TEEN AGENT ********** ---------- Written by : Metropolis Software House Available for PC computers on SynTax disk 878 Reviewed by Richard Batey 1 Introduction -------------- Having failed to solve the first game I reviewed, a text adventure, and having being punished by being asked to review a pla...platf...platform game (ugh), Sue is starting my rehabilitation by asking me to review a point and click graphic adventure. Neat. The game is a cut down shareware version and as such only gives you the first part of the whole game to play with. This is, apparently, just 10% so there is a lot more to see and do in the full version. This costs $33.99 including postage, but the game was written by a Polish firm so payment should be sent to Poland. That could get a touch complicated and I wonder if anybody will bother to do so. Is it worth the effort? Read on. 2 Plot ------ Gold. So many people lust after it. The gold bullion robbery robbers, the giant who owned the goose that laid the golden eggs, Goldfinger, me...the list is endless. Well, maybe not endless but it is very long...quite long I meant...Oh all right, I can't think of anybody else at the moment. Except the bad guy in this game. All the gold held in banks all over the world is disappearing and nobody knows how. In the introduction you see some gold just disappear before an astonished bank guard's eyes...and the rest of his body. Well you can imagine this comes to the attention of the world's foremost secret agency, the R.G.B. Oh Joy. Ah, but, now, you see, they haven't got a clue what is going on so what do they do? That's right, they do what any crack super-duper secret intelligence department would do...they ask a fortune teller to help!!! *NEWSFLASH* "The science of astrology took a giant leap forward today when everybody in the country born under the sign of Virgo was run over by a number 42 bus." Nope, she does not have a clue either. But using her incredible powers she picks a name at random from a phone book and says that person will be the key to solving the case. The name turns out to be yours...the young skate-boarding teenager Mark Cooper. Just what a teenager is doing listed in a phone book I have no idea (the parents must really spoil that kid). So there he is quite happy skateboarding down the street when two men in long coats and dark glasses jump out of a car and grab him. He is quickly taken to see the head of the RGB and told the problem facing the world in the gold department. Will he help the rich people get their gold back? Now Mark shows some true adventuring promise by asking two important questions. First, who the hell are the RGB and secondly what is in it for him? It turns out that RGB is so secret even the head of the department is not allowed to know what it stands for! All he knows is that they have the power to tackle extraordinary problems beyond the capabilities of other departments, things like taxes! Unfortunately, the answer to the second question is nothing, no fame, no money, no fancy cars, no fancy equipment...nothing. Except...he can impress all the girls by being a secret agent and the sap falls for it! DON'T DO IT, I shouted but would he listen, would he heck. Another young life ruined. He showed so much promise but it's too late now he has agreed to become TEEN AGENT. Mark is then told to report to the secret secret agent training camp for secret secret agent training. This is where the game begins. 3 Technical ----------- You need the following in order to play the game: PC 286 or better - No problem surely? MSDOS 5 or better - Hopefully everybody has got this? 570 kilobytes of free RAM - or 500kb without sound. VGA or MCGA or SVGA or XVGA graphics card Hard disk with 4MB spare for shareware version Mouse - or you can use the keyboard. A sound card (Adlib, Soundblaster, Covox, Gravis Ultrasound) Keyboard. Monitor. Plugs. Electric sockets - or batteries if playing on a portable Lots and lots of leads - IMPORTANT - make sure you plug them in right! The disk with the game on it! 4 The Game ---------- You control Mark Cooper with the aid of your mouse as he undertakes his secret agent training. This involves passing three tests set by the Captain of the camp, escaping from a prison cell, getting the Captain to give you a password and finally finding where the Captain goes to hide. In order to do this you will have to make good use of any objects you will find in the usual expected and unexpected ways (ain't it always the way). The game is entirely mouse controlled, click somewhere on the screen and Mark will try to move there. Click the other mouse button on something and a short description will appear telling you what the object is. Double click to pick up the object and put it into your inventory. Look, you've played other graphical adventures before haven't you (Kings Quest, Monkey Island etc), you know how it works. I know I know how it works and I hope you know I know how it works so let's assume we all know how it works and call the whole thing off. But just in case you never played a graphical adventure before (as they say in X Files, they are out there somewhere) and do not know how it works I suggest you get a game and give it a go...you know you really want to. Temptation. 5 Graphics ---------- To quote from the accompanying documents for the full game: Dozens of beautiful hand painted backgrounds Over 20,000 animation frames Dynamic shadowing Scaling of roto-scoped game characters What does all that mean? It is colourful, or colorful if there are any Americans reading this. You can see and make out everything clearly in the game, even crumbs on a table. It is well animated and you can speed up or slow down the animation to best suit your computer. In all, I would not put it in the same class as The Secret Of Monkey Island 2 but it is not bad. The programmers/graphic artists have done a good job. 6 Sound ------- It says, like, in the documentation, like, that there is a multi-channel digitised soundtrack, like, and over a hundred special sound effects, like. Maybe in the full version but they seem to be lacking in the shareware version. I was not at all keen on the music that there was so I usually stuck in a CD in the CD player and bopped along with Erasure. Much more conducive to adventuring. 7 Conclusions ------------- Not bad, not bad at all. Once you know the solution you can do the shareware game from start to finish in seven minutes flat (I timed myself) because there are not that many problems and they are not that hard, this is the introductory part after all. Having said that I did get stuck at one point but Sue came to my rescue like a nightdress in shining armour. Thanks Sue. @~S'okay! ... Sue 8 Recommendation ---------------- Buy the shareware disk from SynTax and give it a go, it really is quite good. Now, is it worth sending some dosh to Poland for the full version? A - Do you like graphic adventures? If no, thank you for reading this humble review. Cheers. GOTO D. If yes GOTO B. B - Have you played all of the commercial graphic adventure games that are available? If no then there are some real bargains out there at the moment, Secret Of Monkey Island 1 and 2, Sam & Max, Day Of The Tentacle etc. etc. which you can pick up for about œ10 - œ15 each. I would try one of these before I purchased Teen Agent considering the price asked for it...$33.99. Plus you have the hassle and cost of foreign currency exchange. GOTO D. If yes GOTO C. C - Buy It. D - That's all folks! - o -