Heart of China - Dynamix/Sierra RRP œ39.99
    (Point-and-click graphic adventure for PC and Amiga)

Hi there! The name's Masters, Jake Masters - but my friends call
me "Lucky". You've probably heard of me... No? You must have. I
was a real ace pilot in the war. Of course, things have changed
now and I had to settle down to a more mundane life, importing
paper parasols and silk gowns from China and bringing them back
here to Hong Kong. Business wasn't too good and the revolution
looked as though it'd finish it completely.

Still, there was a ray of hope. This high-powered investor, Eugene
Adolphus Lomax III made me an offer I couldn't refuse. He offered
me $10,000 for supplies and a further $200,000 for doing a little
job for him. He punctuated his offer by getting one of his
goons to blow up my sampan in the harbour with a grenade. If you
look down there, you can still see some of the wreckage bobbing
about in the water. Some choice, huh? And do you want to know what
I had to do for the money? Sit down and I'll tell you.

It turns out his daughter, Kate Lomax, has been working as a nurse
in a village near Chengdu. One minute she's dressing this kid's
wounds, the next - one of the hirelings of Li Deng, a real bad guy
in those parts, captures her and takes her to Li Deng's fortress.
Naturally Pop is upset and he wants his dear daughter back and in
one piece. I've got a plane, he's got money - what a partnership.

I knew I couldn't do the job on my own and so did Lomax (he
doesn't call me "Lucky", by the way). He suggested I had a chat to
a ninja, name of Zhao Chi. He took some finding, I can tell you. I
went to Ho's Bar, I knew Ho would know where he was but would he
tell me? Nah. Things got a bit hairy for a while but eventually I
got to meet Chi. We made a deal, financially, but then I told him
how we were getting to Chengdu - by plane. Turns out Chi doesn't
believe in planes, or trust them or something ... he took some
convincing but finally he agreed. We picked up a few supplies, and
some extra things I hadn't thought of and headed for the plane.

Wouldn't you know it, some young immigration official just started
work there and decides he's going to show me who's boss. Huh, no
chance, you don't mess with "Lucky" and win. Well, not often
anyway. So, we get to Chengdu, find out where Kate's being held
and work out a plan to rescue her. It looked a fairly simple job
but I should've guessed I was really going to work for my money.
Pour me another shot of whiskey and I'll tell you more....

This is the start of Dynamix's Heart of China, the second of their
games to use their point and click interface, the first being Rise
of the Dragon which I haven't seen. Control is via the keyboard,
joystick or mouse and there is no typed in text entry at all.
Having just finished King's Quest V before starting this game, it
was hard not to make comparisons as both use, basically, a similar
system and both aim to woo your eyes with their graphics before
attempting to win over your brain with their puzzles.

Visually, Heart of China is stunning. It uses digitized backcloths
of streets, interiors of buildings and so forth complete with
their inhabitants, several of which are animated. There are cut
scenes and close-ups of some characters when you talk to them
(initiated by the cursor changing to a speech bubble) and these
are taken from videos of real actors. Realism is everything and
the aim is to recreate the atmosphere of the period and area - it
succeeds.

Conversations are carried out in a multiple choice format. Jake
initiates a conversation, it progresses so far and then you're
given several options for your reply. Select the one you want and
watch the result. Possible conversations are indicated by
the cursor changing to a speech bubble when you pass it
across a character. Options for movement from one location to
another is indicated by the cursor changing to an "exit" sign.
Jake's picture is shown at the bottom right and his inventory can
be inspected by clicking the mouse button. The left one shows
inventory only, the right one gives Jake's portrait too and in
this case you can drag certain objects from the inventory onto his
portrait in order for him to use or manipulate them in some way eg
drag the gun over and the picture will change to one of Jake
holding the gun. Once Chi has joined you, you can control him too
and some puzzles will need one character to solve them so there is
the facility to swap items from Jake to Chi or vice versa.
In Heart of China, there are as few commands as in King's
Quest V. You can move, hold conversations and manipulate objects
in various ways and that's about it. There are a couple of arcade
sequences but these can be skipped.

Time is of the essence in the game as for each day Jake takes to
rescue Kate, the amount of money he'll be paid at the end drops by
$20,000 (accompanied by a neat graphic of a wad of notes with
wings flapping its way across the screen).

Conclusions? Well, firstly the game isn't too hard. As with all
multiple choice games, it is possible to bumble your way through
the options and get to the right answer - however, with nested
multiple choice sequences as in Heart of China, this can take some
time. The system is easy to master and use and the atmosphere
excellent.

Once again, my main criticism of these purely graphic games is the
feeling of being led through the game with little choice of action
in many instances. Conversations with characters can often take an
unexpected turn, partly because Jake is basically such an
argumentative character and seems to insult and/or antagonise
anyone he comes across, even when he's trying to get their help!
You just sit there, helplessly, watching the situation deteriorate
and knowing that any minute now, Jake is going to get his head
punched in and you're going to have to restore.

The game has several possible outcomes, only one of which is the
ideal ending. At certain points a "plot branch" message will
appear on the screen, indicating that your actions have taken you
down one particular route. In some ways this is a disadvantage as
it reduces the realism of the game.  However, the atmosphere of
the adventure, the stupendous graphics (far superior to King's
Quest V as one would imagine) and the realism of the game, even
down to people's thought bubbles appearing on the screen during a
conversation or, in Jake's case, while just mulling over what's
happening, partly make up for the shortcomings in the puzzles. Out
of the two games, I preferred Heart of China but neither game is
particularly difficult.
                                               Sue