Producer: Activision
Retail Price: £7.99
Language: Machine code
Author: Interplay Productions

You might wonder at times why I place so much editorial comment in reviews. There is a simple reason for this. If I were just to keep to saying 'yes', 'no', or 'maybe' about games this column would become tedious in the extreme. Mindshadow is an awfully good program, there's no doubting that. But what I would like to comment on is its lacklustre marketing, and perhaps, theme. I mean to say, when you have the likes of Robin of Sherwood, Sherlock, and Lord of the Rings knocking around with their immediate hookability, is it really enough just to throw a game at the public with the following spiel "lost in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of a mystery. Who are you? Where will you go? What will you do? London. Luxembourg. You struggle for answers, your identity, and for the faceless betrayer who left you to perish"?

As you may be aware, everyone who hasn't 'made it' and settled into the placid waters of The Civil Service must become a small business. This generally entails either clothing, feeding or entertaining those who work in the public sector and the buzz word for success is USP: the unique selling point which will give your business the edge over the competition. (Of course this country really needs small businesses to create wealth, like manufacturing or new technology - but no-one's told the bank managers who give respectability a bad name). Anyhow, I digress. The point is where on earth is the unique selling point in this product? There isn't one.

Having said all that above, this program really is good and commercial and knocks spots off the opposition. 'Good' because it sports many classy features like a superb tutorial which provides a marvellous introduction to playing adventures and includes an adventure simulation taking you through the step by step thinking behind the moves, GET ALL and DROP ALL, a strong EXAMINE command, QUICK SAVE and QUICKLOAD which allows saving within RAM, and a HELP ME CONDOR command which can be used three times when all else fails (Condor is the bird which featured in that superb BBC program set in South America). Unlike the idiotic, condescending quips of so many disappointing rivals this game's HELP function is truly superb. When you ask for help, help is exactly what you get. How this game has ticked all the boxes and managed to get every last sophisticated feature into 48K will leave the opposition scratching their heads for some time to come. 'Commercial' because it has a superb picture at each location, very well-designed and drawn. Rivals will be particularly impressed by the subtle use of colour and shading to give the graphics a very distinctive flavour. Whoever designed the graphics certainly deserves a pat on the back.

Play-wise this game is in a different league to most I review, with a friendly vocabulary, and logical problems which are not too difficult to solve. It is one of those pleasant adventures where effort is directed towards problem solving rather than word-matching. This is in no small way due to the game's origins, as spellings and grammar point to an American source. A dory in one of the first few frames turns out to be an American word for boat (a flat-bottomed boat with a high bow and stern).

Although much of what I've said concerning this game is complimentary there still remains one area where it knocks the opposition for six. The program's intelligent responses to anything you might care to input is truly staggering when compared to the poor and inadequate 'You Can'ts' of its rivals. Take these (by no means the best) examples. In the first frame on the beach you can pick up the shell and LISTEN SHELL which elicits 'You hear Lorne Greene narrating an ocean series!'. North and east to the dory EXAM DORY gives 'The boat is obviously quite old. Its frame of rotten wood and rusted steel is all that remains'. GET STEEL doesn't just give the obligatory OK but the following 'You strip a solid chunk of steel off the skeleton of the boat'. EXAM STEEL now gives another variation! 'Although slightly rusted, the steel is in pretty good shape'. To the east, in the clearing of a small jungle oasis, EXAM VINE gives a different response after you have picked a vine. In other words the program is always aware of what you have done and keeps the responses intelligent. This is adventuring at its best and if you don't see this one you will be the loser.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: straightforward
Graphics: very impressive and a new distinctive style
Presentation: good-looking
Input facility: some way beyond verb/noun
Response: very fast
Special features: superb tutorial intro to adventuring and useful HELP function

Activision
£7.99

What a graphics adventure! Great pics, great puzzles - something for everyone!

The program is in two parts, Mind 1 and Mind 2. Mind you, you can only play the second part if you've completed the first. And that's not easy. It all starts on a desert island. It's idyllic except for the fact that you haven't the faintest idea who you are, where you are, and what the hell you're doing there.

