REVIEWS COURTESY OF ZXSR

Operation Stallion
by A.J. Wright
Wrightchoice Software
1987
Crash Issue 41, Jun 1987   page(s) 62,63

Producer: Wrightchoice Software
Retail Price: £6.95
Author: A J Wright

This Quilled, Patched and Illustrated program was sent to me some time ago. It's the first part of a trilogy of adventures which give the successful adventurer a chance to collect £500 from the software house should he or she complete all three releases. This game consists of two quite distinct parts land is so old that parts three and four should be ready about now. Part One sees you finding your way to the briefing room to meet your boss CJ. On your way you collect some items by searching around your office and, if you can avoid the two (rather obvious) sudden deaths, arrive at the briefing room to collect the equipment for your mission. But this is jumping the gun. Let's see who you are and learn about your mission.

For the last six months Britain has been swamped with drugs. Large quantities of high quality heroin have made their way into the country, and it was all the Drugs Squad Officers could do to prevent the system collapsing. One lead emerged during intensive questioning of captured dealers - a Mr Big who went by the name of Stallion. A stroke of luck then led the team to a crashed lorry which was found to have the same type of heroin as their earlier hauls hidden within its tyres. A company named Grand Union Supplies were transporting a cargo of machinery parts to Istanbul with the lorry, and would seem to have returned from that city with the heroin aboard. Enquiries into the background of this company revealed it was run by one Chow King Kwok, whose record showed a history of drugs-related offences. The team's - head, Detective Superintendent Chambers, felt that they were on to something and that Kwok might be the Stallion.

Catching Kwok at his sinister game proved far from easy however, as the criminal always seemed to keep one step ahead of the team. Then an agent following Kwok discovered the existence of a mole supplying him with their every move, but the agent was killed before he could reveal the mole's identity. It was now that Kwok's case became a matter of great urgency and the Prime Minister was informed.

During times of peace you are John Blake a reliable administrator in the records department. Only two people know otherwise: Charles Jenson (CJ) your boss, and the Prime Minister. Your alter ego is The Fixer, a member of a small crack division, working in areas outside the jurisdiction of the law. The work you perform is too important to be left to human foibles and for this reason a small explosive device has been implanted in your brain to ensure your continued loyalty.

The adventure begins with a view of your office. The picture here isn't too had but it is slowly drawn and even more slowly shaded, and it's rather untidily scrolled about two thirds off the screen. The graphical quality becomes rather academic under these conditions. I make some fuss over the slow drawing for good reason: as the descriptions are long they tend to scroll off with your input and R for Redescribe goes via the picture again - quite a wait I can tell you. The view for the office picture, like some of the other room representations, is from the top side of one of the walls, a perspective which seems to work just fine.

The location descriptions do manage to create some atmosphere in their length, just cop your eyes on this one, 'You're standing in your office. It is rather an untidy affair. You can see a sturdy desk with two drawers, one of which is slightly open, a telephone sits on top of the desk amidst a sea of papers and manilla files. A filing cabinet stands in one corner. There are also two uncomfortable- looking chairs, and a laden bookshelf. A picture and several charts hang on the walls. On your right is a window whilst the door is south. You are also aware of a book.' Up until the phone rings (it rings six times!) summoning you to the briefing room to meet CJ, things are quite straightforward, with the GET ALL command, unusual in this type of adventure, proving most valuable.

Examining the bookshelf gives the same report as examining the book, a remark which seems odd unless a red herring is a tropical fish ('It's a hook on tropical fish, a whole chapter is devoted to red herrings'). Once the boss has summoned you the program seems to clam up, not allowing you to do anything, although you are now allowed to leave your office, something denied you previously on the pretext that it was not your tea break. Exiting south to your secretary's office and west through an oak door brings you to corridors of typing pools.

