Commodore User


Bermuda Project
By Mirrorsoft
Amiga 500

 
Published in Commodore User #60

Bermuda Project

The Bermuda Triangle is a place that is shrouded in mystery. For many years there have been incidents of aeroplanes and boats suddenly disappearing from the area that stretches from Bermuda to the Virgin Islands and Florida.

The Bermuda Project begins with an OTT opening sequence in which a large cargo plane is shown flying over the Bermuda triangle. As it does so, it is struck by a freak bolt of lightning and the plane makes a crash landing on an island slap-bang in the middle. This is where the game begins. As the only survivor of the crash, you awaken after a spell of unconsciousness to find the plane unsurprisingly wrecked, the pilot dead in his chair, and parts of the plane's carcass beginning to burn.

Obviously what you want to do is get off this island, so you set about finding a means to do so. The game is presented in a very similar way to Microillusion's Faery Tale Adventure. Your character, the guy with the rucksack, stays pretty much in the centre of the screen while the scenery scrolls around him. The first thing you'll want to do before you go off searching the island is to search the wreckage of the plane, and this is done by using a set of Spellbound-type window menus. Options such as Get, Drop, Examine, Attach and Detach are all available from here.

Close inspection of the plane will reveal a radio, which you can take and then proceed to explore the island, which is when you first begin to realise how dull this game really is! The island itself is not particularly large, and very drab in detail, so you'll find yourself wandering around aimlessly from one coast to another. The only two things of any interest I found were a set of footprints leading away from the plane and then suddenly stopping, and a large wooden-walled complex, supposedly inhabited by natives. It seems as if the rest of the game would unfold once I entered, but try as I might, I found it impossible to get past the gates.

Later on in the game there's a jeep to be found, but even that has no petrol in it so you'll have to go off searching for some as well. Personally I couldn't be bothered, mainly because it is so fantastically boring, there's simply no compulsion to solve the puzzles. The entire game is played in complete silence, apart from an irritating whoosh when you get near to the coast. Graphically it's also pretty poor. The main sprite is quite nice, but the scrolling is slow and jerky and the backdrops are sadly lacking in detail. The mouse control is also very frustrating indeed. Controlling your hero is a tiresome process, as is using the menu system. All these faults add up to a very unprofessional attempt at a game that only die-hard arcade adventure fans should consider looking at.

Gary Whitta

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