Computer Gamer


Winter Wonderland

Publisher: Incentive
Machine: BBC Model B

 
Published in Computer Gamer #23

Winter Wonderland

A couple of years ago, a utility called The Quill took the adventure world by storm. It allowed anybody to write an adventure for themselves, even if they had little experience of programming. Then a rival arrived. The Graphic Adventure Creator has been receiving rave reviews throughout the computer press.

Winter Wonderland is one of the first games to be commercially released using the new system.

You have been an anthropologist for some ten years now but that one discovery that will make your name has always eluded you. Just as you are on the verge of throwing the whole thing in, you receive a telex from an old Russian friend who is currently working in Tibet where he claims to have found something extraordinary.

Winter Wonderland

Quickly booking a flight, you land in Tibet and hire a light aircraft to take you to the site. Unfortunately, you don't pay enough heed to the Tibetan equivalent of Ian McCaskell and your plane crashes in the Himalayas. Your only possible help as you prepare to hit the ground is that you see the sun glinting off a building somewhere in the distance.

The land in question does in fact prove to be Shangri La - a people who were supposed to have developed at the same rate as, independently of, ourselves. In practice, this just means that the city is a Himalayan version of Milton Keynes, complete with huge shopping centre and a fixation with ski lifts.

The best thing that can be said about this game is that it is poor. This is nothing to do with Graphic Adventure Creator although I think it will be some time before it is seen to its best effect. It's just that the storyline is weak with no real atmosphere created within the game. It is also overpriced and would have made an average budget game. Leave well alone.