Deja Vu II (Lost in Las Vegas) - Mindscape œ24.95 You're in big trouble, pal! Remember the time when you woke up in the bathroom of that sleazy bar with no memory and found out you'd been framed for Joey Siegel's murder? Thought you could rest easy after clearing your name? Not a chance! Seems Joey, who was working for Las Vegas mobster Tony Malone, left 112,000 dollars unaccounted for upon his demise. Now Malone wants his money and has you figured as the thief. He's sent several of his...er.....friends to 'persuade' you to come up with the dough - or else!! Deja Vu II is the sequel to Deja Vu: A Nightmare Comes True, the first entry in Icom Simulations award-winning series of graphic adventures (which includes Uninvited and Shadowgate). Once again you play second-rate detective Ace Harding, and once again you start off in a bathroom. This time you've been kidnapped by Malone's thugs, brought to his hotel/casino in Vegas, grilled, beat up, tossed in a bath and given a deadline of just 7 days to hand over the missing funds. Just to keep you on your toes, one of Malone's boys follows you throughout the game, keeping an eye on your actions and popping up every now and then with grim warnings to remind you how little time is left. The interface will be familiar from all the previous Icom adventures. On screen you have separate windows for graphics, text, exits, commands, 'self' and inventory. The command window offers eight options - Examine, Operate, open, Close, Go, Hit, Speak and Consume - while the Exits window shows all currently available (and some impossible!) ways of leaving your present location. Most items shown in the graphics window are really 'there' and can be manipulated with the mouse by pointing, clicking, dragging and so on. Containers of various kinds can be selected and 'opened', bringing up a new window that shows their contents. (Anyone remember 'opening' the corpse of Joey Siegel in the original Deja Vu?!). To get dressed in the opening scene, for example, you can select the pair of pants, drag them to your inventory window and then Operate them on yourself. Select and Open the pants to find your wallet and some important papers. Operate the cold tap on itself to run some water in the sink, and Hit the mirror for the thrilling sound of shattering glass. There are also plenty of shortcuts. Double-clicking on most objects will give you a description of them. One double-click on an unlocked door (or the corresponding square in the exit window) opens it, and a second click takes you through it. Make sure that you take the pants, trenchcoat and cigar ring from the hotel room when you leave, because it locks behind you and you'll need the items later. Stop first to admire the artwork in the Casino lobby, which may give you an important hint on how to win the game, then head for the blackjack tables and look for an old friend (you may have to prod his memory!). Here, for the first time, you get to see the major enhancement in this second Deja Vu instalment: the authors have included some clever animation as found in Uninvited and Shadowgate. The dealer may wink at you before he lays down the cards; later on, you'll watch the trains arriving, gaze at passing scenery through the train window, or see birds flying across the desert. Speaking of trains, once you've won enough money at the gambling tables you should head directly for the station and travel back to your old haunts. In fact, a better subtitle for this game might have been 'A Tale Of Two Cities', since you spend almost as much time in Chicago as in Las Vegas. Back in Chicago, you'll return to the scene of the crime (changed in subtle ways since the first Deja Vu) and visit a number of new locations as well. This time your taxi driver is deaf, so you'll need written messages to get where you want to go to. Little by little you'll find evidence connecting the lost money with someone back in Las Vegas, where you must return for the final showdown. You won't end up any richer, but with luck you may at least escape with your life and if your printer is on when you finish the game, you'll have something to show for all your work. You'll also find the same kind of tongue-in-cheek humour as in the original Deja Vu, and even some of the same characters and locations. The animation and more extensive use of sounds are major improvements, as is the fact that you die less frequently. There are only a few really difficult puzzles, the worst coming at the end as you try to figure out how to misdirect your enemies. As before, there is an over-abundance of red herrings - many exits that can never really be used and dozens of objects that have no purpose except to clutter up your inventory. The only drawback with this game is that some commands, 'Speak' and 'Consume' for example, seemed totally unnecessary to complete the game and 'Hit' is only used in a specialised sense for blackjack. The package comes with general instructions as well as machine- specific reference cards. So, if you enjoyed the first instalment of Deja Vu then you should not be disappointed with this one - it's like Deja Vu all over again! John