This is a story of trials and tribulations, both for me and the game
character. I had been looking for a copy of this game for quite some time and
finally managed to get my hands on one. Full of excitement, I put it in my CD
drive and tried launching it through a Windows 98 DOS box, only to get an error
message saying that I had insufficient conventional memory (the game needs 582K).
So I rebooted to my DOS 6.22 partition with 615K conventional memory available
and tried it again. A nice little intro sequence played, soundlessly, and then
the game crashed. Hard. I got to see a picture of two people, a man and a woman,
tied to poles, the man blinking every once in a while. Control-Alt-Delete? No.
I had to turn off my machine. I came to find out that the game is very sensitive
to the type of sound card being used, and the point where the game was crashing
was where speech occurred for the first time. The sound card choices given by
the game were Roland, Ad Lib, Soundblaster, and “none.” I have a Soundblaster
Awe 64 and so fiddled around with the software for that a bit, in my DOS 6.22
partition, and finally got the game to run, with much cursing and muttering in
the process. However, there were two places to choose a sound card, one for music
and one for sound effects. I never did get the sound effects to work, which includes
the voice acting, but I played on anyway because the speech was printed on the
screen. On top of all this, my CD drive broke right as I neared the end of the
game, so I had to wait a week for my new one to arrive before I could finish it
(violins play a heart-wrenching melody–can you hear it? Does your heart not bleed
for me?).

Anyway, the story takes place in the forties or early fifties–it’s
a spoof of the cliff-hanger movies of that time. You play as Joe King, pilot for
hire, who has been hired to fly Faye Russell, movie star, from Rio de Janeiro
into the Amazon Jungle for a movie shoot. First you have to beat out another pilot,
Anderson, who is handsomer and smarter and everything-er than you (and has a better
plane), and then you finally get airborne only to crash your plane in the middle
of the Amazon. From there, you escape one plight after another, meeting tall pygmies,
Amazon princesses, lederhosen manufacturers, mummies, monkeys, and finally dinosaurs.
Your ultimate goal is to foil the evil Dr. Ironstein’s plot to take over the world
by turning kidnaped Amazons into dinosaur warriors, at the same time rescuing
yourself and your companions. The plot is very true to the cliff-hanger style
and has lots of twists and turns; also, the comedy is on a par with the Monkey
Island games. I give the game an A for plot.

The graphics are
also on a par with the LucasArts games of the same period. In fact, this whole
game could have been released by LucasArts. The style of play is the same, jokes,
graphics, everything is very similar. From me, that is quite the compliment because
LucasArts games are always among my favorites. Anyway, there are about ten main
locales in the game, each of which takes up at least two or three screens, and
they are all very nicely drawn. The characters look good, and there is a fair
amount of movement in the backgrounds. The scenes also contain some red herrings,
too, so the game is not quite as simple as one might think. There were a couple
of conversations, though, where just a close-up of the speaking character was
shown, with only the lips moving. I have never liked this and still don’t, but
I can only think of three times that this happened and so it was not a major distraction.
Overall, graphics get an A because they are very nicely drawn and there
was no pixel-hunting.

As for the game, you talk to people to learn what
tasks you are to complete and then use inventory items creatively to progress.
The tasks are all nested–you have to complete one to get another one to get another
one, etc., and then you’re done. That was so the maximum use could be made of
cliff-hangers, I guess, but I like that style of play. When your cursor moves
over an item that is worth looking at, a description of the item shows on the
screen and an action is suggested. Several action icons are located on the bottom
left of the screen, so you click an action icon and then the item you wish to
perform the action on. Your inventory is on the bottom right, so you can use the
actions on those items in addition to the items on the screen; there are several
places where you have to combine inventory items and then use them on something
on the screen. To walk around, you just click where you want to go, and your character
automatically walks there. The interface is easy to use and did not get in the
way of the game, and the gameplay itself made for a very fun experience, so I
also give this category an A.

I can’t write about the voice acting or
sound effects for the reasons I described above, but the music was just adequate.
I got tired of it every once in a while and had to turn my speakers down all the
way, but then it seemed too quiet, so I turned them back up. Also, the technology
used was not current enough to sound very good on my computer–the music had that
kind of PC-speaker tinniness, although that is a gross exaggeration. What I mean
to say is that the music sounded electronically produced on electronic instruments
to be played back electronically. The tunes were okay, though–they were well-suited
to the style of the game and the loops did not repeat every 10 seconds. I give
this category a B, but my grade would have been lower if this game had been
released more recently.

Overall, I would recommend this game but with reservations
related to technology. I think that there are a lot of younger computer users
out there who have never had to deal with DOS issues, and unless you are comfortable
with older technology or really like to fiddle with drivers and configurations
and what not, you should probably avoid this game. I think it would be difficult,
if not impossible, to actually get it to run under Windows 95 or 98, in either
a DOS box or with a DOS reboot, but don’t take my word as gospel. If you think
you can get it to run, I would recommend it most heartily. Even without the sound
effects and voices, I enjoyed it a lot and give it an A.

Final
Grade: A