Operation Stealth - Delphine RRP œ24.99
      (Mouse-driven graphic adventure, no text input)

Borrowing heavily from the James Bond movies, Operation Stealth
casts you in the role of John Glames, a CIA agent, sent to
Santa Paragua from Washington in an effort to find and recover a
missing Stealth Fighter plane.

Washington aren't sure who has stolen the plane. There are two
main suspects, one of whom, naturally enough, is the Russians, but
a message received from another agent in Santa Paragua makes it
look as though the more likely culprit is General Manigua, the
leader of Santa Paragua, either working alone or in the pay of some
unknown foreign power.

So, armed only with your new briefcase with its secret compartment
containing various pieces of electronic wizardry that would be the
envy of any secret agent, you arrive at Santa Paragua airport,
your first thought being to make contact with agent DSC 2 and find
out what he has discovered. Unfortunately, you have to wait for
him to contact you and you know how devious these agents are at
arranging meetings....

An assignation turns into an assassination as, within seconds of
your contact arriving, he is bumped off by a bullet fired from a
speeding car. With his dying breath, he gives you some information
which will aid you in your search for the missing plane and
though, just for a second, you even hold vital documents relating
to it, just as quickly the tables are turned on you and you find
yourself captured and trapped in what may turn out to be your
tomb!

Luckily, secret agents are notorious for their ability to escape
from difficult situations and a chance meeting with a beautiful
woman, though potentially perilous for both of you, will turn out
to have its advantages as you discover some unexpected allies. The
situation is growing more complex as you learn that General
Manigua may not be who he seems, but are you any closer to finding
this elusive plane?

Future Wars, the first game from Delphine, received good reviews
from the glossy magazines and several awards.  However, the
general opinion was that, beautiful as it was to look at, it was
very frustrating to play due to the finicky controls. The main
character had to be positioned in exactly the right place for
certain actions to be carried out and this often involved a lot of
futile mouse-clicking while you searched for just the right pixel!
Thankfully, Operation Stealth has improved on this system and is
far easier to control.

Another criticism levelled at Future Wars which can also be
applied to Stealth is the very short list of possible commands.
These are EXAMINE, TAKE, INVENTORY, USE, SPEAK and OPERATE.
OPERATE is used when none of the other verbs applied, which means
that it has some very strange uses indeed, many of which aren't
logical!

The final major criticism is the poor translation from the
original French into English. Why, oh why, can't these software
houses get someone reliable to just read through the text? This
time we have such gems as "Hand ups!", a bench (instead of bunch)
of notes, odd missing letters, and some sentences which just don't
make any sense at all eg "But everything is okay and Morpheus has
gotten his smile back again...ha, ha, ha!" and, the best one, when
speaking to a receptionist in the hotel and being told the hotel
is full, getting as part of the reply "....p120, "full!" p80..."
No, I haven't got any idea what it meant either but I'm sure it
shouldn't be there. I didn't know the USA had a Prime Minister
either!

The copy protection is much easier to work this time (I had awful
problems with the Future Wars protection) and generally the game
is more playable. But despite the excellent graphics, and fair
amount of humour in the game, both in the text and the graphics, I
still don't rate Delphine's games as highly as many of the other
graphic adventures about.

                                            Sue