Previous Next

Hello. You're going to read lots of reviews of this game by people pretending to be Max Headroom - stuttering a lot, talking about golf shoes, that sort of thing. Well, I'm not. You see, my name's Bryce and I invented Headroom. I also invented an electronic parrot. It squawks.

For some reason everybody seems most impressed with Headroom, even though he's just a box full of wires and a stolen personality. Edison Carter, the guy I stole the personality from, is the only one who isn't too thrilled. He wants his personality back and he's willing to resort to theft so steps have been taken. The floors of the Channel 23 building are now patrolled by robot guards. And if that wasn't nasty enough I've brought my trigger-happy employees Breugel and Mahler out of retirement.

Carter will try though. But first he has to master the lift, typing in code letters and numbers on a seven bar matrix which is as simple as the ones in a digital watch but seems to cause humans of average intelligence no end of trouble. There's also another code, a not-so-simple Simon in reverse, to take control of a floor.

Once Carter is free to run around the Executive Level he's going to search the ten floors for bits of a hexadecimal code that are hidden in the offices. You see how futile his task is? With my robot guards to dodge and time ticking away he doesn't stand a chance, even if he has mastered the security cameras and computers to warn him of the whereabouts of the patrols. He'll even waste time resting in the rooms just to recover a little strength.

If he manages to find the four pairs of digits - and I doubt he'll get that far - he can enter the Presidential suite on the 211th floor and get the master code that'll take him to my lab where he'll find Max. I believe he has to be in the basement by 6am to meet Theora, his controller. I hope she's prepared for a long wait because I've got a nasty little surprise waiting for him!

I will admit a sneaking regard for the games designers at Quicksilva though. Their visual displays are rather good and though the codes aren't too difficult to break it can get quite frantic running around searching offices and waiting for lifts - which is always quite bad enough without armed thugs on your trail. And they promise a special reward for those who reach the basement before the deadline - a moving, talking Max on a home micro, created without my help! Now that I would like to see? Perhaps I'd better play the game again. Now how do I create the letter E on this matrix?