Future Wars - Delphine RRP œ24.95

Boxing Day 1989

There I was filling my face whilst half-watching something on the
box from my favoured prone position when `her-inside-of-the-
doors' suggested that I might like to stir myself and help her
out by reviewing an adventure.  There's no way I'm an adventurer.
I get more than enough enough brain damage and high blood
pressure at work without volunteering for more.  But, she said,
this one's different, a high technology animated adventure from
France no less. I refused point blank. No way!

Later that day

I found Future Wars quite a revelation. Most of my previous
experience had been with the original Adventure and games of that
ilk. I honestly hadn't realised just how far things have
progressed. I found that the game provoked extreme responses
from me about almost every feature.
First, I am amazed by the professionalism of it all. The program
looks to be pretty well bug free and it runs like a dream - it
really does begin to approach the cinematic experience intended
by its creator Paul Cuisset. The blurb claims that it has taken 3
years to come to fruition and I don't doubt it. Paul can give up
his day job now!

But I do hate the copy protection. What a pain! You get these 12
bits of a picture on the screen along with a grid reference. You
have to find the big picture in the manual and overlay a plastic
sheet etched with a 5 by 4 grid and match the part-picture inside
the grid reference with one of those on screen. Not quite as
easy as it sounds because several bits of the screen look like
this bit of the picture. And you have to do this twice! If you 
get it wrong either time (it happens) the program bombs out but
not until the main game starts to load. Why bother? Some clever
bugger will soon find a way to crack it and meanwhile you're
upsetting the punters who paid good money for the original. I
reckon Infocom had the right idea when they made the packaging

so complex that everyone wanted the original just in case the
piece of fluff or the microscopic space fleet in a plastic bag
or the Don't Panic badge were absolutely essential for
completion of the game!

The animated graphics are stunning. A mediaeval space adventure
(honest!) gives lots of scope for the accomplished computer
artist which Eric Chahi evidently is. From the opening shot of a
spacecraft landing in the style of `Close Encounters ...', our
hero cleaning the windows of a glass fronted office block, then,
later, changing clothes down by the lapping waters of the lake
(*) or taking a trip on the train. All faultless.

    (*) Dear editor. Am I allowed to do that? I mean give
    things away like changing clothes and stuff? Well never
    mind.  Anyone who doesn't like it will just have to
    forget they ever read it. There's no reason why that
    should stick in their memory (changing clothes down by
    the lake I mean).

What about the game play though?  You move the hero by clicking
on the picture at a point you wish him to approach. Although it
can be frustrating when you're in a hurry, it works very well.
You play by selecting a word like OPERATE or USE from the
Activation Menu then, if necessary, selecting an item such as
PENDANT or LANCE from the Inventory, on a part of the picture
such as HERO or DOOR selected with the mouse pointer.  This
works well enough as long as you don't confuse your right mouse
button with your left (who would?) but there are some real
oddities such as OPERATE TREE when you want to shake it!

Some of the logic seems a bit iffy but perhaps that's because
there are so few options to choose from (it could be because
something was lost in the translation but I didn't find much
wrong with the English). I was pretty impressed when I shook
(you know, operated) this 6 foot diameter tree and a coin fell
out of a garment which was sitting on a branch! Must remember
that technique when I see the kids collecting conkers from the
local skinny (only 2 foot diameter) horse chestnut.

Some of the puzzles are real hard.  How anyone can resolve them
without help is beyond me. Look. Your boss tells you off because
you tipped your bucket over on the cradle so what do you do?
Well, you climb into the building, fill up your bucket and then
balance it above the door, so he gets wet when he comes through
(Oops! Hope I didn't give anything away again!). Obvious? Would
anybody guess that in a million years? (Sue seems to have but she
apparently has a special adventurer's brain extension). There's
lots of puzzles like that and I don't think I'd have got very far
at all without help.

Other moans? Well, the game is a bit picky sometimes about where
you position the hero to perform an action and it can take ages
to find the right spot. Other parts are so closely timed that you
have to perform a complex set of actions perfectly in order to
achieve your objectives. Luckily you can save your position to
disk so you can practise until you reach perfection. You
sometimes need to examine or take objects which are so small that
they are actually not shown on the screen. That's real bad for
the nerves!  There are large segments of the game which are under
program control and you just have to sit back and read a load of
text and watch a lot of new pictures come and go. It can get a
bit tedious after you've read it all once.

Other good bits? Well, there's some music which for some reason
doesn't drive me potty. It seems to fade in and out at just the
right times to actually add to the mood of the thing.  Oh. The
manual is pretty good and it actually gives you a fair bit of
help on how to get out of the first location. Invaluable to the
novice (probably).

So that's Future Wars. My verdict? I think it's great, mainly
because it's technically and graphically so clever and so well
executed. I'm not sure those reasons would necessarily commend it
to an adventurer so you'd better check it out for yourself.

                                           Alan