Part Two is begun by saving the objects CJ has offered you at the end of Part One. The numbers of the equipment on offer are found by consulting the catalogue and I think you'll find six objects are your limit. In Part Two you have traced Kwok to his new operational base at his brother's mansion in Scotland. A further complication is now brought in as this brother is a member of the Chinese Consulate and as such enjoys the privilege of diplomatic immunity. A raid by the police is therefore out of the question. This is clearly your job, and the PM's instructions are to obtain the evidence to implicate Kwok, get him to divulge the name of the double agent who has infiltrated your ranks, and finally, terminate Stallion. By the time you reach Scotland only 17 of your 24 hours remain, and each move (including Redescribe) costs you six minutes. If the bull should kill you early on, the saved game from Part One must he loaded again, so take care.

Operation Stallion is a very worthy attempt to bring the excitement of a thriller to the adventure scene. I particularly liked the long and fascinating storyline to draw the player into the plot. There are one or two spelling mistakes (many centred around 'ie' order in words) but overall, a fine game.

Difficulty: first part seems simple enough
Graphics: some are quite detailed though all are based on square shapes. eg doors, corridors and stairs
Presentation: average, to say the least
Input facility: verb/noun
Response: fast, but very slow graphics


REVIEW BY: Derek Brewster

Atmosphere77%
Vocabulary78%
Logic75%
Addictive Qualities72%
Overall73%
Summary: General Rating: Interesting.

Transcript by Chris Bourne

Your Sinclair Issue 16, Apr 1987   page(s) 87

FAX BOX
Game: Operation Stallion
Publisher: Wrightchoice Software, PO Box 100, 159 Welbeck Crescent, Troon, Ayrshire, Scotland KA10 6BD
Price: £6.95

Yet another adventure with a scenario that's had a lot of work put into it, and yet the game itself doesn't quite live up to the promise, mainly because of some niggling little faults. The first in a trilogy of adventures, you might be prepared to put up with those faults when you know there's a £500 prize for the first to complete all three.

You are John Blake, seemingly an obscure government employee, who's true role as a troubleshooter is known only by the boss Charles Jenson, alias CJ, and the Prime Minister, alias PM. Your job involves you in activities on the fringes of legality on behalf of the government, but there's one drawback - you have a brain implant that allows CJ or the PM to take you out at any time.

Operation Stallion is a complex two-part tale of heroin smuggling, and your aim is to terminate a character called Kwok inside 24 hours. In the first part you start in your office, the description of which is as lengthy as you'll get in an Infocom game, though naturally you shouldn't expect the same kind of detailed interaction. After a few moves your phone rings, and CJ (I didn't get where I am today by...) summons you to the briefing room. There you're given your mission, and invited to choose from the 24 items of equipment made available to you. I think this feature, which crops up in adventures now and again, is totally out of place. You have no way of knowing at the outset what equipment you're likely to need, and the completion of part two is likely to be tedious as you continually realise you're going to have to go back to the start and choose a different item to take with you. It's not just a case of quickly loading up an earlier saved game and playing it through again, but of loading up part one in its entirety, then loading a saved game or playing through to the briefing room, then saving your game, then reloading part two, then loading the newly saved game from part one, then playing it through from the start to where you'd left off. Phew! I'd suggest you make a careful note of all 24 items from part one, and continually refer to it as well as to your inventory when you come up against problems in part two.

A great deal of effort has been put into the text and graphics (Quill/Illustrator), so it's a shame the thoroughness doesn't extend throughout the program itself. Early on in part two, for instance, you need to get past a bull to get into Kwok's mansion. Despite the fact that I was carrying a machine gun, a stun grenade, nitroglycerine, plastic explosives and a canister of KO gas, none of them seemed to be the solution called for and so the bull kept seeing me off. A bit unrealistic, I reckon. They've also spelt 'canister' incorrectly with two n's as an object, but you must spell it correctly to get or drop it. A few other text mistakes crop up too.

At about half price or less, I'd say it was worth buying, but at £6.95 I think it's priced too highly, even with the potential appeal of that prize. A pity.


REVIEW BY: Mike Gerrard

Graphics8/10
Text8/10
Value For Money5/10
Personal Rating6/10
Overall7/10
Transcript by Chris Bourne

Sinclair User Issue 60, Mar 1987   page(s) 99

Label: Wrightchoice Software
Price: £6.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Gary Rook

Wrightchoice Software is a new name to the adventure field, but the company's first game, Operation Stallion, will look familiar enough to the seasoned adventurer. Why might that be, I hear massed SU readers cry? Simple - like so many adventures for the jolly old Spectrum these days, it was written using Gilsoft's indispensable trio of adventure generating utilities, The Quill, Patch and Illustrator.

