Producer: Artic Computing
Retail Price: £6.95
Language: Machine Code
Author: Dave Stone

Arctic Computing, although often distracted by the arcade sector, still churn out adventures like so many hamburgers from a takeaway. Arctic's large catalogue of competent and difficult adventures have not kept pace with the market where rivals have been quicker to innovate and refine their product. This game, again, is competent, with fine graphics and a fast response, but perhaps it is more correctly described as pedantic rather than difficult.

You, Captain Ferret, are circling a strange planet when you take a direct hit and, courageously abandoning the crew to their fate, you parachute to the relative safety of the planet's surface. Here you begin the task of collecting the very important equipment scattered about in the debris.

Not much of a storyline admit Artic humorously and, well, at least they are honest and don't go on trying to prop up a plot that never existed. To cut a short story even shorter the locations are divided into an Aztec sector and Hyperdome area. I hope this isn't one of those reviews where you try and make sense of the questionable bits and pieces of a pre-production cassette only to find all explained about two months later in the main body of the magazine. I can see it now, Dead at the Controls is a superb whimsical piece, so humorous, so inventive relating how a captain disguised as a ferret goes about proving the link between anxiety about hairy legs with the lack of trouser bottoms in pre-Socratic society and how this all relates to the artificial propagation of plants.

Anything is possible in computer software but I think it unlikely that a plot like that above will hatch out in this case.

The face the game presents to the world is attractive with a likeable loading screen followed by great graphics, although many on the forest theme are repeats, as are the pictures of the hyperdomes. One slight irritation in design is the use of large block capitals which are difficult to read when compared to their lower case brethren. The plot, or theme for that matter, remains obscure so I'll move straight onto the vocabulary. Alas, the vocabulary is most unhelpful with one or two specific examples coming to mind though the problem runs right through the adventure. Finding a mousetrap to deal with the mouse you GET MOUSETRAP but the program will only accept GET TRAP. Similarly GET HELMET rather than GET SPACE (HELMET) yet just as you were coming to terms with the dialogue it, on one occasion, chooses to accept the obvious; GET GEIGER or GET COUNTER are both accepted. Were this not awkward enough some of the verbs needed are ridiculously obscure. No ticking off for giving this one away. How about BAIT TRAP where SET TRAP is not accepted! The examine command is dormant and results in 'You don't see much'. Generally speaking, input is only accepted for the furtherance of your immediate task and there are few sidelines, humorous or otherwise.

I have said that this game has no discernable plot and this is true but it does have a thread running throughout in the form of a teleport machine. This machine is called by an object often found lying around on desks where calling the machine involves guessing which number to press and the location where you should press it. This is not so easy and soon becomes a chore.

Artic have produced a passable adventure which sports super graphics but is lacking in those ingredients that go to make a memorable game. Two comments best sum it up. In the first locality READ SIGN brings the retort 'Abandon all hope, etc' and, when caught out by the constant number pressing to summon the teleport machine it is worth remembering this game has the most efficient QUIT I have come across. No series of Y/N hurdles to negotiate. QUIT and enter sends you straight back to the first location in record time.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: very difficult due to pedantic word-matching
Graphics: on some locations and good
Presentation: quite good although graphics scroll off
Input facility: verb/noun
Response: very fast

Publisher: Artic
Memory: 48K
Price: £6.95

Artic's adventures have tended to follow a style which is straightforward and without frills. Apart from the addition of graphics, the last adventure Eye of Bain was very much in the same vein and none the worse for it.

When I received a pre-production version of Dead at the Controls, I expected to find a tight but competent text game with added graphics. After an hour or so of play I found myself pretty disappointed.

You are the captain of a spaceship which explodes over a strange new planet. Heroically leaving the crew to their fate you parachute to earth to discover some means of escape.

Wandering through the jungle, you find a teleport device in an Aztec city - hang on, what's this about Aztecs, aren't we supposed to be on a strange new world? Oh well... The teleporter will take you to several unrelated locations where you should be able to collect the various bits of a spacesuit. That's about it.

Despite fast, attractive graphics - some repeated several times for different locations - the game lacks atmosphere. Anything which is not directly relevant to the solution has no real existence - examining things like rock cairns inevitably results in the response, 'You don't see much'. The world offers no opportunity for diversion and ends up as a bleak, unstimulating environment. The descriptions are minimal.

If the review version of Dead at the Controls resembles the final production copies then, sadly, the game is nowhere near Artic's usual standard.

As the ex-captain a colonising spaceship who deserts his crew when under attack, you parachute to the surface of a strange planet and find yourself in a forest, armed only with some venom. Your mission is to effect an escape or rescue.

This is the latest offering from Artic and comes with a very smart looking character set which, even though purely upper case, is easy to read, There are graphics too which are instant to display and nicely detailed. The picture for each location is shown only once unless recalled with LOOK. This does not mean each picture is used only once - in fact quite a number of pictures double up for similar locations.

The input is of the two-word only type and I have rarely found that this detracts from a game. Unfortunately, it is the responses to those inputs that let the game down. It is not the speed of the responses - that is instant - it is the contents. At best the replies offer the player little encouragement - at worst they are illogical. This is a pity since it spoils an otherwise logical and interesting game.

As an example, if you should come across a calculator and examine it, you will be told there are four buttons. If you PRESS BUTTON or PRESS 1, you get the message: YOU CAN'T. This is because you first have to do something to the calculator to get any effect, but it implies that the action is a physical impossibility. YOU CAN'T is also the reply to a known verb and a rubbish noun. More careful use such commands as NOTHING HAPPENS would have avoided this problem.

That aside, I found the game quite enjoyable. There is a variety problems to solve and the game is designed in such a way that there is plenty of scope for exploration right from the beginning. This enables the player to get the feel for the game and form ideas on how to go about solving some of the problems, without coming up against a brick wall right near the beginning.

The game starts off in a forest and leads to a city with a large temple_ A booklet picked up on the way tells about a Sinclair ZX Teleporter and finding and using the device is one of the keys to moving on to the complex of Hyperdomes at the planet's space station.

Dead At the Controls is for the 48k Spectrum from Artic, priced £6.95.

48K Spectrum
Artic Computing
£6.95

Dead At The Controls is a new text and graphics adventure from a company whose earlier adventures have proved popular. Sad to have to report that although the graphics in this one attractive, the game itself is pretty boring.

The top half of the screen is used for an impressive graphic illustration of the current location. beneath this is a one line description of the place together with a list of objects that can be seen - they don't appear in the picture - and the possible exits from the location. Your input and the program's responses appear below this. The character set has been redesigned and looks quite attractive.

When you enter the same location or subsequent locations, the picture is suppressed but can be recalled by typing "look". It has to be said that many of the graphic illustrations are similar.

Although the graphics are colourful and the program has a fast response, the rest of the game is dull.