In this “role-playing” type game, the player adopts the role of Agent Five, a minion in the time police. It’s the future. Aliens are visiting for the first time. Time travel technology is proscribed and tightly controlled by the government. Waking from a disturbing dream that involves the alien’s ship exploding after it lands, Agent Five has to make his way to the office, figure out how things work, and then deal with a time crime that alters the present by changing the past.
 
There are three major areas that require exploration and “fixing.” Aside from the time travel wrinkle, this game is much like other first person puzzlers. In short, you have to find the right gear, pull the right levers, and do it all in the right order.
Graphics
The graphics in the game are very nice. The high resolution art is well done. There are frequent video clips and animated sequences of flying dinosaurs, co-workers complaining about Agent 5’s on-time record, and Agent 5’s AI. All of the above ran smoothly and without a hitch on my Performa 6400 / 200, with RAM Doubler disabled, as the instructions indicate.
 
Talent
The human talent involved with this production—the various people Agent 5 sees during the course of his mission—is also of high quality. The actors know their business, and seem to have actually memorized their lines for the video takes. This is in contrast to the all-too common “reading the teleprompter” eyeball effect.
Particularly well-done is Agent 5’s AI, a modified video image talking head. Her diction is crisp and effective, and she gets the message across reasonably quickly, an important consideration since she speaks to Agent 5 often. If you play this game, look carefully for a good bit of acting when Agent 5 is able to compare his AI with the AI in the changed history he works to eliminate. The two AI’s are very close, but a difference can be seen...and the difference is appropriate, given the nature of the change that has taken place.
 
Science Fiction
As an author of science fiction, I always look critically at the SF elements of computer games. This game scores a “B.” For example, a recent time-travel TV show made a significant time travel boner that the Pegasus Project adroitly avoids. The introductory mini-level for this game (you know, the little bit of action most game designers include to familiarize you with the game’s mechanics and controls) involves returning to a time far in the past to retrieve a constantly updated copy of world history.
 
The weak point involves what comes next. After getting the record from history, which by being in the past is protected from time changes that probably occur during human history, Agent 5 has to return to the present and use a bunch of equipment to compare the unaltered record with the altered record, to get a handle on when time was changed.
This illogical assumption—that an alteration in time would leave the time travel facility intact—is a minor problem and won’t get in the way of your enjoyment.
In a more general sense, many other SF tropes are present for your enjoyment: Aliens, First Contact, and the expected “fix history” plotline.
Interface
While this is a first-person game, it has a limited point of view. In other words, you can’t look up down and all around as in Marathon. This is probably the penalty you pay for the finely detailed graphics: a fully 3-D rendered environment would require too much computing power for contemporary machines.
 
Despite the limitation imposed on viewing and movement, the game moves slowly. You must pause whenever a sound is being played, and you cannot move when an animation is taking place, even if it is only a tiny air car in the background. It helps, by the way, to move forward with consistent pressure on the arrow key rather than “stepping” one key press at a time.
This sort of clunkiness is behind the times. In addition, no effort was taken to smooth the process of moving from one place to another. Even when there could be only one logical destination from a certain point, the game requires you to progress step by step. Laborious and irritating, but unavoidable.
Plot and Clews
The plot is promising. I can’t comment further than that because I didn’t play the game long enough to find out. There is a hint system available via the AI, and the game comes in two difficulty levels: adventure and walk-through. In addition, it is possible to switch difficulties in mid-game. This doesn’t seem like the kind of game in which you can become stuck for long.
I appears, however, that there is a correct order in which to complete the various areas. Saving often will help avoid useless backtracking. While the linear story is likely necessary due to the constraints of designing the software, it’s too bad more effort wasn’t made to make the actual order more closely adhere to the apparent order—in other words, it doesn’t pay to work the problem chronologically.
In Conclusion...
I give this game an average score. The graphics are outstanding, and the software ran flawlessly. It is a little clunky in certain ways, however, and game play is languid at best.
