Enhanced
                    (On SynTax disk 934
                 and on this issue's disk)

                  Reviewed By Nick Edmunds

We've all done it at some time or other, been short of a couple of
bob and signed up for medical experiments without checking the
small print.  You need the cash and it's indoor work with no heavy
lifting: what's the worst that can happen?  Being paid to take
drugs is a plan with no flaws as far as I can see.  It's certainly
put food on our table before now and I've never needed a haircut
since.

Well now a team calling themselves Sophistichaos have written a
Tads game along the same lines.  "Excellent", I said to myself,
"perhaps it will help fill-in some of the blanks in my memory". My
retention span really is appalling, I'm sure they brainwash you at
these places.

As the game begins you find yourself "trying to survive another
day in the big city with no money, no job and no hope."  (Now that
bit does sound familiar to me, but not in a good way.  Why can I
only remember the things I want to forget?).  When quite by chance
you happen to see a sign: "Volunteers needed for military research
project", which even I'm probably not stupid enough to fall for,
although it does sound slightly more interesting than the sort of
medical experiments I took part in.

The rather long introductory text narrates our enrolment in the
project and we are led down a lot of white painted corridors to
awaken some time later feeling curiously aware.  This is, of
course, because we are now cybernetically enhanced by our new
prototype military implant which, it has to be said, works
particularly well considering it's still in Beta.  The implant
itself provides information on our environment and enables
interaction with other hardware, effectively turning us into a
sort of bargain basement Borg. All together an excellent piece of
kit that I shall personally be signing up for as soon as release
2.0 becomes available.

On commencing the research project the object of the game isn't
immediately apparent.  One would assume we are to complete the
project successfully, but soon it appears that our sole purpose is
to escape.  Which of course begs the question:  "If we're only in
it for the money, then why try to escape before the project is
complete?"  A few wrong moves and you soon realise why you need
out - the implant will be removed at the end of the project, but
it cannot be removed without serious damage to your person. You
just can't trust these secret military experiment scientist types
one little bit. However, you have to die a few times in order to
discover this and that's my major criticism of Enhanced.  It's the
sort of game where you learn the correct action by trying a few
alternatives rather than being able to deduce what should be done
from the information available.  This spoils what is otherwise a
great game by making your discoveries unsatisfying.

While the whole thing smacks of one of those 50's behavioural
psychology experiments, the clich‚d nature of the secret military
installation, manned by a stereotypically stupid security guard is
exactly the setting you need for fighting the system like a
technically savvy Robin Hood.  But don't be put off by the thought
of all this technological gadgetry.  The technical nature of the
theme means that Enhanced contains terminology, jokes and concepts
related to the genre, but they require little more than a basic
understanding of computing and are generally straightforward to
pick up, so you don't need to be a sys.  admin. to get the gist of
what's happening.

I had a few word-hunt fights with the parser and there were a few
awkward syntax requirements, e.g. "connect to connector", but to
some extent that's part of the fun of the fair and these really
are minor niggles as Enhanced is an intriguing idea, competently
written.  Overall a compact and enjoyable romp through the twisted
world of B movie sci-fi conspiracy theory.  Which I'm sure will
give many others like myself a chance to relive those glory days
when we were in employment that small rodents chose to snub.

Enhanced is apparently the first part of the Cyberventure trilogy
and the overall feel of the game has a definite cyberpunk style
about it which I found quite appealing.  As such I'd be interested
to play the promised sequel, "Sensorer", particularly now our
protagonist has escaped into the wild with the military implant
still intact.  There's got to be scope for some serious
cyber-shenanigans there.

@~The solution will be in Issue 73.












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