Spaceship Warlock
by Scott J. Kleeper

The Story
Spaceship Warlock is set long in the future. Times aren’t so great. The Terran Empire ruled the galaxy before the evil Kroll’s warships “darkened suns and destroyed worlds.” A one thousand year war was fought, and the result is a dark and bleak universe. The Kroll Imperium actually moved the planet Terra from its orbit and hid it deep in space.
Most people feared the Kroll and paid the unfair Kroll taxes. But a band of space pirates fought to overthrow the Kroll and restore Terra to its orbit and peace to the universe. The rebels' leader was Hammer, who defied the Kroll and searched through space for Terra.
What role do you play in this? Well, the first thing you have to do is get off the planet of Stambul. Stambul is kind of like L.A. It’s nearly impossible to find a nice person, the bars are scummy, you can almost see the pollution in the air, and everybody wants to be somewhere else. Just when you’re ready to relax on your cruise on the luxurious Belshazzar Spaceliner, it gets attacked by the Warlock. You eventually team up with Hammer and the space pirates to attack ships, steal treasure, and most importantly—find Terra.

The Game
Spaceship Warlock is not a role playing game, because you’re not any specific person. It’s not an adventure game, because there is basically one specific path to follow. The authors of SS Warlock, Mike Saenz and Joe Sparks best describe the game like this,
“From our somewhat stilted perspective, Spaceship Warlock is what we call an Interactive Movie. It's structured in a linear fashion just as any story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.  As an adventurer in Spaceship Warlock, the player brings his or her own morality and intelligence to the adventure.”
SS Warlock is available only on CD-ROM. A floppy disk version would take several hundred disks. However, with CD-ROM technology, 123 megabytes of great sound, graphics, and animation are packed together to make a great game.

The Interface
Bascially, Spaceship Warlock is a point-and-click game. During a few scenes, you can type what you want to say to the aliens or robots, and even that is surprisingly easy. Spaceship Warlock knows almost every possible thing that you could say in each situation. This amazing feature is best illustrated by the scene taking place in a bar on Stambul. I typed in every drink I have ever heard of, from a glass of milk to a Bloody Mary, and the robot bartender knew almost all of them. The milk actually looked like milk, and the coffee actually came in a mug! The action scenes in SS Warlock are sometimes too easy. All that’s involved in the hand-to-hand combat mugging is clicking on the mugger’s gun, then on his face. Later scenes involving guns are slightly better. All in all, the interface in SS Warlock is among the best I’ve seen.

Sound and Graphics
The audio on SS Warlock is well written, and creatively sets the mood for the different parts of the game. I’ve never found myself humming the tune to any other game, but I just couldn’t get the “OOOHH Spaceship Warlock!” title song out of my head. The main songs are all playable through a sort of tutorial that comes on the CD. The graphics are also pretty fabulous. I thought that the graphics displayed on the package were 24-bit, but they looked almost perfect on my 8-bit High-res monitor. The animation is very smooth, and often amazing in itself.

Value
The suggested retail price for Spaceship Warlock is $95.00. However, it can be found for less via mail order. Even for $95.00, SS Warlock is a must-have for all multimedia fans. It’s a perfect combination of sound and graphics. I could really get a feel for what life was like in the planet of Stambul just by the slow music and dark graphics. Still, the average Joe may not want to pay so much for a game. I found that I got just enough play time and fun out of SS Warlock for my $95.

Hints
Due to the movie-like storyline, there isn’t much room for easter eggs and such in Spaceship Warlock, but there are a few things to try. In the bar, try to order a “liquid lobotomy” a few times. It’s a good thing that you don’t have to drive until later in the game! During action scenes, don’t get worried about getting killed. Save your game when you know that another action scene is coming up. Then, concentrate on timing—that’s the key.