@~Just to show that Mum and I don't always agree (!), here are our
@~two, very different reviews of ...

          Companions of Xanth - Legend RRP œ39.99
        (Point and click graphic adventure for PC;
              CD-ROM version also available)

1. Review by Joan Dunn

Xanth, a wonderful land full of magic and weird mythical
creatures, each with a magical talent which is unique to them.
Some are powerful, and others small and insignificant. All this
will be destroyed if an evil demon has his way.

After loading, you see the faces of two demons. They are planning
a wager with each one placing a person on Xanth to compete for a
prize. One is Dug and the other is Kim and the game revolves
around the race between these two characters to get the prize. If
Kim wins, then magic will no longer exist in Xanth ... so of
course, you as Dug must win and save this beautiful land.

You start sitting in front of your computer. You have been
challenged by a friend to play a particular computer game. Through
the game you are drawn into the land of Xanth but as you don't
believe in magic you are initially a computer screen ... very
limiting to your actions! Soon you are able to choose a companion
to help you. You learn about Kim who is also searching for the
prize.

You are offered four companions, all with different powers. If you
pick the wrong one "BANG" he's dead (or she) and I worked my way
through three wrong ones before getting it right. Then I worked
out all you had to do was look at the cover of the game box!
Still, once that was sorted out it was all systems go.

You travel through many regions and each one has a puzzle to
solve. Starting in a village and then on through the regions of
Earth, Air, Fire and Water. You need to pass through a wall of
fire, conquer a dragon and visit a troll in his house. He has
three wooden puzzles and you are allowed to choose one of them. I
did the matchstick puzzle which was a doddle but still intend to
go back and try the other two, blocks in a tray and
pentominoes ... when I have the time. I wonder why the troll was
wearing a lab. coat? You also need to come to grips with
Com-Pewter, the most evil machine in all the land.

Now Sue has written a review on Companions Of Xanth which appeared
in Red Herring, but ... she had first read all the Xanth books and
I gather she didn't think the game was as good. Mainly the
characters were not as she imagined from the stories.  I, however,
not having read the books, came to the game with an open mind and
I thought it was great. Your journey through Xanth is almost
mapped out for you and the puzzles are interesting if rather easy.
The graphics were only fair compared with other games, but I did
like the puns and play on words. Even the maze is mapped ... a bit
pointless really.

The movement of characters was very jerky and slow and whatever
happened to the merman? He came out of the lake to join Kim and

the cat and unless I missed a chunk I never saw or heard of him
again.

Later you join up with Jenny and Sammy the cat. When you reach the
castle gates Sammy will give you a useful hint to help you pass
them. To get into the castle you need to manipulate five switches
in the sewer. Here I struck lucky and got it right on the second
try. I feel there must be a bit of information about these
somewhere in the adventure, but if there is I missed it.

Your first companion Nada is a useful source of information, so do
not neglect to talk to her, she will help with hints.

The end game was very good and exciting. Kim is just reaching for
the prize and you only have seconds to act.

The interface is good and highlighting an object on the screen
will bring up special verbs connected with that item. I didn't use
the on screen mapping but it's there for those who want it.

I never lost interest in playing Xanth and couldn't wait to get
back to the computer each day. So I thoroughly recommend it as an
interesting and amusing adventure.
------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Review by Sue

Oh dear ... oh dear. Legend, who took over from Infocom as the
kings of text adventures, have moved to graphical adventures.
Okay, Legend's first games had a graphic window as well as text
descriptions but these days it's almost impossible to find pure
text adventures being sold commercially. However, with a bit of
jiggling, you COULD play Spellcasting, TimeQuest, Gateway and Eric
virtually as text-only, apart from the odd graphical interlude.
Unfortunately, text adventures are old hat now, so we're told.
Everything has to be point 'n' click, brightly coloured, with
limited verbs and (often, even more limited) actions.

Legend's first foray into the world of graphical adventures is a
game built around Piers Anthony's Xanth novels, specifically
Demon's Don't Dream, which comes packed with the game. I am a
great fan of Xanth, a magical land populated by weird and
wonderful creatures and inhabited by people who each has a unique
magical talent. Some are useful, some showy. Some are
insignificant, others are so marvellous that they raise their
owner's status to magician level.