Still, you're helped by an excellent program. Although the location descriptions are quite short, the detailed large-scale graphics do wonders for creating atmosphere. You'll soon be off and sailing the seas, visiting other islands until you make it to the mainland.

To help you work out what's happening, there's an unusual command - THINK. Use it at the right time and in the right place and it'll drop you hints as to what's going on. And as the game progresses you'll stumble across further clues - thinking about iheni will also reveal a little more.

As a bonus for novices, there's a special Tutorial file on the tape. This'll give you an excellent training in adventuring, making it an enjoyable splash-out for first-timers. Experienced adventurers may find the game limited in its locations, but even so the puzzles are fairly tricky.

Publisher: Activision
Price: £7.99
Memory: 48K

Perhaps Activision's cassette insert designers have become too exhausted by their efforts over World Championship Boxing or Ballblazer to spend too much time checking the accuracy of the instructions on Mindshadow, a new text adventure.

You are clearly told to enter LOAD "MIND1" to access the first part of the game. Don't bother because the program section is really called 'PART A'. Such laziness doesn't encourage either players or reviewers to adopt a positive approach and, for a game costing £7.99, comes across as pretty sloppy.

The offending insert describes the game as 'a brilliantly wrought mystery' and promises intricate challenges for novices and advanced adventurers alike, so I overcame my spleen and loaded in the preliminary instruction program to prepare myself for the excitement. That tells you how to play adventures and may be of some use to the total novice but won't really be of great interest to all you advanced types.

The game comes in two parts and you will need to complete the first to access the second. You are an amnesiac castaway stranded on a desert island. The aim is to find out who you are by visiting the locations and, at suitable points, to enter "THINK..." followed by the object or place you want to know more about. Some of your past history may then be revealed. A limited amount of help is available but it's wise to be sparing with this - only three requests will be tolerated.

Most locations have graphics. Those are colourful but take a long time to draw. That can be bypassed once you know your way around as the interpreter will understand multiple commands, allowing you to get to a particular location quickly without having to wait for the pictures.

The first half is an absolute doddle. All you have to do is rush around the island, using a map conveniently hidden in the cave, and find the correct things with which to make a fire. You'll also need a bottle of rum to bribe the pirates to rescue you. Once on their ship you need only find a way to drop anchor to board a waiting Royal Navy ship. There are very few locations so the permutations aren't very complicated. This took me about 20 minutes, without any help at all, and made me wonder just how big the second part might be.

Fortunately, the next section is a bit more complex, setting you down in the London docks area. By listening carefully to the ramblings of derelict winos you may pick up some tips on how to acquire forged air tickets to get you to Luxembourg. You will also find a bit more about who you are.

At Rick's Cafe you should take a close look at your hat to get the details of an assignation with, I presume, the hat-check girl. Regrettably the graphics showing the note inside your titfer are, as far as I'm concerned, illegible. This made the entire proceedings useless for me and I gave up in total rage after trying out many different approaches.

I wasn't too unhappy about quitting as, although the game has some good features, the plot is-not very original and follows the thriller/mystery format. I didn't get the terrible urge to continue that is the hallmark of a really good adventure.

It also seems to be rather small - the press release claims 80 screens and Part One had about 35 or so, cleared in under half an hour. All of Part Two is therefore not much bigger even if it is a little harder. I can think of many other games I'd rather spend £7.99 on, adventures which really do have intricate challenges.

SUPPLIER: Activision
MACHINE: Spectrum, Amstrad, C64 (disk and cassette), Atari 800 XE/XEL (disk)
PRICE: £9.99

Mindshodow was originally released on disk only for the Commodore 64, an increasing trend for adventures originating from the U.S. It is very rarely that any game is reviewed twice in C+VG, but this release of Mindshadow in a cassette version, not only for Commodore, but also for both Spectrum and Amstrad computers, is unusual.

