Producer: Compass
Retail Price: £2.50
Author: Tim Kemp, Jon Lemmon,

It was a very busy issue last month, so perhaps I can be forgiven for missing the full significance of the Golden Mask release from Compass. I can't remember being fully aware that Golden Mask was in fact the final part of a trilogy, begun by the famous Project X - The Microman, a game which later teamed up with three others to form the Tony Bridge Four Adventures.

Well, The O Zone is the second part of that trilogy, so you might say it's being reviewed somewhat late, and bear this in mind when considering some of the criticisms which may relate to programming of bygone days.

In some ways it was worth waiting, as the cassette now has a high-standard inlay - a welcome change when even large software houses send preproduction cassettes barren of all gloss. The screen display is most colourful, as was the case with Microman, with colours used to good effect to split up the text in the location descriptions and in the useful list of vocabulary given at the start.

This list serves notice of the absence of a HELP command and also points to some pretty peculiar uses of vocabulary such as SWITCH SWITCH and STICK BACK, this last referring to an operation carried out in an aircraft. More helpful and intelligible are the abbreviations G and D, which carry out a GET and a DROP respectively (though DOWN must therefore be spelled out fully).

You begin the game trapped inside a corridor. One direction is blocked by a large steel door while the other leads to what must be one of the quickest instant deaths in adventuring. The pictures in these opening scenes aren't altogether impressive and leave you with the feeling you've seen just one too many walls - blank walls!

Where a picture exists, it's shown on first visiting a location, after which it untidily scrolls up off the screen in jerks as you input below. On the aesthetic side the redesigned zero in the '50p' and '£10' aren't up to much either, looking like gnarled potatoes. But beyond looks there are some major concerns when it comes to the meat of the adventure.

One problem is the absurd story line, which is so banal it might be some sort of joke. Finding 50p by a computer console, you very shortly need it to pay the bus fare to the airport which is of course exactly 50p. Not too implausible, you might suppose, but then the wallet episode begins. Getting the wallet is somewhat unorthodox, with the conductor on the bus calling out to tell you you've left your wallet, and throwing it to you (in general, objects, often found with a token graphic by them, just materialise).

The next stage of the wallet saga reveals a rather strange aspect of the program - you must drop a container before its contents can be revealed. You see this later when you hold an envelope the wrong way round so that a key falls from it.

In the case of the wallet, 'As I open the wallet, a man runs past and tries to snatch it. It slips out of my hand and all of its contents are out. The man grabs the wallet and runs away'. The contents turn out to be a traveller's cheque and a ten-pound note which together make £110, which just happens to be the cost of your airline ticket...

Getting this ticket reveals yet another facet of this adventure - examining things magically transforms your chances of doing anything with them. It is seen at the vines where examining them first makes them more able to carry your weight, and when purchasing the ticket, where examining the lady (rather than talking to her) has her hinting that you might get somewhere by buying a ticket. Without examining this lady at the information desk you, for some inexplicable reason, can't purchase the ticket.

As the O Zone is the second part of the Microman trilogy, it takes the story of Professor Neil Richards, his Project X miniaturisation experiments, and the COM 2 high-tech computer one stage further. It's a game born of many utilities - the Quill, Illustrator, Press and Melbourne Draw.

Despite the appalling plot and curious vocabulary, I couldn't help but develop a soft spot for the O Zone, what with its colourful presentation, and music and sound on the 48K (the 128K has a quiet sound set against a noisy background of interference on the television speaker).

It would be silly to miss out the middle game of the trilogy, and I suppose that's the beauty of marketing them! The O Zone is obtainable mail order from Compass Software, 36 Globe Place, Norwich NR2 25Q.

COMMENTS

DIFFICULTY: not too difficult
GRAPHICS: average
PRESENTATION: good use of colour in text
INPUT FACILITY: verb/noun
RESPONSE: fast, Quill

FAX BOX
Title: The 'O' Zone
Publisher: Compass Software, 36 Globe Place, Norwich, Norfolk NR2 2SQ
Price: £2.50

The 'O' Zone is interesting on two counts, the first that it's an unofficial sequel to Project X: The Micro Man, and secondly it's the first release I've seen making use of Gilsoft's The Press, which gave the authors an extra 7K of memory for their text and graphics. Hard to tell how effective that is on your first few plays with a game, but as yet it seems to me to be another average everyday adventure. You don't play a miniaturised hero in this one, instead you're Agent 37 whose task it is to find Professor Neil Richards, who dramatically disappeared when one of his experiments went wrong.

You begin outside a lab with nothing but a pair of dark glasses for company, though they help you get through your first problem. So does the fact that the command you need is listed in the sample vocabulary you're given at the start of the game, along with the solution to a later teaser! Initial problems are usually easy, but the ones in this adventure didn't seem to get that much tougher. Having unearthed about half of the 80 locations fairly quickly, I took my first look at the cheat-sheet to see that there weren't all that many more hurdles to overcome. The inevitable spelling errors didn't help, with it's/its, aisle/isle and cubical/cubicle all getting confused.

Some nice touches, and I like the red herring at the airport (which I can't reveal as I'd like you to get caught by it too), but nothing brilliant and about right for the price.

SUPPLIER: Compass Software
MACHINE: Spectrum 48K/Amstrad
PRICE: £2.50 Mail Order only from Compass Software, 36 Globe Place, Norwich, Norfolk NR2 2SQ
VERSION TESTED: Spectrum

Tim Kemp and Jon Lemon wrote Project X - Microman, (reviewed November 1985: Paul Coppins personal rating 7) which later became (the best) part of the Fourmost Adventure compilation. The 'O' Zone is a sequel by the same authors, although there is no need to have played its forerunner.

Professor Richards, the scientist involved in Project X, has disappeared. Your task is to solve the mystery of his disappearance, and to recover the secret Project X papers.

Starting off in the Prof's laboratory, you discover that the computer is programmed to self destruct, taking you and the laboratory with it. This is the first problem you must overcome.

Events soon lead you to the airport, and a fraught flight, in continuation of your search - not before some fun in the departure lounge and a visit to the gents' toilets' though!

Here, as in all the graphics, the details are impeccable. Four urinals are shown in a neat row, with an open cubicle in the distance, but for the benefit of maiden aunts who do not wish to view urinals, there is a "picture off" command available.

The text (I did notice a couple of minor slips in grammar and spelling) is nicely laid out, attractive and easily read. A different colour is used for location, exits, objects and messages text. There is also a useful STORE and RECALL command for in-memory saves.

The vocabulary is reasonable, with an explanatory screen displayed each time the game is restarted. If you need to get back to it, all you have to do is STORE, QUIT, and play again, RECALLing your original position.

I played the Spectrum version. Very quick to start up with a turbo-load, this Quilled and Illustrated adventure claims to be the first to use The Press, Quill's text-compression add-on, before it became commercially available.

There is certainly plenty of text, but it is the detail and colour in the graphics, particularly the really smart loading screen, which gives the game a polish worthy of a more commercial launch than I suspect Compass Software is able to mount.

An interesting adventure, with plenty of problems, but not too difficult. A must at £2.50!