A Quick Look At ...

                           By Sue

@~Remember, proper reviews for games covered briefly in this
@~section are always welcome.

The Pandora Directive - Access

This is the sequel to the entertaining Under a Killing Moon which
I enjoyed a lot when I played it. The storyline this time is more
complex as Tex Murphy is drawn into a conspiracy which includes
serial killers and the Roswell Incident, to name just two things.
There are several routes through the game. You can play one of 3
paths which vary according to the way Tex acts. The first, Mission
Street, has two endings, the second, Lombard Street, has one, and
the third, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, has a massive four.  You
can also play in Entertainment or Game Player mode which affects
the number of puzzles and amount of help available.

The game's interface is mouse controlled and the view is 3D with
360 degree movement. You can also look up and down, crouch or go
on tiptoe. On-screen maps are used to travel from one place to
another and there is an intelligent cursor. Conversations are very
important and let you ask questions from a topics list or show
inventory items.  On the minus side, evidently early versions of
the game were prone to frequent crashes and there are some tricky
arcade sequences plus time limits on some puzzles.
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Lighthouse - Sierra

This visually attractive, Myst-like game from Sierra will run
through DOS or under Windows. It commences with you, a writer,
moving into your new home in Oregon. Nearby is a lighthouse,
inhabited by a Dr Krick. He leaves you a message asking you to
check on his baby daughter who he has left at home ... you arrive
there just in time to see her whisked away through a portal by an
alien creature. It's up to you to rescue her.

Beautiful to look at, with fully modelled 3D graphics, Lighthouse
has two major drawbacks from what I've heard - many of its
puzzles are convoluted and mechanical (eg manipulating a
submarine and controlling an underground train), and it suffers
badly from 'hunt-the-pixel'. On the plus side, it is non-linear
(if you count that as a plus! Some people prefer linear games)
and there are several different endings. Unlike Myst, it also has
NPCs for you to interact with.
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The Gene Machine - Vic Tokai/Divide by Zero

Yay! A British game! It is set in Victorian times and, in it, you
play one Piers Featherstone who, with his manservant Mossop, is
persuaded by a talking cat to undertake a quest to foil an evil
scientist, Dr Dinsey. He is the owner of the Gene Machine of the
title and is using it to create create mutant armies which will
take over the world. The cat, named 73, is one of the Doctor's
experiments who has escaped.  Only one person knows where the
Doc's island is and that is another evil bod, Captain Nematode and

it is only by travelling to the island, via a variety of places
including the moon, that PF will be triumphant.

The humour in the game is evidently strong (as you can tell from
the plot and the names) and the graphics impressive, hand drawn in
SVGA with cell animation.  As you'd expect it's a point and click
adventure using icons and full speech. There's also a score option
so you'll always know how much, or little, you've completed.
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Leisure Suit Larry VII:Love for Sail - Sierra

That well-known polyester-clad 'lurve' machine takes to the high
seas in his 7th (6th?) adventure. Since he is sailing on the PMS
(ho ho) Bouncy, run by Captain Thygh (a lady) this gives lots of
opportunity for risque jokes. Feminists stay clear! Once again,
Larry's goal for the game is sex and lots of it, as he conquers
all the women on the boat, starting with the passengers and ending
with the Captain. A lot of the passengers will sound vaguely
familiar - Drew Baringmore, Dewmi Moore and Jamie Lee Coitus to
name a few.  As a bonus (?) there is a scratch and sniff card
(CyberSniff 2000) and if you have the right equipment, you can
scan in your own picture and record your voice with a microphone
to add your face and voice to the game if you want to get THAT
involved with it.














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