1st April 1985
Stop! Hands up those of you who have never heard of Thomas Covenant. Right! I hereby banish you from this review. Read the next one. It's about frogs or gorillas or something. As the rest of you are aware, Stephen Donaldson is the best writer of the century and the Thomas Covenant books are the greatest works of fiction ever. Who? Tolkien? Never heard of him.
Anyway, take another look at the title of this adventure. Ring any bells? Correct. Well, the bad news is that although the story-line originates from the Unbeliever series, it is not about him. You will meet Mhoram, or Moran as he is called here, and the Despiser, but Hile Troy, Elena, the Forestals, Ravers and the rest are missing.
You play the part of the "Chosen" (minus ring). You've been summoned by the high council where you're informed that you are the only one who can defeat the Despiser and return the Staff of Law to Andelain. I mean, Arda.
Here all the similarities between the books and this game end. You're now faced with an extremely fiendish adventure during which you'll learn to wire-walk and dive from great heights. I won't give you any clues, but you will need to know what a dumb waiter is.
There were, however, several things I didn't like. Mode 4 for example. What's wrong with Mode 6?
Also there's no save game facility, surely a definite must for an adventure? And you have to type in nouns in full, for example DRAWBRIDGE. Try typing that in a few times. Also there are spelling mistakes: 'Suddenly you hear a LOAD crash'! Mind you, the way my cassette recorder's been playing up recently, they could be right.
If it seems that I've pulled this adventure to bits, rest assured that, considering the complexity of the plot, these criticisms are a minor consideration. Also the program is written in Basic and therefore fairly easy to change anyway.
On the plus side is the skill and inventiveness shown by the programmers. Solving this game requires a great deal of thought, as most of the problems will be new to you. Happily, Potter Programs offers a help service for this and their other adventures - one that I expect will be much used.
An excellent adventure that, although it would benefit from tidying up, is still well worth buying.
Screenshots
