Abstract Concepts
£14.99

Robin is psychic. His talents have been recognised by a learned professor and he is under close observation. When, in an attempt to discover his exam results, Robin projects his sensitive mind into the future, he finds himself unable to get back. Trapped in the living nightmare of post-holocaust Southampton under the control of an inhumane system, he has only 24 hours to sabotage the enemy generator and return home.

Written by Ann Popkess and programmed by Fergus McNeill (author of the Tolkien spoofs The Boggit and Bored of the Rings), Mindfighter comes in a shiny box, complete with a poster and a novel recounting Robin's experiences in 1987 - the year before the war.

The nightmare itself takes place in 1988. Robin awakes on a mound of rubble in the midst of a terrifyingly desolate cityscape. Wandering amongst the charred and smouldering remains, poignantly illustrated in graphic silhouette, he finds little evidence of the kind of life with which he is familiar. Bands of hungry men club skinny dogs to death for food, corpses litter the sour-smelling earth and survivors stumble aimlessly through the unrecognisable ruins of their former lives. Only at the docks is there any sign of organisation and activity.

As Robin's mental journey takes him nearer and nearer the nerve-centre of The System's operations, he can enlist the cooperation of a number of characters ranging from the gentle Daryl to strong and independent Robert. Encounters with guards tend to be violent. As Robin is already weak it's advisable to carry a weapon and steer as clear as is feasibly possible of enemies.

Puzzles are very much centred around the game's two main objectives; survival and infiltration of enemy quarters. The post-holocaust city is pitted with hidden dangers. Clouds of corrosive gas poison the air, rabid animals scavenge for food and the smell of corpses lingers everywhere. To get familiar with this alien environment you're bound to die several times as you explore.

The instruction booklet is full of advice for novice adventurers which does't turn out to be particularly helpful. The problems are fairly obscure right from the very start. On several occasions, you're only given one chance to provide a solution; if you don't the game comes to a grinding halt. This level of difficulty may be acceptable well into a game but it isn't very user (or beginner) -friendly early on.

Requests for HELP are met by blank incomprehension and none of the responses to the EXAMINE command provide any sort of clue. It helps to have read the novel as the accompanying scenario is extremely sketchy.

Not that the supposedly sophisticated SWAN makes the process any easier. Having found a newspaper clipping, for example, you can only GET NEWSPAPER (a totally different thing), not CLIPPING; which is treated as a totally foreign and unrecognisable word. Bugs allow you to burn rags to a cinder over and over again, pick up petrol when you've poured it all over the ground and after it's gone up in a series of impressive flames. A dead dog, clearly described, stops existing when you try to do much with it and a fairly standard command, like INSERT ROD, is received by the outlandish, 'Robin couldn't go in - only east'. You may find yourselves inventing plenty of titles for the System Without A Name.

The long-anticipated, eagerly awaited Mindfighter is something of a disappointment. The first adventure release from a major software house in ages with one of the most stimulating scenarios ever, turns out to be mediocre, unenjoyable and comparatively unplayable. Not that Mindfighter is an unmitigated disaster. It just doesn't live up to the quality associated with the flashy packaging and a bigger than the average price tag. Have a go on somebody else's before you decide to buy it for yourself.

FAX BOX
Title: Mindfighter
Publisher: Abstract Concepts, c/o Mediagenic/Activision, 23 Pond St, London NW3 2PN
Price: £14.99
Reviewer: Mike Gerrard

The French prophet Nostradamus, way back in the 16th century, predicted that towards the end of the 20th century there would be a massive world war, beginning somewhere in the Middle East. In view of recent events between Iran and Iraq, and the fact that several of Nostradamus's prophecies appear to have been uncannily accurate, there must have been times during the writing of Mindfighter when author Anna Popkess, was more than a little worried!

Mindfighter began as a book, and this is included in the handsome packaging. It's 150 pages long, acts as copy protection, and unlike many 'books' that come with adventure games it's worth reading in its own right. Also in the inch-thick box you get a Players Guide, a poster - and of course the game itself, which stretches to four parts. There are both 48K and 128K versions - the smaller one loses a few graphics and the OOPS command, but it does have a RAM SAVE feature so that's not too bad. A +3 version is a possibility, but it hasn't been decided yet.

