Storms - Ryan Burrus/AGT
    (Text adventure for Amiga, ST(PD225) and PC(PD226))

        Played on PC and reviewed by Alex McEwan.

This AGT game was written by Ryan Burrus and comes from Nightshade
Productions. It is described as an Interactive Mystery, and the
plot involves you trying to find the last great invention of your
recently deceased uncle, Professor Nightshade, in order to claim
an inheritance of 7.4 million dollars. You have a rival in your
endeavour in the shape of a lady who claims to be a cousin of the
late professor.  The lawyer acting as executor advises that should
you wish to take part in the 'contest' you should travel to your
late uncle's home town, where then you will have from 7 a.m. until
11.30 p.m. the following day to stake your claim.

If any of the foregoing sounds familiar, then you have probably
played Hollywood Hijinx by Infocom. Of course it is not unusual to
find a game that reminds you of one by Infocom, but this one has
even gone so far as to recreate one of their puzzles, in the shape
of the helium balloon routine from Ballyhoo. Tribute or
plagiarism? Decide for yourself.  Another example of the tendency
to milk an Infocom idea to the death is the use of an item in the
game being nothing other than a plug for other works by the same
publisher. In this case it is a pamphlet left in the second
location you will see. At least it gets it out of the way early.

Thanks to a suspect packet of peanuts eaten on the plane on the
way to Winter Creek, your first problem is staying alive long
enough to do any real adventuring.  Thankfully a miracle cure for
food poisoning is not too far from your hotel, but you better find
it in under thirty moves.  There are a number of other characters
who move around the game somewhat at random. I have always found
this irritating, as I much prefer straight puzzle solving to
trying to get into the correct location at the same time as the
character with whom you have to 'interact'. If I can mention
Infocom for the last time in this review, I found that their game
Suspect was probably their least enjoyable, as it involved loads
of characters wandering around, and I tend to shy away from other
games which seek to use this technique.

In view of what I have said so far you may think I didn't enjoy
this game too much, but that is not the case.  I found it quite
good despite my initial misgivings, and the fact that the puzzles
are pretty thin on the ground.  There are an awful lot of 'empty'
locations which help to give the impression that the game is much
larger than it actually is. It also suffers from a feature which
is all too prevalent in AGT games, that of responses being totally
unconnected to input. For example at a brick wall I typed CLIMB
WALL, not unreasonable, the response was 'What shards? There is no
shards here.' Similarly trying to close a trap door gave 'What
Raven? etc. Come to think of it, why DID I enjoy this game. I
suppose I would have to put it down to atmosphere. (Atmosphere,
storms, get it?)

In summary not bad, but not one I would even consider registering.
The blurb that comes with this shareware version claims that it is
an edited version of the full program which is available at a cost
of $8.95, including map and hint book.