Cruise for a Corpse

                 A review by Julian Gregory

The version I tested was a budget-priced one from Kixx.

The game will run from the CD or can be installed onto a hard
disk. Once installed and ready to go you come across a fiendish
copy protection. The game ask for certain randomly generated
symbols to be selected, but then does not say what you do next. It
was only by trial and error that I found it was necessary to
click on the object so that it became selected.

Annoying at certain locations music or what might be called music
suddenly starts up. As it plays through the computer internal
speaker there did not seem to be a way to turn it off. I found
this very distracting very quickly.

My other main gripe with this game concerns the save routine. I
could not find a way to copy onto the hard disk and had to use a
floppy. Rather stupidly I tried to copy onto a disk which was
write-protected. As far as I could tell the save had been made as
there were no error messages to tell me otherwise. I would like to
think that I used to check such things in my play-testing days.

Anyway,what is the game about? Basically you play the role of a
detective invited onto a luxury yacht. As soon as you arrive your
host is brutally murdered and guess who has to solve the mystery!

The game involves moving between the various locations either to
talk to your fellow passengers or to find something of interest.

Most of the objects on the ship can be examined although only a
few are relevant. Several objects you require only materialise
after certain periods of time.

For much of the time I found I was wandering about with very
little idea of what to do next or even where to go next. Each
piece of the jigsaw did not seem to logically lead to the next
(thanks for your help Sue, it was invaluable).

The only way to judge your progress was if, by talking to someone
or by finding something, the time advanced by 10 minutes. Having
now finished the game I don't feel quite so critical as the ending
does tie up most of the loose ends.

I still have reservations about the game. I think that the concept
was fine, but the way it has been implemented could have been
better.  Perhaps this is because of the format. I haven't yet
found a detective adventure which is wholly convincing.









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