Previous Next

This is an adventure game in the great tradition. You are Jen, last of the Gelfling race which was exterminated by the evil Skeksis. They control the land with the aid of the powerful Dark Crystal, damaged centuries ago when a shard broke off and was lost. Now you must find the shard, heal the crystal and defeat the Skeksis.

Getting the game up and running could not be simpler. You gently shove the disk in the drive and boot. The first picture on the screen shows Jen sitting on a rock playing his pipes. From then on, it's up to you.

The game is sixth in the Sierra-Online Hi-Res Adventure series and uses the same code as the previous ones. I found it more frustrating than its forerunners, and more arbitrary. One classic example is the time I was spotted by a bat with a crystal eye. It took only one bat-sighting, followed a few turns later by the appearance of one of the Garthim (invincible nasties) to hammer home the message that Bats Meanz Garthim. I got killed that time.

After rebooting and retracing my steps from the map I had drawn so carefully, I was spotted by another bat. I was only two moves away from the hill where the Landstriders grazed, so I headed for it and arrived just in time. Then up came a Garthim. To my intense displeasure, I discovered that being in the presence of Landstriders who get their kicks in life by kicking the life out of Garthim - makes not one bit of difference. You wind up just as dead.

In an adventure game there are very few situations in which an operator error can cause a problem. In the case of The Dark Crystal, the need to load each picture-file from disk means you could confuse disks, causing a 'file not found' error. The same problem could occur when you move from one disk to another. In both cases, the program explains what the machine thinks might be happening.

It is best if you play this on a colour TV as it loses most of its appeal in mono. However, since it is based on the American TV standard, the colours are blurry.