Border Warfare - Omma Soft/Zenobi RRP œ3.99
               (Text adventure)

Border Warfare is set on an Earth-like planet in the distant
future. You are Olias, the founder of the Rubycon Resistance
Force, attempting to save your people from the war-loving
Mordenians who have invaded your land from their home in the
south. Officially they have come as a peace-keeping force and the
people of Rubycon, trusting souls, are quite happy about them
being here. You, however, know the truth and as far as you can
see, there's only one way to sort out the invaders and that's to
demoralise the Mordenians by bumping off their leader.
Unfortunately the Mordenian capital, the city of Ronover, is far
away, across the ocean ..... still, it's worth a go!

You are only one person against an invading army but luckily
there are some Mordenians who will be willing to help you. The
problem is working out which ones are on your side and which
aren't and, as always, you'll have to do a favour for any
sympathisers before they'll help.

The game starts in the hut used by the Resistance Force. Not too
long ago you had grand headquarters but now this meagre hut is
all you have. Though the game is text-only, there is a nice spot
graphic here when you have a closer look at the newspaper which is
on the table. Nearby is another hut with an enigmatic bundle
tucked into a dark corner and if you wander down a nearby hill,
there are several locations to visit including a ruined house and
a farm where a seemingly crazy farmer will turn out to be more
useful than he looks. A wizard sitting in a trance in a cave will
also help you on your way if you can answer his question
correctly. A little way further on, a group of soldiers may cause
you problems if you aren't careful, but once past them you're on
your way - through a town and some woodland to a lethal marsh and
beyond.

The game has been written using STAC and is presented very nicely.
The colour used for the screen display is a mite garish but the
authors, Neil Clark and Gerry Tonner, have thoughtfully provided
alternatives so you can pick the one that suits your eyesight.
Ramsave, ramload, oops, split/mode (to change the text size) and
again are included among the available commands and most of the
more frequently used ones have abbreviations, such as AG for
again, SC for score, DR and G for drop and get.

On the minus side, I'm not keen on the use of enter/exit instead
of in/out and there are some sloppy mistakes in the text. The
authors don't seem to have got the hang of punctuation when using
quotes - should the punctuation be inside or outside the quotes?
Oh well, let's put some in both places, just in case - and they
also have a mental block about not using a capital "I" for the
singular personal pronoun. Some things struck me as being
illogical such as a candle which is stuck so firmly to a table by
its melted wax that there is no way to move it!

However the location descriptions and responses are of a
comfortable length; long enough to be atmospheric but not so long
as to be tedious. Some of them are quite humorous too, without
being silly. Though I've been to a lot of places in Border
Warfare and seem to have solved a lot of problems, my score is
still on the low side so I know I still have a long way to go. The
game isn't linear as such but it does seem to be made up of
several sections which are linked by one-way routes so if you
can't solve one problem in a section, you know you're going to
grind to a halt in a little while .... which is what has happened
to me! A well-written game, though, and one I'm looking forward to
going back to.

                                            Sue