Zut Alors 2/Trick or Treat/Infocom Toolkit/Sierra Delete
             (Amiga programs on SynTax PD 783)

             Reviewed by Steve Clay on an A600

This disk contains two utilities and two games. There are three
other games available from the workbench menu bar; Pacman, Tetris
and an asteroid clone.

Zut Alors 2: This is the sequel to the well received Zut Alors, a
text adventure written with the Hatrack utility. Once again you
take on the persona of Cyranno de Bergerbar who you guided to
success in the first episode. Thanks to his previous success
Cyranno is now a Musketeer. Alas the other Musketeers have been
kidnapped and you are very quickly given the task of finding them.
Each time you play you have to go through a few moves that set out
the story above and I feel this could have been omitted thus
throwing you straight into the game.  As with Zut 1, the locations
are well described and the locations give you a realistic sense of
a crowded bustling city. Once again the map of the game gives me
the impression that the author has used a genuine street map on
which to base the game. There are numerous exits from most
locations and the game seems to cover a wide area. Any objects
mentioned only in the main body of the text can't be examined. To
have a closer look objects must be listed below the 'You can also
see;' title. At the top of the screen is a menu that allows you to
use the mouse pointer to select some of the more common commands.

The Humour in Zut Alors 2 is rich. The idea of describing the
locations as if told in a phoney French accent is continued from
the first game.  There are several good one liners that appealed
to my sense of humour. Try examining the Chinaman early on. I
didn't get too far into this game as the SAVE command is disabled
in this unregistered version and with the vast amount of text to
get through, I found starting from scratch became a bit of a
chore.  The registered version costs œ5 and for that you'll
receive both instalments of the game as well as a few other
goodies from the author. If you enjoyed Zut Alors then this will
be right up your street.

Trick or Treat: This is highly entertaining game in which you
challenge the computer or a second player. You both control a
wizard each and the aim is to kill your opponent. The game is set
in a rendered landscape of walls and doors. Along the way you can
open doors and discover spells that may drag your opponent closer
or teleport you somewhere else. Some doors are locked and you need
keys to get to the goodies within. The game generates a good deal
of tension as you try to root out your opponent. The walls give
very little away as landmarks and mapping was a non-starter for
me.  When the two challengers meet all hell breaks loose and it is
a race to the finish. This is a game which you can play again and
again as all the elements have a random quality. The graphics are
quite clear with only the occasional glitch in the rendering. The
game moves fairly quickly on a 600 and I gather it bounds along on
the more powerful machines. Well worth looking at.

Infocom Toolkit: This utility allows you to run all your Infocom
titles from this one disk. If that was all it did then it wouldn't
be worth reviewing but this program allows you to do all sorts of
things. You can see how the locations are joined and view any
object and find out where it is. The options available are
detailed in the documents. You access the various options by
inputting a list of instructions that the toolkit picks out and
acts upon. The documents have a tendency toward the technical but
trial and error should see you succeed. The usefulness of this or
indeed any utility depends on the user. If you feel you need or
would like to scan Infocom games then this is for you.

Sierra Delete: This is another utility that is intended as a game
aid.  This time you can use this on Sierra games as an OOPS
command.  This deletes your last move and removes the need to
reload a game from a previously saved position or worse still
start from scratch.

Overall this disk represents excellent value with two good games
and two utilities that, on the face of it, serve a useful purpose.



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