Les Manley: Lost in L.A. - Accolade
              (Graphic adventure for PC)

          A golden (?) oldie available for download
                   from The Underdogs at
         www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?gameid=631

                      Reviewed by Sue

Hollywood, land of the stars with their fabulous houses high in
the hills and their exotic lifestyles. Life couldn't be more
perfect for them - or so you'd think. But underneath all the
glamour and glitz, evil is stirring and the stars are
disappearing! Slowly, over the last six months, they have
vanished, one by one, to ... who knows where? Is it a serial
kidnapper or just a publicity stunt? Every man (or woman) on the
street has his or her own theory.

Picture the scene. The home of Helmut Bean, the smallest man, and
'biggest' new star in Hollywood. Being only knee-high to a
telephone receiver is no disadvantage for Helmut who is making
oodles of money working as a stuntman on specially-constructed
miniaturized sets, saving the movie studios a packet but putting
some of the regular stuntmen out of work, for obvious reasons.
Life is good, especially with his new lady friend LaFonda Turner.
The night is hot and LaFonda goes out for a dip in the pool,
Helmut promising to join her after he's made a quick phone call to
his friend Les Manley in New York. Les is understandably concerned
about the spate of disappearances but Helmut reassures him;
everything is fine - why not come down for the weekend?

Meanwhile a shadowy figure moves outside by the pool ... LaFonda
swims on, oblivious ...

Sure, says Les, and the two friends agree a rendezvous. Suddenly
Helmut hears a dog bark outside and leaves to investigate. A
scream rings out and the pool lies empty and silent.

Needless to say, when Les arrives at Venice Beach the next day,
there is no sign of Helmut. The time has come for Les, private
investigator, to solve the mystery which has, so far, foxed the
police.

Les Manley first appeared in Les Manley: Search for The King. Then
he was working for a radio station and trying to track down an
ageing rock star who had been missing for years. His companion and
helper in that game was none other than - yes - Helmut Bean, so
it's only fair that Les should return the favour and help Helmut
in this follow-up.  The graphics in that game looked very
Sierra-like.  In Lost in LA, most of the graphics are similar but
real people have been used for close-ups using digitized pictures.
Most effective if you are into grainy pix of partially-clad young
ladies with limited animation.  But then this IS billed as a game
for 'mature audiences'. Mature?  Piccies and some double entendre
humour with references to, for example, 'private dicks'?  Ho hum.

Les must search the streets and buildings accessible to him in LA,
interacting with and questioning anyone he meets, collecting
useful objects and clues to aid in his investigation. There are a
lot of people about who he can chat to including a group of
rappers, The Boyz, who won't let you enter a pawn shop, the
doorman of a mud wrestling club, the security man at Paramounds
Studios, the main movie studio in town, two 'beach bunnies'
working out with weights by the beach and a lifeguard who can just
about string three words together. There are even more standing or
drifting about who cannot be interacted with in any way but are
just there to make the place looks busy. Initial impressions of a
town buzzing with life are soon destroyed as attempted
conversations fall flat before they even get started.

The game can be mouse/keyboard or keyboard-only controlled and is
completely icon-driven. Icon-driven games have always left me
pretty cold due to their limited scope.  Lost in LA is no
exception, in fact it is even more restricted than most. Les can
move to places on the screen where the cursor changes into a pair
of footprints (at least, that's what the manual says, they looked
more like kidneys to me) and get more information about
places/people where the cursor changes to a question mark. 'More
information' is a mite misleading as all you may learn is
something along the lines of "The crowd are waiting to go into the
movie theatre". Buildings that look interesting often can't be
entered, just examined, giving Hollywood more of the cardboard
cut-out appearance of a film set than that of a real place.

Examining people who CAN be truly interacted with brings up a
little box with options like 'about' and 'talk'. 'About' will tell
you who the person is and 'talk' will give possible lines for Les
to speak to them. Needless to say, these will often NOT be the
ones you would have chosen yourself. The responses you get will
frequently give you an oh-so-unsubtle hint for where to go or who
to see next, making progression through the game easy.

Lost in LA is over a decade old and isn't a very exciting or
challenging adventure, partly due to the icon system and partly
because of all the clues tossed about in the text.  Add to that
the fact that within about 15 minutes of play I was 99% sure that
I had worked out where the people had gone and why they'd
vanished, a lot of the suspense had gone too.  If you're desperate
for something to play, try it.
                              - o -