Lure of the Temptress - Virgin Games RRP œ30.99-œ35.99
    (Mouse-controlled graphic adventure for ST, PC and Amiga)

                 Reviewed by G. L. Wheeler on ST

In 'Lure of the Temptress' you play Diermot, a somewhat unwilling
hero, slightly tattered around the edges but basically a good man.
After decades of unrest the King has united all of the warring
factors of his Kingdom and his lands are at peace, with the
exception of a remote region around a small town called Turnvale
where a revolt has recently taken place instigated by an
apprentice sorceress named Selina. The King is furious when word
of this revolt is brought to him via a messenger and so he gathers
together his finest horsemen and heads off (with you in tow) for
Turnvale. It is dawn as you draw near to the outskirts of the town
and the mist which has been restricting your vision rises to
reveal, not as expected a pathetic band of peasants, but an army
of grotesque creatures the like of which has never been seen
before. They are hellish mercenary monsters known as the Skorl and
they are armed to the teeth (and we are not talking about
toothbrushes here!). The ensuing battle, well more of a massacre,
sees all of the horsemen and the King killed. Not being the most
proficient of horsemen at the best of times, you fall from your
pony at the start of the battle and knock your head on a rock.
When you regain consciousness you find that you have been captured
and thrown into a dungeon cell which is not only locked but
guarded by a Skorl, your first task in 'Lure of the Temptress' is
to escape from the cell.

'Lure of the Temptress' has been written using a new system called
'Virtual Reality'. As the name suggests it is the latest attempt
to make an adventure as realistic as possible. The characters move
around busily getting on with their own lives, stopping to pass
the time of day with other characters in the adventure while on
their way to the shops, pubs or whatever. Seeing that this is the
first time it has been used the system works excellently, I
especially liked the fact that you could peek through a window and
see what was going on inside in one of the locations. I enjoyed
watching the antics of the characters, some of their conversations
were very amusing and at times a little saucy! One that comes to
mind is Ewan the shopkeeper, some of the things he says to Gwen
about vegetables are extremely funny!

The parser was excellent, in fact I was amazed at the number of
commands it was possible to string together, which meant that you
could ask a character to carry out multiple tasks in one input,
some of which were quite complex. One instance where you had to
interact with another character to solve a certain puzzle, left me
feeling amazed that so much could be achieved from a mouse driven
adventure.

There have been many occasions when I was impressed by the
graphics and animation of a particular adventure or RPG, only
to find that the poor gameplay completely spoilt the game and made
it almost impossible to complete. Fortunately this is not the case
with 'Lure of the Temptress', as not only are the graphics and
animation well above the normal standard for this type of
adventure but the user friendliness of the game makes it a joy to
play!

The sound effects used in the adventure were for the most part
confined to the opening and closing of doors etc., but there were
one or two really excellent touches which raised them well above
the run of the mill. One of these which was in the Castle part of
the adventure really made me laugh and another in the Cave section
had me seething with rage as my opponent laughed every time he
killed me, which I must admit happened several times, before I
finally managed to kill him.

Having an external disk drive I was pleased to find that the
adventure recognised the presence of a second drive and allowed me
to make full use of it, this is particularly useful towards the
end of the game when the amount of disk swapping when saving or
restoring the adventure could prove to be a little tedious for
anyone with only one disk drive. This minor irritation was the
only thing that I found about the adventure that I could mention
as a criticism, which just goes to show how good the game is.

A lot of thought and hard work has obviously gone into this
adventure and it has paid off, while not the most difficult of
adventures by any means 'Lure of the Temptress' still has enough
to test any adventurer.  I thoroughly enjoyed playing this
adventure, it is excellent value for money and I would recommend
it to anyone who hasn't already purchased it.

@~Look out for the solution next issue.