NEWS items for Syntax from the Spring ECTS '93 By Richard Hewison F.A Cup semi-final Sunday must mean the opening day of the Spring European Computer Trade Show. Once again I braved the tube to bring you the latest adventure and strategy related info on forth coming releases. Microprose Another update to Darklands PC (Microprose) is now available. This will update the game to version 7. Phone the Microprose technical line for more details on 0666 504399. This time round it is a major update. New features include being able to save during battlefield scenarios (i.e 3d isometric displays) but only under certain conditions. A hint book for Darklands is also available. An optional extra includes a special disk which includes a music player, picture viewer and a character editor. News has also filtered through that there will NOT be any data disks or sequels to the game as hinted at in the original manual. The Legacy should also be out by the time you read this. Set in a haunted house, this game employs a similar view to that seen in Virgin's 7th Guest. It is an enormous graphic role playing adventure of epic proportions. Mindscape Worlds of Legend - Son of the Empire is a stand alone sequel to Legend which should be available in the next few months. You will be able to create a new party or load in a previous group from Legend. Travel to the east of Trazere and explore the mysterious land of Imperia, which is caught in a feudal war. The original Legend has now joined the ranks of the Mindscape Classic budget series. The PC version retails at œ19.99, the Amiga at œ14.99 and the ST at œ9.99. The hint book is also still available at œ6.99. Tony Crowther's Knightmare and Captive are also now out on budget in the same series. The Knightmare hint book weighs in at œ5.99 and a map generator and hint book is available for the PC version of Captive at œ4.99. Captive 2 - Liberation is the sequel to Captive, and it should be available in the early summer. Liberation is set in the 29th Century. The world is now under the control of huge state corporations that have been abusing its resources and grinding the world into a state of decay. One such corporation is 'Bio-Corp', and they have a problem. Their brand new (and very expensive) securi-droids are malfunctioning and killing innocent people. A cover up has been ordered and you must gather the evidence and free those falsely accused of murder... Liberation will employ a new 3D system called Vectomap to visualise the 29th Century, and there are 4,096 different cities on offer. It's not really adventure related, but Mindscape are also bringing out a chess game based on a film license! The film? Star Wars... Activision It might be called 'Return to Zork' but it is about as far removed from the original Zork series as you could get. The game is entirely graphical and uses a mouse interface to interact with the system. Over an hour of recorded footage and audio has been included in this CD Rom only title. I didn't catch the release date on this one, but PC users should keep their eyes peeled. Virgin CD Rom seems to be taking off at last. The 7th Guest is still "imminent" and there are already strong rumours of a sequel. As it is, the game will be published on 2 CD Roms (1280 megs of data!). Dune gets the CD Rom treatment with an impressive intro snatched from the movie and tons of rendered and ray traced animations thrown in for good measure (flying over the sand dunes looked particularly impressive). All of the characters have their own recorded dialogue now as well. CD Rom enhanced versions of KGB and the Legend of Kyrandia are also lined up for release later this year. Meanwhile the strategy sequel Dune II will soon be appearing on the Amiga and on the Sega Megadrive. Beneath a Steel Sky is the follow up to Lure of the Temptress. It is a futuristic adventure with graphics digitised from comic artist Dave Gibbons. The Virtual Theatre system has also been improved. The current release date is this Autumn on ST, PC and Amiga. Interplay A PC CD-Rom version of the Star Trek - 25th Anniversary is imminent. It will include digitised dialogue recorded especially by Leonard Nimoy (alias Mr. Spock). Lord of the Rings will also be appearing on CD-Rom although whether it is the first two games already published on floppy or a new title is not yet clear. Sierra This company has enormous plans, too many of them to mention here. The major ones includes Betrayal at Krondor, a graphic RPG based on the latest book in the Riftwar Legacy series, and another graphic adventure from the creators of Leisure Suit Larry. Prepare for - Frontier Pharmacist! Konami Talking of Frontier, the sequel to Elite is expected to appear sometime in June on ST, Amiga and PC. Psygnosis Who knows what the game is like, but Microcosm has an intro that looks stunning. It runs for ages and includes raytraced and fully animated ships and digitised footage of real people. The game is based inside the body of a person (a la Fantastic Voyage and Inner Space) but it sounds like it will be more like an arcade shoot 'em up than an adventure. It will be Psygnosis' first CD Rom only product. Silmarils The sequel to Ishar, unimaginatively called Ishar 2, was on show at the Silmarils stand. Graphically this game looks very nice (as did the original) but at its heart is the same old Dungeon Master style technology. Amiga A1200 owners will be pleased to hear that their version will also be in 256 colours, as is the PC. Rumour also has it that the Atari Falcon is getting a version too. U.S Gold The Secret of Monkey Island III is due out by the end of this year on the PC. Crusaders of the Dark Savant will appear on the Amiga shortly, and SSI will unveil Eye of the Beholder III on PC. Cyberdreams This relatively new company were handing out hint books to their first game Dark Seed which was published by Mirage. Their next game is an arcade racing game called Cyber-race, using the designs of Sid Mead (who has worked on such sci-fi classics as Blade Runner, 2010, and Aliens).