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#3453

I finally beat it. I caved and looked up the part I was stuck at (pun intended?) 🙁 I don’t feel too bad though, I was attempting to do the correct action, but typed in variations that were unacceptable. Reminds me of the one time I called a Sierra Hint Line as a child. I typed ‘place gem in mouth’ and the correct phrase was ‘put gem in mouth’ (bonus points if you recognize the game and section, that part’s got some notoriety).

I really enjoyed the game. It felt both familiar as an adventure game, but unique in how it was presented. I suppose Myst has a similar slide-show presentation, but without the dialog and inventory puzzles.

Starting out I was incredibly nervous of an experience like KQ5 or Return to Zork where you can easily softlock yourself from winning. I really do not enjoy games like that, and I knew nothing about this one. Very quickly, the game gained my trust and I could tell it was more in the vein of LucasArts style. I was actually quite surprised you could die by the time I got to the 2nd planet in part two and the wildlife there made short work of me.

I liked the gritty setting and details. Newsfeeds of political strife on earth and depleting natural resources… Sending humans as guinea pigs on missions that have a 15% chance of not returning… This came out right in the heyday of Star Trek: The Next Generation so I’m glad writers were willing to make alternative visions of humanity’s future in space travel. It’s a product of its time but hasn’t aged terribly. Although there was a description of the asian scientist as “oriental” at one point. And what happened to Sylvester’s shirt in the intro???

I watched a video of someone playing on Youtube and the music sounded SIGNIFICANTLY different. I thought the intro’s music was awesome, it immediately took me back to that era, but the rest of the game’s was pretty neutral. Does anyone know if you can play Roland MT-32 Midi through Dosbox?

Thanks to whomever suggested this and for all that helped me get through the parts I was stuck. I look forward to trying Gateway 2 and doing some research on the history of how the game was made. Strange I never heard of it growing up…