The Ward

               Played by Peter Clark on P.C.

"Your name is David Walker and you are a member of the Apollo XIX
crew. Your mission is to collect information about unexpected
seismic events detected upon the Moon's surface.  It should have
been a smooth routine assignment. As you near the completion of
your task, the whole world goes berserk.  Your fellow crewmen are
killed in an instant and you are taken prisoner to a secret alien
world right in Earth's backyard. The big question is why?
Something fully indifferent and older than the cosmos itself has
chosen you to be a carrier of an ancient legacy. Your true mission
and its purpose are yet to be discovered. You will have to race
your way through a hybrid society made up of two ancient alien
cultures. Solve mysteries and mind-expanding enigmas to get to
heart of the plot. You will feel the intense atmosphere and enjoy
the motion picture style direction of the game. You will have to
face three different adventure genres, first as a fugitive, then
as a detective and finally as a saboteur. Accept the ultimate
challenge of the ancestors. The final revelation will take your
breath away."

This was the blurb that I found on the box when I saw this game in
a local computer shop. Having been assured by the assistant that
it was an adventure game and not another beat 'em up going under
the name of an adventure, I paid up and took the game home. Yes,
it is a point and click adventure and one with quite a convoluted
story. After the initial starting video where all of your
colleagues are killed and you are taken prisoner, you awake in
some sort of alien base. It turns out that this is on the Moon and
your task, in this part of the game, is to find some way of
escaping to a base on Mars. After a very promising start, I found
myself in a sort of laboratory where, before you can progress much
further, you have to master an alien microscope. Although there is
a description of this piece of machinery in the accompanying
handbook, the whole thing seemed to be so involved that I almost
gave up then and there.  However, thanks to the Internet, I found
out what I was supposed to do with it and completed the task. The
place has many machines and, at the start of the game they are of
no use as they all have alien wording on them. Later in the game
you will be given the ability to read alien writing and they will
become of vital use to you. Assuming that you manage to master the
technology of a Memorizer that you will eventually find, you will
be able to leave Moon Base and be transported to Mars. (Again the
Internet proved helpful.) This part is where you assume more of a
detective role. You are free to wander about within reason and
will have to talk to all the other characters many times as well
as playing and winning a blackjack game, before finding a way to
escape. You need to get to the Holy Mountain to finish the game
and you will have to enlist the help of one of the other races
before this becomes possible. The final part of game was
interesting as you can switch between two characters to play.
There is also a way of swapping items from one another's
inventories that you must master if you are to complete your task.

During the game there are many puzzles. Some of these are of the
"use something with something else" type of puzzle but a large
percentage of them are mathematical, usually of the "slider"
puzzle and coloured pattern type of puzzles. The game itself has a
novel plot and flows quite well but is spoiled in several places
by the sheer complexity of alien technology. In one part, not only
do you have to master the use of this strange equipment, but also
you have a narrow time limit to complete the task. I think that
this was the point where I almost gave up. However, after several
attempts lasting over a three- day period, I managed to complete
the task in the requisite time.

"The Ward" is well thought out and is certainly worth playing but
be ready to tear your hair out at several points.

The game is published by a company called Fragile Bits, Take 2,
Interactive Software of Windsor, Berks. Recommended system
specifications are: -

Pentium 2 - 133Mhz or higher.  32 Megs Ram.  130 Megs free hard
drive space.  8x speed CD Rom Direct X compatible sound and video.
Keyboard and Mouse.

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