Cortizone - High Voltage/Zenobi RRP œ3.99
                   (Text/graphics)

"Welcome to The Zone? Have you heard of it? No? Then let me
enlighten you. The Zone was once a private hospital, but when it
became disused, it was turned from a place of healing into a place
of incarceration. Yes, it is possibly the most secure prison
about.  The building is large - well, we have a lot of "guests"
here - taking up four floors. It's divided into two sections. One
half of it is patrolled and operated by robot guards. Beware of
them, they're extremely dangerous and will take you apart, piece
by piece, if you get too close to them ... you've been warned. The
rest of the building contains our inmates. We give them a fairly
unrestricted existence, if you can call it that, in their own
section. They can do just what they like there, make their own
rules, or live in chaos, whichever they like.

"Not all our prisoners are human. One in particular might interest
you. It's a Deep Research Ship which was accused of droid
slaughter, a heinous crime in our book; even robots have a right
to live. Of course, the fact that the droid unit that was
destroyed was carrying a large amount of cash has absolutely
nothing to do with the case. Murder is murder, and that's that.
There was only one thing to do with this ship so we decapitated it
and it lives out its remaining time in The Zone where it takes up
a full two floors of the building.

"Our human visitors can be quite fascinating too. Have you heard
of Doctor Arthur Stevenson? It was in all the papers. He's quite
insane, of course, and when he was in practise, refused to
administer the correct treatment to racial minority patients. His
attitude couldn't be tolerated so he was struck off the medical
register. It quite unhinged him and he decided to regain his
practise by whatever means available, so he constructed a bomb,
the Adrenal Bomb, which would, when detonated, release
the hormone cortisone in the form of a gas. This would be lethal
to all human life, resulting in death by various means (none of
them at all pleasant) within days, if not hours, as it was spread
around the globe. He tried to hold the world to ransom but failed
and he will remain here until the end of his life.

"The bomb? I'm not sure what happened to that, though I did hear a
rumour that it's been primed and could be detonated at any time as
Dr Stevenson is the only one who knows its location. I'm sure
that's not true, though ... "

What do you think? Well, you're quite right; the bomb is ready to
go off at any time - whatever time its creator, the
afore-mentioned lunatic doctor, has decreed. No-one knows when or
where this will happen, except for the doctor, and he's in The
Zone. You've guessed it ... you're going to have to go in, find
him and get the necessary information to prevent the end of the
human race.

Getting into The Zone, moving round inside it and, finally,
leaving again certainly isn't going to be easy. On the second of
the two disks that Cortizone comes on is an extremely
well-designed file (written with STOS) giving details of The Zone
and its inhabitants. This is displayed in the form of a printout,
complete with sampled sounds (courtesy of STOS Maestro) and
digitized pictures. This sets the scene well for the game which
lies ahead of you.

You start on a rubbish tip near the building which is patrolled by
two guards. Clearly these will have to be "neutralised" if you are
to be able to enter the main part of the game which takes place
inside. Several of the locations have graphics, which are also
digitized, and presumably explains the need for two disks. The
disk-swapping only takes place when you enter one particular
section of the building which is a relief but is still rather a
drag when you die whilst using disk 2 because you have to replace
disk 1 for the game to reload and then swap disks after you've
restored your saved/ramsaved position.

The atmosphere in the game is good, the digitized pictures adding
to the sombre and oppressive atmosphere inside the prison.
However, there are touches of humour too to alleviate it at
appropriate moments. I liked the character set used and the
colours too, which can be changed if you like.  Most of the
puzzles are fair but there are a few stinkers in it that I felt
were a bit on the sneaky side.  Generally the authors have
anticipated most things that you'd think of trying and catered for
them. There are a few notable exceptions. There are several
buttons in the game which must be pressed rather than pushed. It
may seem picky of me to moan about this (okay, so I'm picky!) but
I spent ages trying to push one button and was pretty fed up when,
several days later, I realised why nothing had happened.

There are a few minor bugs and illogical responses but nothing too
catastrophic. All in all, this is an excellent game and well worth
buying. Hopefully the planned follow-up will keep up the same high
standard.
                                                Sue