The hero of the adventure is an 11-year-old boy named Robin, with para-psychological powers. During experiments in present-day Southampton, he projects his mind forward in time to discover that the city has been devastated by a nuclear holocaust - some people might wonder how he was able to tell the difference! in fact, the programmers have taken photos and video images of parts of Southampton and digitised them to provide some of the graphics. The Spectrum graphics are terrific, among the best I've seen on the machine - they're done in black and white with amazing accuracy, especially when seen on a good monitor.

The game begins in this post-nuclear world, where Robin's existence is as real as if he were actually there, though in fact he's also reporting back on what he sees and what he does, to the scientists in Southampton. He must first survive the horrors in which he finds himself, gather as much information as he can, and, if possible, travel back to the present-day in an attempt to prevent the war from happening. One of the standard science-fiction stories, but this time mixed with thriller elements, para-psychology, political relevance - and all ideally suited to the adventure game.

The reality of a world shattered by a nuclear war has not been ignored in the text of the game. As you begin, 'Charred rubble wasteland stretched away all around Robin. Atop a mound of shattered concrete slabs, he gazed northwards across the distant blackened landscape. Behind and to the east of him he could just make out the fallen remains of some high-rise flats.' And later on in the game, as Robin picks his way round the city to the Bargate, he comes across a man being punished for theft by one of the System Guards who are now in control - 'Knowing what the penalty for stealing was, the accused held out his shaking hand. Slowly, with a blunt knife, the guard began to saw the man's hand off...' You can see why Anna and collaborator Fergus McNeill decided this wasn't exactly Delta 4 material!

As well as more typical adventure problems, Mindfighter also challenges you to survive the real-life problems that you would face when trying to survive as an outcast in this fascist state. You must find shelter at night, find safe food and drink to build up your strength, and avoid the guards unless you feel strong enough to attack them. Combat fans will enjoy this part of the game, and even though I don't like fight sequences, the ones in Mindfighter worked well, and in fact added to the believability of the whole story.

There are many more people wandering around the game, some of them rather friendlier than the guards! Daryl is a large man in his twenties, bulky and strong but sadly he's slightly retarded. A kind act to him might reap rewards later. There's also a teenager called Robert, though I've yet to discover how friendly or otherwise he might be - he's happy to take everything I've given him so far, but I haven't got anything out of him yet! These characters go about their own business, and a big chunk of the program is given over to controlling their actions. Just like Robin, they have their own physical and emotional states, the guards have their various strengths, but much of this is invisible to the player and goes on behind the scenes in the program.

Everything has been done to make the game as playable as possible. If you just press ENTER at the prompt, you bring up a control panel of icons in the graphic window. Use the cursor keys to flip the pointer around these and choose your options: text/graphics, printer on/off, music on/off, verbose/brief descriptions, OOPS, status, quit, SAVE to RAM/disk/tape and LOAD. A final icon returns you to the game. In no time at all you find your way round these and can switch between them and save your game in a matter of seconds.

As for that content, it seems to me to be one of the most exciting adventure releases for some time on any computer, not just the Spectrum. It's a serious thought-provoking game, which draws you into the reality of the world it tries to create so that you do feel like you're down there on the ground living it, not merely playing a game. I know I've raved about several Spectrum adventures lately, but I make no apologies for that as advances on 16-bit machines and in programming techniques are filtering down to benefit the adventures now available in the 8-bit market. It's a Golden Age for Spectrum adventuring, and anyone who says otherwise will be sentenced to playing with a Vic-20 for the rest of their days.

Label: Activision
Author: Abstract Concepts
Price: £14.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: None
Reviewer: Sandra Sharkey

Mindfighter as a book was written by Anna Popkess during late 1986 and early 1987. The adventure has been programmed by Fergus McNeil on a new adventure writing system S.W.A.N. (System Without A Name) which was developed by Tim Gilberts, Graeme Yeandle and Hugh Hamer-Powell.

The package consists of a cassette, paperback novel, poster and a players' guide.

