Previous Next

Legend of Apache Gold is one of two adventures written using the Graphic Adventure Creator by incentive Software.

For anyone who hasn't read the review of Winter Wonderland (elsewhere this issue). Incentive's GAC is their version of Gilsoft's Quill.

Apache Gold is at least reasonably original. I can only think of one other adventure off hand that is set in the Wild West. But at the same time, it's a little too regimented. Things are very neat. In an adventure like this, you get the idea that someone has sat down and worked out the best solution. There's nothing really spontaneous or particularly inventive about it.

The story is as follows: you, Luke Warme, are a cowboy down on your luck. Hearing of a legend that says that the Apaches bury gold with their dead chiefs, and knowing that one has just died, you decide to do a quick bit of grave robbing. Not, I would have thought, particularly heroic, but then Luke seems hardly John Wayne material.

So here you are in your dusty wagon. The first problem is to get the horse moving: the second is to escape the Apaches who turn up. Actually, I'm not sure that you are supposed to escape them, as you get transported to their encampment remarkably quickly. Plus, it's very easy to escape the one guard they've left behind. This Indian at least seems more like one from the Beano than any real threat.

You then find, much to your surprise that the Indians have gone out hunting lunch. You know this because they have left you a note telling you. This means that you are at liberty to explore the encampment and the surrounding countryside - a place of magic, mystery and some very strange furniture.

The game plays well enough, and the graphics are OK, but there's nothing really exciting here. The graphics are a bit repetitive too - rather too many wigwam interiors, I thought.

A bit dull and disappointing. Not one to lift your scalp. A lot more could have been done with the plot.