Bastow Manor

Copyright : Gameworx Software | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Yawn, yes it?s another one of those text adventure games that just had to be released. This one is about a mysterious place known as Bastow Manor that has been hiding a deadly secret for the past few years and it?s your job to find out what? sounds a little dangerous to me but then again it?s only a game. By the way, has anyone else heard of Gameworx Software before? because we certainly don?t recognise them.

Graphics

I know we hark on about text adventures not having graphics very often on the CPC but this is one game that could have done better if it had fallen into the graphicless range of adventure games. The game resembles BASIC in MODE 0 (chunky mode as we like to call it) and the actual scenes look as if they have been drawn using JUST the rectangle tool in a very bad art package, in short little to no effort has been put into the illustrations in this game. Other than these little "perks" the game is simply yellow text on blue paper, not very interesting to say the least.

Sound

Sound, well what can we say? perhaps we could say that the game has nothing. In fact, if we did then we would be telling you the truth so what the hell, the game has no sound at all. Gameworkx (who are these people) didn?t put any effort into creating a soundtrack for the game, in-game noises to make the atmosphere more spooky (it would be a lot better than the graphics) or any kind of bleep in this one. Very poor indeed really but then what do you expect? they?re hardly Electronic Arts are they?

Gameplay

Gameplay is yet again another negative comment about the game. With no sound on offer and overly chunky text, basic descriptions by the computer (for example "I am...." and that?s it) you?ld do a lot better to download a BBC Micro emulator and grab any single one of the range of adventure titles on this platform. Bastow Manor is just a fancy title, sure the box would have boasted all sorts of features and probably had some scary cover art to coax you into buying it but anyone that did and waited the 20 minutes for it to load was ripped off.
Text adventures, thankfully, aren?t that frequent on the CPC as most developers realised the extra potential for gaming that the platform was capable of delivering. All we can truly say is avoid this game at all costs, even if you are a serious die-hard text adventure fan we strongly recommend you either read a book or download a BBC emulator and the entire text adventure series as most of them are much better.
Personally, the developer should have had is hands slapped for releasing this shoddy piece of work.