Legend of Kyrandia Book 3: Malcolm's Revenge picks up where the first game left off, namely with Malcolm petrified, standing alone and forgotten in the castle junk heap. A stray lightning bolt hits the statue, returning Malcolm to life and mischief.

This isn't the first time we've had the chance to play the "bad guy". For instance, back in Wizardry IV: The Return Of Werdna, we directed the evil wizard on his quest to retrieve the stolen amulet. However, at the end game, Werdna had the opportunity to redeem himself, and that is true for our boy Malcolm, as well.

Malcolm is just a poor, misunderstood jester. While it's true that he did usurp the throne, steal an important magical doodad, and petrify most of Kyrandia's leading citizens in the first game, no one seems to bear a grudge against him for these little peccadilloes.

No, everyone is mad at him for killing (or supposedly killing) the king and queen of Kyrandia. Murder, after all, is serious business. Much too serious for a jester; as you may have guessed, it's the one thing Malcolm didn't do. Proving that to the citizenry, however, is quite another matter.

The game proper begins with Malcolm's revival in the junkyard. From there he makes his way off of Kyrandia (not a congenial place at the moment), adventures on the Isle of Cats, entices pirates to help him get revenge (which quickly turns sour), escapes banishment to the Ends Of The Earth, eludes the clutches of the tic-tac-toe-crazed Fish Queen of Limbo, pays a brief visit to "you know, down there", and finally returns to Kyrandia for - we hope - his triumphant vindication. All in all, quite a lot to do for someone who really wants nothing more than to take a peaceful nap in his own bed.

Game play is very simple; this is definitely a "no frills" interface. The main cursor is a small arrow. Clicking that on an object picks it up (if takable), or "uses" it (pushes a button, moves an item, etc.). Moving the cursor to the edges of the screen will turn it into a large arrow, designating an exit from that location (if there is one). Moving the cursor elsewhere (and clicking) causes Malcolm to walk to that spot if no obstacles are in the way.

A drop screen is hidden at the bottom of the display; moving the cursor down to the bottom causes it to appear. This holds the inventory (maximum of 10 items), the game controls (save, restore, quit, and so forth), and the mood meter (of which more shortly).

Conversations are equally simple: you just click the cursor on anyone in sight, and talk begins automatically. There are no responses to choose; Malcolm and everyone else decide for themselves what they will say. How these little chats go depends on what mood Malcolm is in at the moment.

The mood meter has three settings: nice, normal, and lying. In normal mode, Malcolm is mainly honest, but somewhat on the sarcastic and cynical side; this is his usual personality. In nice mode, he's, well, nice, or at least pretending to be that way. In lying mode, warm butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

Deciding what mode to be in is the tricky part, as all three are necessary in different sections of the game. Starting a conversation in nice mode may not get you anywhere, while talking in lying mode might get you someplace you'd rather not be. It is usually a good idea to save the game before starting up a conversation with someone, just in case.

Malcolm doesn't go it alone, either. For most of the game, he is accompanied by Gunther, his "bad" conscience. As a youth, Malcolm also had Stewart, the "good" conscience, but Stewart was lost somewhere along the way, leaving only Gunther to egg Malcolm on to, ummm, politically incorrect activities (hmm, perhaps that wasn't such a bad thing, after all; Stewart is such a goody two-shoes I wished I could punch him out on several occasions). Gunther pops up every now and then with smart remarks, either snide comments when Malcolm messes up, or kudos when Malcolm pulls off something good (or bad, depending on your viewpoint).

However, Stewart is not gone forever. He makes a stunning reappearance for the end game, at which point you (not Malcolm) get to choose which of the two to keep around - or (if you're really masochistic), you can opt to keep them both.

This is not mere window dressing. What you decide here has an effect on the rest of the game. As you may have guessed, things will be a little easier if you have Stewart alone, a little harder if you take both, and difficult should Gunther be the sole companion. Choose wisely.

Kyrandia 3, like Hand of Fate, is a linear game. Malcolm progresses from area to area, each one having its own set of objects and locations. Typically, items don't travel with him; upon arriving in a new section, Malcolm's inventory is usually empty.

This is not a cause for alarm. If an item is needed somewhere else along the line, Malcolm will keep it with him. Otherwise, everything necessary for solving the puzzles in a particular area will be found in that area. So you don't have to worry about leaving things behind, or that you'll get to the end game and find you missed something important at the beginning.

I played the CD version, which requires about 10 meg on the hard drive, and has full voice support: all dialogue and remarks are spoken. For those who may not want their computers talking to them, or who may not want speech late at night, there is an option to turn off the voice and have text boxes instead. The game also has internal controls for adjusting the volume of music and special effects. Happily for Gravis Ultrasound (and Max) owners, the Gravis cards are fully supported.

