Elvira II:The Jaws of Cerberus - Horror Soft RRP œ24.99
          (Graphic adventure for ST, PC and Amiga)

        PC version reviewed (with a few hints) by MerC

If you are familiar with Elvira (what red-blooded male isn't?) and
her hard-nosed put-downs, this neat but sexist romp is for you. It
is horror-oriented, though about as different as you could get
from The Legacy. Although the graphics are quite good, there is no
attempt at ray-tracing or any such fancy stuff. There is plenty of
detail (some might say too much) and no portions of the anatomy
are spared (other than those which might offend decency) either in
their usual positions or hacked off before you came on the scene.
There is a variety of colour-coded and ostensibly painful ways of
termination. The scope for saving positions, is, however,
virtually unlimited, a facility which should be offered by all
adventures and which you will need in this one. There is both
humour and attempted humour, often stomach-churning in more than
one sense.

The game is on three discs and loads with the minimum of fuss. You
choose a character to play, though the list is distinctly male.
Sound effects are minimal, and you will want to turn off the
music. There is no disk copy protection (a definite plus) though a
code wheel is necessary for access and to amuse Jolly Roger. This
should keep both vendors and users reasonably sweet. Although the
game is definitely male adolescent in level, my daughter enjoys
playing it, though at 10 it is probably rather too difficult for
her. In any case, I liked it well enough to keep playing till the
end, which is more than I can say for Elvira I.

So you're standing on this road with nothing of value in your
pockets and nowhere to go except in - only the gate is locked. The
office door provides a way, though this is also locked. So back to
the start and have a more careful look round.  Eventually you will
get to the lobby, which provides a central area for storage of the
myriad items you will find. Unfortunately, a compass is not one of
them, and in this game a sense of direction would have been a
definite asset.

Apart from the dispatching of sundry antagonists, mollifying the
ethnic aged and resurrecting dead archbishops, this game is really
about management of resources. You will pick up dozens of
different items, which fall broadly into one of three categories :
useless (so you waste time and energy getting them); useful (so
you make spells with them); and vital (so when you've made a spell
with the object - and spells can't be unmade - you find you can't
proceed any further because you've used up a unique item).
Beware, for example, of a spell which needs "any good religious
object" "anything made of metal" or "a fork-shaped object". Some
of these are needed elsewhere.

As far as I can remember, you can only make one Telekinesis spell.
Don't use it in the catacombs to get an object. In the first place
anything you need in that place you can get easily enough without
special aid.  Second, this particular spell is needed to get a key
in another location altogether. It should go without saying that
you should not discard anything that appears to be rubbish.


You will need to make your own maps as the game is reasonably
large, with the office complex and three film sets or studios, a
house of horrors, a church with a six storey catacomb under it and
a multi-level insect hive, complete with mosquitoes, caterpillars,
and ants - not to mention cave worms - all of which succumb with a
most satisfying squish.

Elvira has been kidnapped by Cerberus, a trans-dimensional
polycephalic canine demon and you have to rescue her. This is not
helped by finding hostile look-alikes in all but the last place
you search, though wherever you do come across these, don't forget
to pick up everything you find. Your inventory will eventually
contain an icon representing her (not very imaginative, that one)
and woe betide you if you try to dispose of it. Having her in
hand, as it were, is only a step on the way. You have then merely
to save the world, the Universe and everything in this plane of
existence by disposing of the creature in the volcano in the
car-park. So hold on to the black candles and the matches until
near the end.  The tuning-fork and blood have specific uses and
should not be used up in spells.
Loudspeakers use magnetic fields, and magic mushrooms never did
anyone any good. Be kind to old people, clerics, and any other
living or genuinely dead human you meet.  Wear the right clothes,
or you'll be turned into a toad, and there's no prince handy (or
any other prince for that matter).  Do not disparage learning, and
note that piranhas will eat anything they're given. When you first
find the elevator in the hive studio (on the ground floor) switch
on the power, even though you can't use it yet, and don't forget
that some lifts have front and back doors. Save the game
frequently, especially in the lower courtyard down from the
kitchen.

Elvira II is a great improvement over the first game, and will run
on virtually any machine. There are a couple of glitches if you
try illegal actions, but you may never notice them. I crashed the
program more than once, when previous screens did not reset
properly but with frequent saves this was no real problem.  By now
there should be a budget edition, so get it and enjoy the blood
bath!
                              - o -