It affords the ideal opportunity to see how a game that reads in graphics from disk while it plays, turns out on tape. Such a comparison must also be a comment on the capabilities of the respective hardware.

To recap on the full review (C+VG July 1985) you find yourself stranded on a on a desolate beach on a tropical island, with no idea of who you are or where you come from. You take it from there!

The main drawback of the cassette versions is that Mindshadow comes in two and a half parts. Part two of the game cannot be played until part one is completed - saved data must be loaded from one part to the other.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, it is standard procedure in large tape-original games such as Tower of Despair.

However, for a faithful conversion from one original part, the plot must have a structure that prevents returning to locations appearing in part one, when playing part two. Mindshadow has this sort of plot.

The half-part is accounted for by the built-in tutorial, which is offered as an option on disk, but which must pass through the cassette head whether used or not, on the tape version.

In both tape versions, the loading instructions were incorrect. The Amstrad produced a 'Memory full' error whilst loading the main program after the tutorial, using the quoted command Q. To overcome this it is necessary to power off before loading the main program.

The Spectrum had a worse problem. No warning is given in the instructions about the lack of motor control. To stop at the correct position to continue after the tutorial, it is necessary to stand by to stops the tape immediately the tutorial has loaded.

The command Q takes the computer back to READY, but the program name given to load the next part, MINDl, is incorrect.

This isn't important if you are at the end of the tutorial, since you can type LOAD "". But if you wish to bypass the tutorial altogether, you would need to type LOAD "PART A" (note upper case) at the outset.

This hassle apart, how did the tape versions rate in comparison with disk? I compared the graphics, and the response time in moving from one location to another, when the picture has to be redrawn and response is at its slowest.

The Amstrad beats the Commodore disk in response time; the graphics are not only faster to load/display, but more colourful, and have higher resolution. My only criticism is the use of red in place of brown, giving the pirate ship a rather gaudy appearance.

The surprise came in the response comparison of the Spectrum version. For most movements, the Spectrum is barely quicker than the Commodore; in some cases it is noticeably slower. And anything that is slower than a Commodore load IS slow!

The pictures are as faithful a copy of the originals as I imagine it is possible to produce, given the different graphics characteristics of the machines. The text in all versions is, as far as I could tell, identical.

Here the Amstrad lost out a little, for in using the 80 column text mode, the text was a little difficult to read on an ordinary television set.

A feature now becoming popular in Adventures, is QUICKSAVE and QUICKLOAD - a boon to lazy adventurers (like me) who are about to undertake a risky move.

Usually, this means a save to RAM, as indeed it does in the cassette versions of Mindshadow. However, on the disk version, although the process is quick, it is far from instant, as the position is saved to the game diskette. So here, both the cassette versions won hands down.

In conclusion, these tape conversions show up in a good light against the Commodore disk version. You won't get anything less - even the 'change to full-screen text' toggle is provided.

Activision
£9.95

I thought up an amazingly witty comment about amnesia for this review, but I've forgotten what it was! The reason tor that (attempted) witticism is that you start this game not knowing who or whore you are, or why you are there. The object of the game is to find this information, which makes a change from searching for lost princesses.

Mindshadow is of American origins, indicated not only by the idiosyncratic spelling (like "marvelous") but in the extreme professionalism and good design. Whilst British adventures are often innovative they are just as often flawed, and forget the needs of the player. But, like many American games, what Mindshadow lacks in innovation, it makes up for in quality. For example on the tape is a short tutorial - and this is by far the best introduction to adventuring I have EVER seen. It even guides the player through a mini-adventure complete with its own illustrations describing almost every command you could think of. The game proper is extremely user friendly, with an unusually wide variety of responses.

The graphics are in an unusual style, as you can see from our screenshots, but are above average and varied. They can be slow to build up but this is offset by the facility to jump straight to a location using a string of movement commands. The puzzles are intelligent and logical, and though Mindshadow is nothing stunning it is entertaining and worth looking at; it's good to see some American software on the Spectrum, even at this slightly expensive price.