not a bed game. the map is huge and has many puzzles to solve. be careful what you drop as many times i had to restart because i thought something was useless only to find out i needed it towards the end of the game, certain parts of the game you can't go back so no chance of getting them.

If you swear the text becomes garbage. Not that I'd know anything about that. HJUIhiufheiofnopp.

This game is chock full of humorous nods towards english contemporary culture in the seventies and eighties; being english and remembering those times well I can identify with it but I suspect that much of it will go over the head of others. Opportunity Knocks (an old talent show from the seventies hosted by Hughie Green); a catch phrase from an old advertisement for milk; several Monty Python quotes are just a few examples.

The plot has veered from contemporary urban grime to black magic fantasy rather quickly but it is certainly an interesting piece.

I understand what urbanghost was saying about this game. It is intriguing but the inventory limit (and an unpredictable event near the beginning) make it unclear where you should be leaving items as you will be revisiting some areas at least once. Some items are irretrievable unless you squirrel them away somewhere before this event happens but it is unclear where and indeed if you need these items anyway. This is a game where save game states are advisable every few moves.

This game is strange with a capital strange. One rather typical and annoying example - you find a can of oil and somewhere far away is a squeaky gate which summons a ferocious dog when you attempt to open it. After much peregrination I attempted to apply the oil to said gate. The response?

"The gate is far too rusty and knackered to be oiled. Nice try, though. The house behind the gate is a red herring. Just to annoy people. Glad to see it's working. Nice try though, the oil. Deserves some kind of prize. Umm. Write to CHAOS at the usual address, remembering to begin the letter with the words "Dear Chaos me old "China", My old man's a dustbin. Oh yes, and here's £200." Fame and fortune will undountedly be yours."

This is a pretty intricate game with a plot that develops when key puzzles are solved, much like Anchorhead for instance. So far the bugs I have encountered haven't suggested that they are game breaking, although there are quite a few of them. The verbs list includes EXTINGUISH but the game doesn't parse it; in fact it seems impossible to douse the game's only light source. I am hoping that it doesn't have a light daemon. The game perhaps inevitably feels like other games involving train travel between railway stations, like Spiritwrak and Ferret. The murder/revenge back story is quite clever.

The relentless references to Monty Python, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and eighties geek culture in general are funny for a while but eventually become tiresome. Game play diffculty is also ratcheted up as you progress. If you like a decent plot with puzzles and can tolerate student humour ladled on rather too thickly I would recommend you give this a try.

After many hours of bashing my head against an impasse I have finally solved a puzzle which as so often is ten per cent clever construction and ninety per cent finicky parser. I make no apologies for leaking the solution to entering the nuclear facility; the only parseable sentence is "show guard i.d. card." Give i.d. card to guard, show i.d. card to guard or any other attempt fails to even recognise guard as a noun. The other problem is that i.d. is interpreted as "in and "down" respectively so parses "you can't go in that direction" twice. This would be messy on its own but to further muddy the whole thing there are two plastic cards and it can be difficult to get the parser to differentiate between the two.

Having said all that the game is worth a punt (at least so far.)

I think I did what urbanghost did judging by his comment. There are an enormous number of takeable items in this game and a much smaller inventory limit combined with some one visit only areas. I fled one area after loading just about every item gleaned from the start into my vehicle conveyance. One thing I left behind as seemingly never to be used again was something I needed later. Thank goodness for saved game positions.