Borrowed Time - Activision (Deleted - was œ24.95)
      (Text/graphic adventure, optional mouse control)

Sadly deleted, but still sometimes available cheaply or
secondhand, even the cover of Borrowed Time gives you some idea of
what to expect from the adventure, as a blood-stained fist smashes
through a glass door towards you! As the cover says... "Knock,
knock. Who's there? You don't know. Better find out. Because
someone's after you. And if you don't stop them in time, they're
going to get away with murder. Yours."

The idea behind the game couldn't be summed up better because you
can expect death to stalk your footsteps throughout the adventure.
So far, I've been shot at more than once, strung up by my wrists
with twine, attacked by Dobermans and threatened several times.
But, as they say, it's all in a day's work for a Private Eye.

You start Borrowed Time in your office. Almost immediately the
phone rings and a voice gasps "Sam, they want you dead." It doesn't


need much detective work to read the name on the door and deduce
that it's you, Sam Harlow, whose life is on the line.

The action gets going quickly. You see a shadow at the window, but
luckily a good detective investigates before shooting an innocent
window cleaner! As you leave your office, some thugs walk up an
alley towards you and draw their guns. Quick movement is essential
here to escape an early death and once you've dealt with the
gunmen you can start exploring the town and try to work out who
exactly is trying to kill you.

Not surprisingly there's quite a long list of suspects. One in
particular stands out as the prime candidate but he's a slippery
customer and getting the evidence you need to arrest him isn't an
easy job. There are also several other people with grudges against
you and others indulging in shady business, so really it could be
any of a number of characters. So like all good detectives, you
must explore, search for evidence and try to narrow the field.

One useful feature of the game is being able to talk to people. If
they are feeling helpful, they may give useful information. You
can also listen to private conversations if you don't object to a
bit of eavesdropping, and pick up some more information that way.
By showing objects that you've collected, you can sometimes carry
the conversation further but beware of showing incriminating
evidence to the character concerned ... it can be very hazardous
to your health!

Borrowed Time comes on two disks and provision is made to save
games on them under a specified file number, so make a back-up.
Quicksave and quickload are available if you're planning on trying
a dangerous move. Also included is the option to read a basic
introduction to adventuring before you start the game. This would
be extremely useful to new adventurers but is worth reading even
if you're experienced. It gives details of the capabilities of the
parser, explaining that it will understand direct objects, the use
of THEN, AND, ALL and IT and how you can link movement through
several locations by using stops (N.N.E) for quicker play.
Activision have also included a small sample adventure which gives
a few clues to the best way to approach the main game, especially
regarding the use of TALK TO and EXAMINE.

The graphics are cartoon-like but well-drawn. There is one for
each location, accessed from disk on the first visit but
thereafter immediately recalled from memory so that they don't
slow down the adventure. Some of them are animated - when the
telephone rings at the start, the receiver jumps up and down; in
the next office a water cooler bubbles gently and in a nearby
appartment, a tap drips in the kitchen.

The graphics take up the top left of the screen while on the top
right is a list of some of the verbs and nouns available which you
can input using the left mouse button rather than typing them in.
Movement is also possible with the mouse, by clicking on the
points of a compass drawn just below. Next to the compass is
another window which shows, in graphic form, any items you are
carrying. Below all this is the text window so not much text is
visible at any time. However, pressing RETURN will clear the
graphics and let you see a whole screen of text.

Each time you discover a previously-hidden object in a location, a
"ping" tells you of the fact and a graphic of the item appears on
the screen and can be picked up by clicking on it. A lot of things
are hidden so it's worth examining as much as possible.

In summary, Borrowed Time is a clever adventure which will keep
you occupied for some time. The graphics add to the atmosphere
rather than just taking up valuable space, which is so often our
complaint. In fact it's interesting to see how many features in
this old game are now appearing in the more modern ones and being
hailed as a breakthrough in adventuring .... perhaps Borrowed Time
was more ahead of its time than was realised?

Excuse me a moment .... I've just realised I'm being watched. It
looks as though I've still got quite a bit of detective work ahead
of me!
                                              Sue