expensive to make he sold his idea to them. Then he started wanting
changes made and the original code ended up in such a state they had
to start over. There are still very few details of the actual game's
storyline, all is known is it will use a modified SCUMM engine. Once
the Full Throttle fever dies down attention is bound to turn to
LucasArts next adventure so maybe more details will be made available
soon. Or maybe they'll just give up....



~Contact me on Cheet Sheets BBS by mailing a message to Martin Keen


Copyright (c) 1995 Eurowave Leisure Ltd.