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sailor
friends, jump onto a ship, and sail off to retrieve
the Golden Fleece before returning with it to the King,
who will reward you handsomely. Sounds great, but alas
-- this is one of those games that the Wiz reckons we
could do without.
First,
it's disk-only, and all the extra space is used to provide
full-screen graphics -- at the expense of the text,
which is pretty skimpy and just squeezes in at the bottom
of the display. Also, I'm afraid, at the expense of
the vocabulary, which is virtually non-existent. Trying
to type 'Examine fence', on finding a location with
a fence specifically mentioned, is a waste of time --
don't expect the program to understand 'Fence', it doesn't
even understand 'examine'. In fact, it doesn't really
understand much at all, so most of the challenge of
the game is finding and using your possessions in the
right place and in the right way.
So,
I hear you cry, with all that space given over to graphics,
it must be a very PRETTY game -- pretty grim, more like.
The graphics are about Hobbit-standard, and since
that particular standard was established two years ago
I think we're entitled to see a small improvement by
now. The only small point worth noting is that objects
are shown in the display and disappear when you take
them. Big deal -- I'd rather be able to examine them
and use them properly rather than see them flip in and
out of the picture.
As
it is, the original story of Ulysses is so superb that
some of its atmosphere rubs off on this game. However,
this modicum of enjoyment is spoilt by having to endure
endless disk accesses as the patchy graphics and skimpy
text are located and flashed (with much glitching) onto
the screen. Nor is there any sound worth mentioning
-- except a little 'Ping' when the text threatens to
spill off the bottom of the screen and you have to press
shift to see what comes next. Frankly, I felt more inclined
to press the reset button.
Perhaps
I shouldn't be TOO rude about this game, but really
I think we can justifiably expect more for our money
these days, especially where disc games are concerned.
Too much time here has been spent on crummy graphics
and too little on game design, I fear.
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