Ripley's Believe It or Not! - The Riddle of Master Lu
              Sanctuary Woods/US Gold RRP œ35
           (Animated graphic adventure on CD-ROM)

                  Reviewed by Alan Medley

You might remember that this time last year I developed a deadly
addiction to Transport Tycoon. After a long period of aversion
therapy, and a stay in the Henry Ford clinic, I'm now almost
completely cured, and I have converted the CD into a small silver
vase.. So then came the editor's annual conundrum: what can I get
him to review this year? Well I solved it myself. I bought herself
Master Lu for Christmas then promptly whipped it so I could test
it. I only allow myself short bursts of non-serious software so I
don't get addicted again. She who edits only allows me short
bursts because I have to play it on her PC.

As I didn't want to hog her Christmas present, I let Sue install
the game. Lucky I did because it turned out to be a bit of a
b*gg*r. They offer you two options, Easy or Advanced Installation.
She chose Easy (foolish eh?) and proceeded to fill up what was
left of the hard disk before it all seized up. They say it will do
a Medium Install (34Mb) if there is more than 50Mb available or,
failing that, it does a Minimum Install (5Mb). Well, apparently,
it doesn't work. The Advanced Installation lets you sort it all
out for yourself and that's what she had to do. You can go for a
Maximum Install if you have 620Mb available - can you believe
that? I remember when ....  There was also a bit of a problem with
the memory - it wants a lot of it so be prepared to hack at the
old autoexec.bat a bit. The readme.doc file is apparently quite
helpful - that means they didn't test it properly before getting
the packaging printed.

I remember "Ripley's Believe it or Not!" from a long time ago. My
dad gave me a book that he had when he was a kid - so it's been
around for a while. Robert LeRoy Ripley (1893-1949) was a
cartoonist whose daily strip in the New York Globe, later
syndicated to over 300 newspapers, depicted his "incredible
assertions". He didn't so far as to call his assertions facts,
although he was very proud that none of them was ever disproved.

Ripley founded exhibitions called Odditoriums in Chicago, Dallas,
San Francisco, and San Diego, which I suppose were the forerunners
of the Guinness Book of Records exhibitions that you now find
around the world. Ripley later became a globetrotter and claimed
to have visited 201 countries. The game is set in 1936 and is
loosely based on Ripley's work, and it strongly features China and
its culture, a particular obsession of his.

The story begins in Egypt where Ripley is being pursued by two
thugs who are intent on killing him. He collapses against a stone
monolith and, as the killers raise their rifles to finish the job,
an unearthly moan pierces the air and they run off. The monolith
is the Speaking Statue of Memmon. As the story unfolds, Ripley
learns that he has to find a key (which is not really a key) to
unlock the secrets of the First Emperor of China's Tomb and,
ultimately to obtain the Imperial Seal.

Ripley is assisted in his adventure by his female companion Mei
Chen (my chien is chewing my hand as I type this - sorry!).
Ripley's travels take him to six real and imagined locations
including Peiping (later Beijing) in China, to Easter Island, to
Danzig in Germany, and to the pre-Inca city of Mocha Moche in
Peru. In every country he is greeted by a local travel agent whose
office is disturbingly similar to that of the travel agent in the
previous country. These travel agents are pretty useful for
booking trips, changing money, and sending stuff back to the
Odditorium.

This is a graphical adventure game and the graphics are very
smooth and impressive, though I'd guess that a 486/DX2 is really
the absolute minimum set up. There is a slight delay when a new
scene is loaded from the CD-ROM but I suppose that's the price you
pay for not having the odd 620Mb spare on the hard disk.  Whenever
you need to see a bit more detail, an excellent small video
picture appears, although I wouldn't go so far as the blurb on the
box which says that it uses "unique cinematic techniques depicting
character emotions". What?


I got a bit pee'd off with the slow American accents but I suppose
that comes with the territory. The lip sync is a bit out but this
is understandable as the voices were provided by different people
from those in the pictures. And some of the characters do run off
at the mouth a bit. I found myself getting a bit bored and missing
what was probably crucial information in a couple of long, long
dissertations.

There are 3 main icons on the bottom left of the screen to Take,
Manipulate, or Look at an object which, surprisingly, seemed to
cover everything I wanted to do. More icons show your inventory
and there is a pointing finger on the bottom right that takes you
back to the main menu. You click on a character to start a
conversation, then select phrases from a varied list on the top
left of the screen.

I found the puzzles frustrating (as I usually do with adventure
games) although, in retrospect, I couldn't really fault the logic.
They supply a Mini Player's Guide which I found very useful (even
though it's a long time since I was a mini player). This gives you
some hints to get started and these are thoughtfully classified as
Levels One, Two and Three, with the Level Three hints being
printed upside down. I had no difficulty in turning the booklet up
the other way and was soon into the Hall of Classics. After that
it got more difficult - possibly because there were no more hints.
I have moved around a fair bit since then although I can't
honestly say I've solved any more major puzzles.

The publishers reckon it will take the average player 50 hours to
complete so I've probably got another 100 or so hours left to do.
There is a recorded gameplay line where you can get more help -
and it's only 49p a minute! I should be able to crack this for
œ200 - œ300. All in all, I liked this game a lot, although I can't
claim to be addicted in the slightest this time. Ah, just a
second, I think I heard Sue go out. Just time to have a little
explore of Peru....

@~I'm very impressed with Master Lu; though it is very hard in
@~places, it has been logical as far as I've got ... Sue
                              - o -