Space Quest 5 - Sierra
        (Graphic & Sound extravaganza for the IBM PC)

               Reviewed by Mark Bradshaw

                    Review Hardware:
         TI'KO PS433C (486-33MHz with Soundblaster)

Once again, Roger Wilco, intrepid space hero, is at large and the
galaxy had better be prepared. In this latest outing you, as
Roger, are determined to become an official ship's captain and
have enrolled in the Starcon Academy as a student. Anxious to
impress, he leads the normal student life: sleeping late, missing
classes, etc, etc and soon becomes immensely popular with his
fellow students - NOT!

Right, that's the minimal background over with, now onto the
game. As with most Sierra games, SQ5 takes on the familiar
picture-with-mouse-cursor user interface. Unfortunately, of late
Sierra have been packing more and more graphics and sound into
their games with a sad side effect on playability, but more of
that in a moment. First, the graphics. As usual with Sierra,
these are superb! The attention to detail is excellent, and many
of the scenes are enlivened with animations of various kinds.
There are also several in-game entertainments to amuse yourself
with, ranging from a computerised game of battleships to "dodge-
the-slime" affairs. These present a welcome, comical break from
the main plot and are an increasing part of the Space Quest
series.

The sound, if you have a sound card, is excellent and even
tuneful! Appropriate sound effects accompany many of your
actions, and add to the overall polished product. If no sound
card is available, the sound can be turned off: advisable as the
PC's speaker is just not capable of decent noise!

And now on the all-important aspect of any adventure game, if not
any game of any type: the game-play. And this is where a massive
disappointment awaits the unwary! As categorised at the top of
this review, SQ5 should be viewed as a graphics and sound program
which shows your PC off to the best of its capabilities. If you
are looking for a challenging game with lots of puzzles and
cunning sub-plots, this is not the game for you! Sure, the game
is full of jokes (and despite what other magazines have said,
many of the jokes are quite good!) and can raise the odd chuckle
or two. Sure the game is bigger than previous SQ games (or at
least, there is more to do). However, do not expect to be playing
this game in a couple of weeks time! It really is too easy: I
picked up the game on Monday and had finished it by Thursday
night! Now this may not seem particularly fast for the keen
Sierra addicts amongst you but I can normally struggle with
fairly easy games for months! Not so with SQ5, which appeared to
be more of a walk-through demo than an involving game. Even
worse, if you are stuck for something to do in the game, just
wait for a while and a message pops up telling you what to do
next! Considering the cost of this game, surely a little bit of
a puzzle somewhere along the way isn't too much to ask for?

Anyway, back to the game. The control method is the now-familiar
Sierra icon system: if you want to look at something, click on
the 'eye' icon and then on the object, etc. This is an excellent
system and I much prefer it to the earlier idea of typing a
command at certain specific times in the proceedings! Basically
you wander about the game looking for things to do to proceed
with your career ambitions. The actions to perform are all pretty
obvious, and the game soon settles down to a rhythm of task -
done - task - done until the game is complete. There is, as
always with Sierra games, a maze near the end designed to annoy
you so you give up (at least I assume that is why they put them
in there) but in SQ5 even the maze is simple!

Well, I do not really know what to add to what I have said
already. Please be wary of buying this game as it is very
expensive and is unlikely to keep you going for long, especially
if you are familiar with other games in the SQ series. I found
the game to be enjoyable while playing, but I must admit to being
shocked when the ending appeared so soon. A game of this price
really should keep you entertained for much longer to be value
for money and I, for one, am completely unimpressed with this
latest Sierra offering.