The other main point about Xanth is its sense of humour which is
built around puns and word-play. These may make you laugh or groan
when you read the book or play the game; you certainly won't be
indifferent to them.

In Companions of Xanth, you play Dug, an ordinary lad, who is
challenged by a friend to play a particular computer game. Through
it, he is drawn into Xanth itself but, since he doesn't believe in
magic, Dug initially appears in the game as a computer screen
rather than a person, which limits his actions somewhat. Fairly
soon, he'll discover that he isn't the only person playing the
game - Kim, a young girl, who believes in magic, is there too, and
both of them are after the same Prize. What the Prize is, and
where it can be found, neither of them knows. So they set off in
different directions, each intent on winning.

Dug and Kim each has a companion, one of the Companions of the
title. Dug's first decision is which of four he should choose to
accompany him.  All four are inhabitants of Xanth, not Mundanes as
he and Kim are. There's Che Centaur, the demoness Metria, Jenny
Elf and her cat Sammy, and Nada Naga. Each has his or her own
special talent or ability and only one, Nada, will be a suitable
companion for Dug. This can be easily discovered by either (1)
picking the wrong one as he'll be killed in no time flat or (2)
checking the game box cover!  Dug and Nada's trip will lead them
through various regions of Xanth, starting in Isthmus village
where a censor ship, moored at a quay, is belching smoke which
censors the villagers' speech.  With help from a (male) fairy
called Nuff (geddit?) this problem is easily solved and they can
head off through regions of Earth, Air, Fire and Water to their
ultimate goal. As the journey progresses, Dug will finally learn
the true stakes of the game and how imperative it is for him to
win.

The interface is interesting in that the mouse cursor is
intuitive, picking up objects on the screen and providing special
verbs connected with them in addition to the standard TAKE, LOOK
AT, PUT, OPEN, CLOSE, TALK TO and LOOK which are always available.
There is always a default verb for any object.

Many of the puzzles are easy or ludicrous, points are thrown at
the player for doing the simplest things such as talking to
people, picking up items and moving in a particular direction. If
in doubt about how to solve a puzzle, talk to Nada - you'll be
amazed how often she will solve a puzzle in the most unexpected
way. This is one of the main problems with graphic adventures
which rely on conversations between characters where a choice of
responses is offered. One of them will frequently offer some
unexpected twist to the tale which moves the game off in a
direction you hadn't expected. Incidentally, most of the other
options do nothing to add to the game; usually one is important,
the others just so much padding.

The game has on-screen mapping, which I largely ignored. You can
switch between the graphic display and the map. The crazy thing is
that there is a large maze in the game and this is also
auto-mapped. To me, the point of a maze is to disorient the
player; with auto-mapping, where's the challenge? Especially when
objects of note, such as switches, are marked on the map, so you
don't have to hunt for them.

Whereas in some ways the game has stayed true to the spirit of the
Xanth books, in other ways it is sadly lacking. Grundy Golem, who
greets Dug when he loads the game, was a cantankerous and
unattractive individual in the books. In the game he looks like a
cross between Peter Pan and a pantomime principle boy. The Good
Magician Humphrey also looks nothing like I'd imagined him from
the novels.

The graphics aren't as good as Simon the Sorcerer, the humour not
as good as Day of the Tentacle or Monkey Island, the puzzles not
as good as any of the current popular graphic adventures.
Whichever way you look at it, Companions of Xanth just can't
compare with similar games. And I haven't yet found a graphic
adventure that gives me the realism and flexibility of a text
game.

The REALLY bad news is that Companions of Xanth has evidently sold
better than any of Legend's previous adventures so we have seen
the last of their text adventures. The next graphic adventure from
Legend will be Superhero League of Hoboken, a comedy from Steve
Meretzky combining adventure and RPG elements.  This will be
followed by a science fiction adventure based on Weis and
Hickman's Deathgate novels.








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