Dead End - Interactive Technology RRP œ9.95 

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                  Reviewed by Len Bovingdon

I  must  admit that when Sue first asked me to do a review  of  a 
game  I thought  that she  must have  taken  leave of her senses.
Since  I work with  her  husband  Alan, she  has for the last few 
years been bombarded with cries for help from my son and I so she
must  know that  we are  both incapable  of working  out the most 
simple of problems that you come across in adventure games.

It  was her  helpful, patient  answers to  all our daft questions 
that decided us to take out the subscription to SynTax.

I explained that while I would be only too happy to do the review 
it  would have to be a review of the game as seen in the eyes  of 
an absolute novice (and his son).

I settled back confident that I would hear no more.

Since  I am now  writing this  you will guess what happened next;
yes, the game arrived in the post last week, so here goes.

First impressions  were good, nice instruction book  with  glossy 
cover complete with picture of Philip Marlowe and a chatty little 
intro  to  tell  you  that the game is based  on  the  1944  film 
"Farewell  My Lovely" and that all the graphics were  taken  from 
the film.

Hmm, pity I've never seen the film!

First  moan, perhaps it's just  me but I hate  any  program  that 
doesn't autoboot, surely not a difficult thing to achieve.
 
The loading screen again features a photograph of Phil, this time 
in a typical 1940s style pose lighting a  cigarette, very  grainy 

and  of course in black  and white, but  in perfect character for 
the era.

The  game starts  with you, as  the famous  detective, sitting in 
your office while a storm rages outside.  Another black and white
pic shows  the office  and there are  good  descriptions  of  the
office and the storm.

The EXAMINE ALL command is helpful as it examines all the objects 
in your current location without the tedium of doing them one  by 
one. Top marks for this feature.

As always it is vital to examine everything including the back of 
objects, failure to  do  this results  in  getting  nowhere  very 
quickly.

We  had some problems with the game's control system. What seemed 
to us a simple commands like TAKE COAT then PUT COAT ON  resulted 
in replies such as YOU CAN'T DO THAT but with some effort we left 

the  office only to find that we were now in a car with no  clear 
explanation as to how this happened.

Now the problems really started, you have to know where it is you 
want to go. Orders like NORTH just do not work.

We have been to police stations that seem about as friendly as  a 
British  Rail information desk, met butlers who keep slamming the 
door  in our face, from then on things went downhill fast and  we 
decided  that this was beyond us and we ought to give the  review 
copy back to Sue to do a proper test of it. Over to you, Sue!

In conclusion I must say that this was not the sort of game  that 
we  like. To me it  gave the  impression of  a good Public Domain 
program. I know that it's cheap but I'd have been disappointed if
I had just  spent  nearly ten quid on it. The  graphics, while in 
character  with  the period  the game is set  in, are  poor,  the 
control  system is about as friendly as the  Ravenous  Bugblatter
Beast and, to me,  the book did  not provide any clear indication
as to what I was trying to do.

I  like the private eye theme of the game but think that  it  has 
been done much better in Borrowed Time and of course Deja Vu.

Like I said over to you, Sue, to tell us what it is all about.

@~Whereupon, I passed the game across to Clive Swain to give a
@~completely independent assessment of it, without his having 
@~seen Len's review - please see the next file in this section.