Are We There Yet? (Electronic Arts) RRP œ29.95

                      Reviewed by Sue

Some time ago, flushed with success having finished the puzzle
game Fool's Errand, Alan and I decided to try another similar
game. Are We There Yet? was the one that caught our attention
following a review in an American computer magazine so we got it
and dived in ...

In the game, you follow the Mallard Family (Mom, Dad and two
obnoxious teenagers) on a driving trip across the USA, visiting
all the states. An animated sequence at the beginning shows the
family loading up the car (with several mishaps) and setting off
on their journey. The first puzzle is a jigsaw which, when
completed, shows a map of the States and you can then pull down
one of the menus and select a state to 'travel' to.

Each has two puzzle sections associated with it and not all states
are available at the start.  Solving all the puzzles associated
with one state colours in that area on the map and any adjoining
states are now accessible.  For example, at the start you can
travel to Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri,
Nebraska, Oklahoma and Tennessee and selecting Arkansas gives you
two sections called Bayou Bartholemew and Goldfish Capital of the
World to solve and thus complete the state.  The themes of the
puzzle sections are always linked in some way with the region and
when each section is complete you'll be presented with a screen
giving the family's thoughts on the place they've just visited
(don't expect anything profound... ) plus some serious information
about it (sadly, too late by now to help at all in solving the
puzzle). Occasionally you'll also be rewarded with an animated
graphic or one of the photos from the Mallard family album.

With two sections per state and each section often containing
several puzzles, it means there are over 225 puzzles in the game!
These include standard cryptograms, crosswords, anagrams, simon
puzzles, hangman games and mazes, and more unusual ones called
alphabet soup, flat tires (revolving anagrams) and quotefall.
There are also optional bonus games and car games (pelmanism etc)
plus a final puzzle to be completed once you've done all the
others.  A section might start with a picture to re-arrange and
then lead on to magic square puzzles or anagrams, so it can take
quite a time to finish some of them.

The puzzles are of variable difficulty. Some anagrams were solved
by trial and error and sometimes we didn't understand the answer!
It definitely helps to be American when playing this game. I mean,
I didn't even know how to pronounce Arkansas when we started so
what chance did I have? Within half an hour, we'd brought an atlas
onto the desk, 30 minutes later it was followed by the dictionary
and Roget's Thesaurus. Other puzzles had us scouring books for
information on dinosaurs, snakes and American euphemisms and
racking our brains for phrases connected with ten pin bowling and
italian meals!

Initially, we were surprised to find the hint book was packed in
with the game.  Not for long though! And after a month of
pretending it wasn't there and getting increasingly frustrated, we
finally gave in and looked up a couple of answers (which turned
out not to make any sense at all .. have you ever heard the words
asea or horsepucky? Nope, neither had we.)

It was hard to play the game without comparing it to Fool's Errand
which we'd thoroughly enjoyed. Sadly the same couldn't be said for
Are We There Yet?  though the style and many of the puzzle types
are similar; for example, AWTY's 'follow the path' puzzles are
very poor copies of FE's 'The Humbug' puzzle. The game also goes
for cheap laughs, not only in the 'humorous' family thoughts but
in some of the puzzles such as a simon game featuring musical
backsides (I tried not to think about what they were doing!) and a
hangman game where each wrong letter progressively skinned a
muskrat until the poor little devil was ready for the tanning
shed. Subtle, it ain't.

Don't get me wrong, some of the puzzles are good. Though generally
the graphics in AWTY are very inferior and cartoon-like compared
to FE's which seemed to shine on the screen, their jumbled
pictures can contain excellent animation - a series of fish tanks
with a goldfish swimming across, hot air balloons and so forth.

But the best thing you can say about AWTY is that it is an
excellent soporific.  Forget your Mogadons and Valiums, buy this
game instead and your eyelids will be dropping in no time at all.
No late nights of 'just one more puzzle' before going to bed; it
was more a case of 'can't we switch off? Pl-e-a-se?













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