You must read the book to get some idea of the game world you will be entering, as the players' guide does not really give you much idea of your aim in the adventure.

Robin is an eleven year old boy gifted with psychic powers who has woken up on a heap of rubble in the middle of a desolate ruined city. Somehow he has arrived in the future after the big bang, and must find a way to return to his own time.

All around you will see the effects of radiation on the people. Mobs have formed and the whole place is crawling with System Guards, and has become a sort of police state. The penalty for most crimes is death.

Along the way you will meet a variety of characters; some of them will be friendly but others you will have to fight with whatever weapon you have to hand.

There are some gory pieces of text in the adventure but I felt they were needed to convey the harshness of life under the rule of The System guards.

Some special commands that the game recognises can either be typed in, or you can access an icon screen by pressing 'ENTER'. You can save to or load from disc, tape or RAM - I couldn't manage to get a save to tape to load back, out this may be due to a problem with my cassette recorder!

Other commands include "script/unscript" for those of you with printers who want to keep a permanent record of your progress through the game. You can also choose to play the game in verbose or brief mode. Verbose gives you the long room description of each location and brief gives the short one line description to allow you to move about the game at a much faster pace. I found the icon screen awkward to use and preferred to use text where possible.

Mapping the adventure is not an easy task as you can enter a location by typing 'EAST' but if you type 'EAST again you find that you've gone West. I can't see any reason for doing this. It is very annoying and time wasting.

If you persevere with the mapping however you can then start to play the adventure. Examining everything is a must, but beware as EXAM' is not recognised and could be misleading; you need to type EXAMI'.

You tend to get 'killed' frequently, another pet hate of mine, but once I started to play the game and made some progress I found that I was beginning to get hooked.

On the whole I think the storyline is good and the adventure seems to have captured the atmosphere very well. If you are into parapsychology and concerned about the possible effects of a nuclear war then you will undoubtedly find something in this adventure that will grab your interest and keep you playing.

An Abstract Concept from Activision.

Fergus McNeill, the man who brought you Delta 4, The Boggit and (soon) Smirking Horror is a collaborator in this latest venture from Abstract Concepts, a new adventure design house run by Anna Popkess. Mindfighter is the first game from the label, previously previewed by the Pilgrim and now on general release.

The game runs under a new adventure authoring system called SWAN (apparently short for System Without A Name). Most large adventure houses use their own systems, but until recently writers like Fergus and Anna have relied on clever programming of more widely available utilities such as The Quill. Having their own in-house programming system is a big step forward.

However, the small print reveals that SWAN is actually produced by, amongst others, Tim Gilberts of Gilsoft/Quill fame. This explains why the new system is something of a three steps forward, one step back affair - but more of that in a minute...

The game concerns a psychic child, Robin, who has somehow materialised in a post-holocaust Southampton where life is made even more miserable by Chinese militia. You have to find out what's going on, return to the present day, and prevent the disaster from taking place. At least I THINK that's what you're supposed to do! The game packaging doesn't help much, preferring to gloat over the horror of your situation.

This vagueness, plus other quirks, induces a good deal of frustration. The landscape is extremely difficult to map, with seemingly illogical geographical relationships between locations.

The parser features TAKE ALL... EXCEPT as well as RAM SAVE and LOAD, IT, and OOPS but still retains certain archaic features. In particular, it will say THAT WAS'NT POSSIBLE when what it really means is I DONT UNDERSTAND which can be very misleading when trying to work out the solution to a puzzle. Even when you completely flummox it, and it admits I CANT UNDERSTAND, it doesn't say which word it's having difficulty with. It seems a long time since I've had to make these criticisms about the parser of a premium-priced product.

Similarly awkward is the method of conversation with other interactive characters - you still have to SAY TO person MESSAGE, rather than just NAME, MESSAGE. Other rough edges include occasional inappropriate responses as in:

>FILL JERRY CAN WITH WATER
ROBIN FILLS THE WATER

...after which episode I found I was carrying WATER without a container.

What saves this game, however, is the drama of the setting, some excellent if rather sombre graphics; tough puzzles; and a useful icon-dnven command system. These features do help to maintain interest, but let's hope that with Abstract Concepts' next game they're riding the lasting interest wagon rather than having to keep it going.

