ISTHORN
  (A STACed adventure game for the ST, SynTax P.D. Disk 161)

                  Reviewed by James Jillians

The land of Isthorn was primitive yet peaceful, watched over by a
good wizard who lived in his tower in the southern mountains.  One
day a black-clad stranger arrived in a nearby village and stoked
up the anger of the people against the mysterious wizard.  He was
a sorcerer as well, but wholly evil, and he wanted to rule the
land himself. He led his army of villagers to the tower and there
a great battle commenced. The two wizards were locked in battle
for hours and, the moment before he died, the good wizard
destroyed the tower, the evil wizard and much of the land around
with a mighty explosion.

Years later, the spirit of the evil sorcerer returned and he began
to rebuild the tower. He summoned a great army of minions -
goblins, orcs, draconians, as well as the undead - and sent them
off to murder and pillage around the land. It's your job as a
local mercenary to put an end to this evil behaviour by killing
the evil sorcerer for a second (and hopefully final) time.

Now you know about the plot, I'll explain about the game. Isthorn
has been made using STAC, which we all know is the ST Adventure
Creator. The first thing I noticed is the total lack of variety in
the game's presentation. None of STAC's graphical or audio
capabilities have been used, there are no special effects, no
changes of font or colour. In this instance, STAC has been sadly
under-used - all you get is medium resolution black text on a
white background. Bor-ing!

After overcoming the initial disappointment, I started playing the
game. I soon discovered that Isthorn is a game set over a huge
landscape with very many, many locations. It's like a great big
maze; a most of your time is spent getting from A to B. Dotted
around the place there are monsters of different sorts who you can
either ignore (probably the best option) or a have a quick scrap
with. For this purpose, you have some handy stats, like Weapon
Skill and Strength, which can be viewed when you type in "SCORE"
(that took me ages to work out!). Combat commences when you type
in "KILL enemy" whereupon a list of messages appears telling you
who's hit who (the same message each and every time, I might add)
Then there's another telling you whether you've won or lost and
how many hits you've suffered. The fights are repetitious and
involve no skill whatsoever, just pure luck.

To aid your quest, there's the odd object lying around. You can
find food to increase your strength, weapons and armour, and even
the odd coin, which can be used to buy a map of the area.
Incidentally, for those of you that are interested in cheating
(and believe me, you will be when you play this game!) you can
look at the map anyway, even if you haven't bought it and are most
definitely not carrying it.

The puzzles are fairly simplistic, for example, pushing a boulder
onto a dragon's head or using a rope to climb down a steep
incline. There is the occasional trap or red herring. A lot of the
game involves finding the best route through the locations,

especially in places like the freezing cold mountains where you
only have a few moves to reach important items before you die.
The game recognises very few commands and no effort has been made
to change the system messages. It would be handy to have
instructions telling the player what words the game recognises,
but alas, none have been provided.

I have to admit, I haven't completed the game, nor do I intend to.
After spending 3 or so hours wandering around the huge number of
locations completely lost, finding the odd item, occasionally
fighting, and frequently being killed, I got thoroughly bored.
This game is TOO big with TOO few puzzles spread across the map.
It's practically impossible to know where you are most of the
time. Drawing a location-by-location map is nearly impossible
because many of the places are illogically connected.

Virtually none of the things mentioned in room descriptions can be
examined. The text seems to have been hurriedly written and poorly
checked - there are loads of typing and spelling errors.

ROUND-UP

I didn't enjoy Isthorn much and I doubt that other SynTax readers
will. It's a poor example of a STAC game, with nothing but the text
to entertain you. A great deal of time can be spend with little or
no reward, and in the end you'll probably give up playing
altogether feeling frustrated, bored and unsatisfied.  If you want
a decent STACed game try some of the better games I've had the
pleasure of playing: Excuse Me Do You Have The Time, WYSIWYG,
Escape From Cygnus Alpha, The Obscure Naturalist or The Elven
Crystals. I'm sure you'd get much more enjoyment for your money.

RATINGS

GRAPHICS   : None                  SOUND      : None
EASE OF USE: 3 out of 10           VALUE      : 3 out of 10
DIFFICULTY : 8 out of 10
HUMOUR     : Not humorous     * FUN FACTOR * : 3 out of 10

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