LIGHTBRINGER

              Played by Peter Clark on a P.C.

Lightbringer is the story of the first manned landing on the
planet Mars. Whilst commencing the landing sequence, strange force
field surrounding the area of Cydonia is encountered forcing an
emergency crash landing.  Communications with mission control are
lost and, as the only uninjured member of the crew is you, you are
challenged to locate and eliminate the force field that has you
trapped on the surface. Thus quest will take you to a time and
place un- investigated by humankind - until now.

The above is all that you are told as you begin what is quite a
long and complicated game. Starting off in the wreck of your ship,
you are confronted by several problems. The first task is to
empower your helmet computer. Without this you will not be able to
finish the game. Having checked the status of the ship, you find
that you have a small fire to deal with before you can progress
further. Your companions are unable to help you so you must make
them secure before searching the ship for useful items and leaving
in the hovercraft.

There are three main complexes that you can explore on the surface
of Mars. The Control Centre, the Pentapyramid and the Solar System
Vault. You will have to visit these places more than once in your
travels. Start by exploring the Control Centre. This looks like a
hole in the side of a cliff. Inside you will find that there are
many puzzles to solve. Some of these are underwater so it's a good
job that you are wearing a space suit. The developers have
realized that there is a problem with one of the puzzles here and
there is a patch on the game website that should be downloaded
first. I installed the patch and had no problems here. Initially
you will have to use your computer to decipher some alien words
but this is not too difficult. You will also meet your first alien
here and be able to find out more about their civilisation by
chatting to him. It seems as though the aliens are not dangerous
so there is not need to fight anyone you meet. Once you have
solved some of the many problems of the Control Centre, you can
return to your hovercraft and continue to the Solar System Vault.

This looks like a large manhole cover and the grab arm of the
hovercraft will be needed to open it. Inside there are two levels.
The problems here revolve around identifying the alien symbols for
the planets of the Solar System. Much scribbling on pieces of
paper is needed here. The puzzles seemed to take forever but the
end result was worth the trouble. Your next port of call must
therefore be the Pentapyramid.

This is recognised as a large pyramid with steps leading up to the
door. Inside there are five vaults each containing a puzzle.
These range from a version of Solitaire to rotating rings and
putting pegs on holes. The difficulty level varies from puzzle to
puzzle. Some I completed in a matter of seconds while others had
me considering giving up the game completely.  Completion of these
puzzles opens the way to a Time Ship.  Unfortunately you need a
power source for this and so it's back to the Control Centre to
finish the Chair Puzzle. This will supply the power source and
allow you to return to the Pentapyramid and the Time Ship. Onwards
now to the Ambassador's Planet.  Here you will have to enlist the
help of a whale to transport you to an island where there are more
puzzle to complete before you can collect the three coloured rings
that you need to turn off the force field. Retrace your steps back
to the whale and then to the Time Ship and return to Mars. Using
the hovercraft, return to the Control Centre and down below the
water again where completing two final puzzles with close down the
force field. It's back to the hovercraft again and return to the
wreck of your ship. With the force field down, all that is needed
is to fire the escape rockets and watch the closing sequence.

This game has been supplied on the Dream Catcher label and is
available over the Web from their site. Although the storyline is
a little bit lacking, if you like mathematical and geometrical
puzzles this is a game that you will love. If you hate those sort
of puzzles than I suggest that you give it a miss. I can, myself,
take only so many of these puzzles and found that some of them
were so complicated that I needed to resort to hint sites on the
Internet to stand any chance of finishing the game.  More than
once, I almost uninstalled the game and gave up.  Only the thought
of being defeated kept me going to the end.  The game ran
reasonably well on a Pentium III 700Mhz with a Voodoo 3000 Video
Card but I would suggest that regular saves are made as I suffered
with the occasional lockup.
















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