Reviewer: The Pilgrim

RELEASE BOX
C64/128, £14 99cs, £19.99dk, Out Now
Spec, £14 99cs, Out Now
Ams, £14.99cs, £19.99dk, Out Now
Amiga, £24.99dk, Out Now
Atari ST, £24.99dk, Out Now
IBM PC, £24 99dk, Out Now

MACHINES: Cassettes - Price £14.99, C64/128; Spectrum 48K/128K/Plus; Amstrad CPC. Disks - Price £24.99, Atari ST; Amiga; Amstrad PCW; MS DOS.
SUPPLIER: Activision/Abstract Concepts

Mindfighter is based on a novel of the some name, by Anna Popkess. This full-length (150 page) paperback, has been published especially for inclusion with the game. It was originally written for publication as a stand-alone book, with no thought of an adventure game in mind.

The story centres on a group of youngsters studying parapsychology at Southampton University. Robin, the youngest, is an orphan, and only eleven years old. He rooms with Matthew, and manages to bring himself up on his own remarkably well for a lad of his age, as well as coping with the final year of his degree course. He has some remarkable powers (as might be expected for an 11 year old degree student) - and as the story opens, he has just successfully gone into a trance and managed to reduce the rate of radioactive decay of a lump of uranium.

Alison is nineteen, and a bag of nerves. In her childhood, her father treated her mother brutally, and she committed suicide after he raped her. However, after a long absence, he traces Alison, and re-appears to try to rape her, his own daughter, as well. This is prevented by another student, Harry, who is a tower of strength support to Alison.

The students are currently planning their latest jolly wheeze - an attempt to metamorphasise themselves into the bodies of animals. They read up about the subject of werewolves to get a few hints and tips on how to set about the task. Well, I'd need a clue or two on that myself, wouldn't you? Their professor, not in the know, conveniently gives them a month off from their studies, as they seem to be too pre-occupied to get down to any serious work.

Before long they have mastered it, although disappointed that they can only hold animal form for about fifteen minutes at a time. Meanwhile, Robin becomes withdrawn, and eventually goes into a trance, speaking to them as if from another world. It soon becomes apparent that he thinks he is in Southampton of the near future, after a nuclear war. The group, together with their professor, get together with him, to help him to find the key to prevent the war, thus saving mankind from the dreadful future Robin describes. In following his exploration, his friends are aided by Robin's somewhat unusual ability to project images of what he sees in the other world, through his eyes.

I found the book lacking in the slightest degree of credibility, written in a superficial style, describing morbid and depressing events with a level of detail which the author seemed to relish.

The adventure game was written by Fergus McNeill, using an entirely new system developed for Abstract Concepts, by Tim Gilberts (of Quill lame) and his team. All versions have graphics, and the pictures change through a series of 'vertical shutters', giving a very smooth effect. The graphics themselves vary between versions. I played the Atari ST version, and found most of the pictures dismal, but effective. But then the whole mood of the game is dismal.

Multiple complex commands are possible, such as GET THE NEWSPAPER AND READ IT. PUT THE NEWSPAPER INTO THE BOX. There is an OOPS command (retracts your last move) available on the bigger memory machines. Disk and ram save, text only, verbose/brief, sound on/off, and a printer option, are available from a set of icons, depending which computer you are using. Previous command editing is also supported on all versions. Although sentences entered may be complex, many simple ones are not supported, and give a poor message in response. Whilst it is possible to get information by EXAMINING some objects, quite often EXAMINE (object) replies that "... Robin could not examine that." What? Even if he found nothing, surely he could examine it! At one time, Robin wanted to cover his face with some rag.

COVER was not successful, so he tried to PUT RAG OVER FACE, and managed to drop it. When he decided he had been harassed enough by a tall guard, he tried to HIT GUARD WITH WRENCH. Nope - he couldn't do that. But he did manage to hit him with the command KILL GUARD WITH WRENCH. Strange, that you must set out with the intention to kill, rather than to disable, to get someone off your back. But that does seem to be consistent with the general brutal approach throughout the game.