News

First of all, thanks to Neil Shipman for finding out the truth
behind the rumours flying about regarding Infocom and Virgin
Mastertronic. The MD of Virgin Mastertronic (no less!) told him
over the phone that they have bought the licensing rights to
Leather Goddesses, Zork 1, HHGTTG, Wishbringer and Planetfall and
these will be released as budget titles costing œ7.99 by the end of
the year and more may follow if they sell well.  The packaging
will be more basic than the original Infocom style but it's still
a good chance to fill in any gaps in your collection.

Quite a few long-awaited games came out too late to be reviewed in
this issue. One is Operation Stealth, the follow-up to Future
Wars. In it, you play CIA agent John Glames, who has to find and
recover a stolen Stealth Fighter plane. Using the same
mouse-control as Future Wars and the same options menu of GET,
DROP, EXAMINE etc, it'll be interesting to see how it compares
with its predecessor which was a bit too picky and pixel-perfect
for my liking!
Larry 3 is out, so is Hero's Quest but still no sign of Conquest
of Camelot and the other promised Sierra ST conversions - yet.
Meanwhile, Sierra are tempting us with other goodies to appear in
the near(ish) future - King's Quest V, Space Quest IV (I still
haven't done I, II and III!), and Hero's Quest II.

Lucasfilm are keeping busy too. Loom is out (watch out for a
review in the next issue) and the next release will be The Secret
of Monkey Island. This is a swash-buckling tale, set in the
Caribbean where you, a young lad, aim to become a successful (ie
wealthy!) pirate. However, you will be drawn into a web of mystery
as you try to discover just what IS the secret of Monkey Island...
As for us, we'll have to wait till the end of the year to find
out.

While we await the ST version of Ultima VI, Origin is planning a
new series to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Ultima series,
entitled Worlds of Ultima. The first game will be called The
Savage Empire and will take place in a different setting complete
with prehistoric monsters, alien beings and mad scientists.

For budding detectives amongst us, there are two games with a
murder theme due out soon. Murder in Space from Infogrames takes
place on the space station Pegasus whereas US Gold's Murder is
more down-to-earth - apart from the fact that there are evidently
31.5 million possible cases! I have enough problems with one!!
You can pick your own year for the murder from 1914-1942, it can
be set in one of 8 houses with up to 36 objects, 28 characters and
64 rooms in each. There are also four skill levels .... and you
have two hours to solve the case! That long, eh?....

                                            Sue