Shadow of the Bear

Copyright : AA Software | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

The pilot of a spy plane which crash lands in Siberia, you must evade capture and escape to China avoiding a host of hazards in sub-arctic conditions. Quite why you have to escape from one extremely communist country (at the time) to another, equally communist one is never adequately explained but there you go. I assume you?re playing the part of a Chinese spy because I can?t think of anyone else who would want to make the journey because it?s a bit of walk.

A basic text adventure from Kuma. (erm? that?s basic as in the programming language rather than the quality of the text adventure itself? or is it a Freudian slip?)

Graphics

Shite

I know it?s a text adventure. And I know it?s programmed in basic but it?s really no excuse. With two main view screens, one in mode 1 and a charmingly awful colour scheme of red and orange that just screams BASIC, the other a chunky mode 0 affair that takes forever to draw. Neither of the views are more appealing than the other and, due to the programming of the game, you must flick between the two views at regular intervals thus having to endure the painful refreshing of the mode 0 ?graphics? more than would be otherwise completely necessary.

The pictures that accompany the text are? interesting? check out the plane on the first screen and it?s scale compared to the mountains, which I can only assume you are much closer to than the plane you?re standing next to unless these are, in fact, Mount Everest?s big brothers.

Sound

A disturbingly bad title tune plays immediately after loading that I can only assume is off key. The tune is neither recognisable nor particularly original. Poor.

To add insult to injury an irritating little series of notes plays every single time you enter a command. Imagine the noise that would normally occur to indicate the loss of a life in an early Amsoft game - fine when used in that context but in an adventure game? Continually?

It?s enough to drive you demented.

Gameplay

Immediately hampered by a confusing and frankly rubbish control system, Shadow of the Bear never really gets out of the starting blocks as a game.

Make sure you read the instructions otherwise you?ll be without a hope in hell and will be forced to switch the game off in frustration (which is admittedly better than actually playing it and switching it off in boredom and frustration).

Anyway, to list this game?s many faults would take a few pages and I have neither the time nor inclination to do this so I will instead pick the top three bug bears but keep in mind that there is a laundry list of faults that lie below this and the overall marks will reflect this!

Firstly then, the caps lock. The game can only understand inputs if they are given in capital letters? erm? why? Correct me if I?m wrong but isn?t there a command in BASIC to convert upper to lower case and vice versa? As a result you?ll find the computer often telling you it doesn?t understand what you?re saying or it can?t do this or that if you?ve not got the caps lock pressed and for some reason the game wouldn?t recognise the fact that I HAD pressed it and was still putting everything in as lower case meaning I had to hold the shift key to enter commands and would occasionally forget subjecting me to more unnecessary beeps! Gah!

The control system, as mentioned previously, is as bizarre as it is poor. The main view, you know where the pretty pictures are, is the screen that you use for moving around and that?s about it really. Movement is controlled by the cursor keys but, get this, it doesn?t tell you what directions you can move in. Brilliant eh? You have to just press a direction and hope that you move otherwise you have to sit and wait while it redraws the entire screen. Superb! The other screen is where you do things like get, drop and check out your inventory? except the look command doesn?t actually tell you what?s on the screen and you have to flick back to the other view and see if anything is mentioned in the very short descriptions. Hilariously this includes the first screen that tells you that you have to take what you need and then gives you a short list of things that are present? along with the letters eg? which indicates to me that there might be other things there too. I?ve no idea what though because anything I entered didn?t seem to be there and I couldn?t find any way to get a list of the items that are present in that location.

Thirdly, oh look do I really need a thirdly? This is a complete turd of a game. A stinking pile of poo that?s been left out in the sun to bake. Do yourself a favour and press break twice Hilariously this will quit the programme and, if you press list, allow you to view what could be uncharitably called a very long type-in? Imagine allowing people to see that precious code! They could?ve been ripped off something rotten by second rate copycats!

Without any redeeming features, this is truly awful stuff.