I feel the need to qualify
a few things before I begin my game review. In the interest of fairness,
you need to know that I am a sucker for British murder mysteries.
It is my opinion that the Jack the Ripper case is the greatest unsolved
murder mystery of all time. Yes, I admit that I am biased and prejudiced
but this case has baffled and bewitched detectives and criminologists
since 1888. It has inspired books by the dozen (perhaps by the hundreds),
movies, board games, songs and at least one opera. There is a vast
army of amateur sleuths who remain hot on the case. It is not surprising,
therefore, that Jack should become fertile ground for computer games.
After all, he continues to be the perfect conundrum.

The second thing that
I want to tell you is that I played this game when it was new on the
market. That has been a long time ago and while I have referred to
my notes for this review, time may have played a few minor games with
the fine details in my head. Nevertheless, I feel that this is a fair
and accurate representation of my 1994 game experience.

The real story and the
victims:

On
September 29, 1888 the Central News Agency in London received a chilling
letter from a very disturbed and evil person who was bragging about
his recent crimes. By this time, he had brutally murdered Mary Ann
Nicholls (August 1888) and Annie Chapman (September 1888). He went
on to write letters to other influential community members and to
kill three more women of the street who were vulnerable to his charms
( Elizabeth Stride; Catharine Eddowes; and Mary Kelly). The first
four women were in their mid-forties. Mary Kelly was twenty-five.
The physical horror of the crimes became worse as the numbers increased.
Eventually Jack claimed to have eaten half of the kidney of one of
his victims. He sent the rest of the kidney to George Lusk, the Chairman
of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. Poor Mr. Lusk could not have
felt very vigilant or very well after he opened that package.

The people of London were
terrified but in spite of almost paralyzing fear, the street women
of Whitechapel continued to ply their trade. The police and the government
were galvanized to find the culprit and the pressure was on. There
was a plethora of suspects (from the meek to the mighty) on Inspector
Frederick Abberline’s murder list. He was the Metropolitan Police
Detective who was in charge of the investigation. Much to his pain
and frustration (and that of his superiors) his efforts came to nothing
for Jack’s identity was never determined and the case continues to
be debated to this very day.

How to play:

If
you are a recent bloomer to the computer gaming world you may find
Jack the Ripper by GameTek just a tiny bit tedious, overwhelming
in detail and poor in animated graphics. Actually, there aren’t any
animated graphics but this shouldn’t cause the dedicated game player
to mourn as there are a large number of good illustrations of game
characters, locations, maps and newspaper articles that will move
the story along and you can manipulate most of them to your heart’s
content by touch or by drag and drop. Otherwise, the game is text
based, and very good text at that.

This is your big chance
to be a Scotland Yard detective and decode the eternal riddle of who
is Jack the Ripper. The object of the game is very simple: interview
and evaluate your suspects; visit the scenes of the various murders;
search for and cross reference your clues; deduct and use the process
of elimination; develop a premise; visit your detective’s lair (your
study); decide who you think the killer is; arrange your hypotheses
on your blackboard; and if you are correct you will catch Jack the
Ripper before he can murder again. The number of clues that you discover
and the amount of time that passes as you find them will determine
your final score. Jack the Ripper employs the GUI (graphical
user interface) format that includes movable windows and scroll bars
that can be controlled by mouse or keyboard. When you think that you
have a solution to the Whitechapel murders click your mouse and you
will receive a newspaper for the next day. If you are correct, the
headlines will proclaim you to be an extraordinary hero. If you are
wrong you will need to look for your obituary. Ah, too bad. Try again.

Game evaluation:

If
you were to judge this game by today’s standards of marvelous graphic
capability you might want to give Jack the Ripper a D or even
an E but don’t be hasty. Judged by the standards of the time that
it was developed in combination with its intricate storyline I give
it a B. Playing it will sharpen your concentration and reasoning powers
and offer you many enjoyable hours at your computer. What more can
we ask?

If you find the subject
of Jack the Ripper interesting and would like to give it a
try I suggest that you visit eBay
or The Game Trading
Zone and see what they have to offer. I doubt seriously that you
will find it for sale anyplace else. It was not exactly a mass market
product when it was new. If you are lucky enough to stumble across
a copy it will be one of those times that your oldest computer (386/33)
will be a blessing. I installed Jack on my tweaked up 486/33 and it
played very nicely.

If you enjoyed the game:

If
you want to play another game that is reminiscent of the historical
Jack the Ripper mystery you should try: The Lost Files of Sherlock
Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel developed by Mythos Software
(this game is considered by many to be a classic and is difficult
to find and usually expensive) or Ripper
by Take Two Interactive (much easier to find).

There are a number of movies
based on Jack the Ripper case, the most recent being From Hell
starring Johnny Depp. I watched this film recently and found it surprisingly
enjoyable. However, it takes certain liberties with the real saga
and the end has an interesting twist from the true story.

There are so many books
based on Jack the Ripper crimes that I can’t begin to make a suggestion,
but if you fire up your search engine and type in Jack the Ripper/books
I am sure that you will find more than you can ever begin to read.

System Requirements:

386/33
DOS
4MB RAM
2X CDROM
SVGA
Sound Blaster Compatible
Mouse or Keyboard Driven