Kyrandia 3 ran cleanly. The game never crashed, locked up, or exhibited any bizarre happenings. Only one minor bug surfaced, in the game controls. Malcolm can walk at either a slow or fast pace; the default is "saunter". Likewise, there is a "studio audience" (inane laugh track) that can be on or off; the default is on. If you change either or both of those settings, the software doesn't remember them from session to session, and you have to change them again each time you boot up the game.

The music, special effects, and voices are good, but not cleanly recorded. I could hear a static hiss which was always present to a lesser or greater degree throughout the game when any or all of the audio was on. As a check, I booted a couple of other games that do native Gravis sound, and they did not have the background noise.

So how does Malcolm's Revenge work as an adventure? There's the rub. Westwood took a lot of heat over the first two games being (for the most part) too simple and obvious. Determined to do better, they swung the pendulum the other way, and made much in the game rather obscure. They also put in, for many of the puzzles, multiple ways of solving them.

On the one hand, that's good, as you aren't locked into the "only one way to do things" syndrome. On the other hand, matters can rapidly become confusing as solution paths cross each other and you aren't sure what to do in the first place.

This is especially true of the opening section. Malcolm's objective is to get off Kyrandia while avoiding such unpleasant situations as the jail cell, the rock quarry, the chain gang, and the slave galley (as I said earlier, Kyrandia isn't a congenial place at the moment).

That's really all you need to do, but there are five or six ways of escaping, and it's easy to become tangled up in them, or find a way off and worry about all the stuff you left behind unfinished. Even worse, you might find part of a solution, and spend hours wandering around, trying to come up with a use for a flask of cream or a handful of sesame seeds.

The Isle of Cats, next stop on the tour, has its own problems. First is the nonlogical jungle maze. While it's not very large, the jungle does have to be mapped, which is a tedious business requiring much patience, especially since you have to chop your way through the underbrush in each scene (the stuff grows back as soon as you leave).

More serious is the cat altar. To do the right thing there, it is vital to get into the Hieroglyphics Room of the ruins at the Dog Fort. This requires light in the first room, and here there's only one way to get it. Some players will likely miss that, just by going the "wrong" way first from the Dog Fort, letting themselves in for much frustration. It is difficult to explain further without giving things away, so I'll just remark that it's best to explore the entire jungle before heading into the ruins.

Another negative aspect is the need for repetitive actions. You find a lot of bones in the jungle, and it's pretty obvious you give them to the dog. The first time, he buries a bone and uncovers a gem. After that, things become monotonous. You need more than one gem (six, actually) and they are randomly distributed each game. So you save the game, drop a bone, and see what turns up. If there's nothing, restore and try a different location (otherwise, you must go into the jungle and collect more bones). If a gem pops up, save and keep going. Only trial and error works here, as there is no pattern to the positions of the gems.

Similarly, in Limbo you need a particular item to perform a Royal Seance. It can be obtained only from the junkheap, which is reached by riding the sluice. Unfortunately, you can only grab one item each visit, again determined randomly, and you don't even know what it is you're looking for, which does not make things any easier. My experience was, on average, four or five tries before the object turned up (it was much the same if the game was saved after arriving on the heap and before taking anything).

There are other instances like this, as well. One you could live with, but multiple situations merely drag out the game while not adding anything to the pleasure of solving a puzzle.

Still, Kyrandia 3 isn't exactly a total loss. The game is humorous, and Malcolm a refreshing character to manipulate through the adventure. Eric Randall, the voice of Malcolm, does an excellent job, having just the right sound and tone of voice.

The designers took care that you wouldn't come to a dead end over missing some necessary item during earlier play. This is an important consideration, especially in a linear game, where there is no going back except via a save position.

At a time when most of the industry seems to have "gone Hollywood", with everyone scrambling to get "big names" for digitized animations and voice-overs, and pushing the edge for whiz-bang graphics and sound effects, it is nice to see at least one company is concerned about content over gloss. Westwood may have gone a little too much on the obscure side, but at least they were listening to the game players, and went for "toughing up" instead of "dumbing down".

Now if they can find the golden mean between the extremes, their next product should be really something. In the meantime, "Malcolm's Revenge" is definitely not a game for the beginner or easily frustrated player.

Final Grade: B-

System Requirements:

• CD-ROM
• 386/33 or higher
• 4MB RAM
• 15MB hard drive space
• DOS 5.0
• sound card
• mouse