Let's start with the plot. Britain is being flooded with heroin, origin unknown. A villainous Chinaman, Chow King Kwok, is suspected of having something to do with it. Unfortunately, his brother has diplomatic immunity, and CKK is operating from his house. Plus, there's a mole in the special investigation team who is tipping the baddie off to the police's every move. Someone has to get into the house, find the evidence against CKK, identify the traitor, and terminate the drug-smuggling oriental, with extreme prejudice. Sounds like a job for (your name here), licensed to kill.

On to the game itself. The graphics facilities have been used well, especially with the first location, a very well detailed government type bureaucrat's office. Nice tough, putting 00-whatever-you-happen-to-be in a pinstriped suit - we tend to forget that dashing James Bond is just another civil servant too. There seems to be an awful lot of doors in the first part of the adventure, all done in different colours, but looking pretty similar none the less. Apart from that, there's not that much else that springs to mind, graphics-wise. They're good, but a bit repetitive. The character set is good, very pleasing to the eyes.

The parser is standard Quill and is actually very good. It understands 'get all', for example - a lot of games make you list every object you want to pick up separately.

As to the actual game. I can't tell you much more than that. I've finished the first part, but I can't get part two to load. It seems like part one is very short, with no real problems as such: the only thing that is likely to tax the brain is choosing what equipment to take with you. You get presented with an enormous catalogue with nearly 20 separate items. You only get to take a limited number. I'd guess that you aren't really going to know what to choose until you've played part two a few times.

There may be more to find in part one - there's a door you can open, but can't go through. Imagine how frustrating it's likely to be when you discover that you've missed something vital from the typing pool, and you have to go through the rigamarole of loading in part one again, playing through the whole thing a second time, saving your data, loading two, loading in your data from part one and so on and so on...


REVIEW BY: Gary Rook

Overall2/5
Summary: Not wonderful or absolutely dreadful though it seems a bit short on problems so far. Worth a look, but a bit pricey.

Transcript by Chris Bourne

C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 65, Mar 1987   page(s) 71

SUPPLIER: Wrightchoice Software
MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
PRICE: £6.95 Mail Order only from PO Box 100, 159 Welbeck Crescent, Troon, Ayrshire, KA10 6BD

Everyone today is aware of the problems of drug abuse, in particular heroin addiction. It comes as no surprise, then, that sooner or later, an adventure would appear that tackles one aspect of this very important topic.

Operation Stallion is such an adventure. Your task is to break up a heroin smuggling ring - so well put together that the normal forces of law and justice are totally ineffective. The scene is therefore set, and as the killer arm of an agency which operates outside the law, it is now up to you to destroy the smuggling ring within a mere 17 hours.

The adventure begins back at your headquarters, where, in the privacy of your own office, you begin the game by finding some useful accessories which will help you later. Suddenly the phone rings (in fact, it was so realistic that my wife actually went to answer it!) and upon answering, your immediate superior, the mysterious "CJ", summons you to the conference room for a briefing on your mission.

Once there, you are informed of your task, and led to a small room, where from a choice of 20 various weapons and aids, you are allowed to select a number of them to take with you.

At this point Part 1 of the game is concluded, and you must save your position to load into Part 2.

Here you begin your task in earnest - to penetrate the mansion which is the nerve centre of the operation.

It was about here in the game that I became aware of some very serious shortcomings.

Some of the simplest commands were not recognised, and it was extremely hard convincing what I wanted to do.

Perhaps of even greater importance is the time limit. Each move ticks six minutes up on the clock, and you only have those 17 hours to begin with. Even if you type in total rubbish which the program has no chance of interpreting, another six minutes is lost.

Still, Operation Stallion is not too bad, if you can live with its idiosyncrasies, rewards can be yours.


REVIEW BY: Steve Donaghue

Vocabulary4/10
Atmosphere7/10
Personal5/10
Value4/10
Transcript by Chris Bourne

All information in this page is provided by ZXSR instead of ZXDB