C&VG


Project Thesius
By Robico
BBC/Electron

 
Published in Computer & Video Games #56

Project Thesius

Project Thesius is the sequel to Rick Hanson (reviewed in C&VG as Assassin). Taking the titlerole, you become the toughest agent known to British Intelligence. "The enemy" are up to their old tricks again. They've got a team of boffins working away on an island, to perfect the Advanced Weapons System. If completed, who knows what damage it could do...

Your orders are brief: find the AWS development centre, gather as much information on the project as possible, and escape - presumably to enable the "good guys" to work on an anti-AWS system.

The game has a rather violent feel in places - the author is very proficient at writing "you are dead" messages. In the first fifteen minutes I'd been dashed to pieces by rocks, blown to bits by a booby-trapped chest and shot by a trigger-happy woman with a rocket launcher!

Project Thesius

There are three mazes in the game. The first is through a decaying, though populated, village. You will be told the route through the second maze if you make it to a rendezvous in time.

The program runs in mode six, and the player can tailor the screen and text colours. There is a vast amount of text - each location has upwards of five lines of description. And the third maze? That comes in the final stages of the game. Whilst being chased by an armed guard with tracker dogs, you must cross a mined beach to reach a jetty. My lungs were bursting as I careered along the rickety wooded platform, which suddenly ended! The dogs were gaining fast. In true Rick Hanson fashion, I crossed my fingers and jumped...

The game is thoroughly polished. It has a slick feel and - more important - is fun to play. I never felt that the task ahead was impossible.

Jim Douglas