98 lines
5.9 KiB
Plaintext
98 lines
5.9 KiB
Plaintext
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GOLD RUSH!
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Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when men were men,
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mules were mules, and women were occasional graphic representations; where a
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man's fortune could be drawn from the merest flakes of yellow metal. Do you have
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the grit, determination and luck to strike it rich?
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GOLD RUSH! is an unusual change of pace from the KING'S and SPACE and LEISURE
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SUIT quests for which Sierra is rightly famous. (This review is based on the
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IBM-PC version.) Instead of being set in some fantastical realm, or the far
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reaches of the universe, it's set in the bedrock of history. In fact, there are
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few games (and few programs overall) that have a firmer foundation in documented
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historical fact. Instead of dealing with the Magic Door or the Strange Raygun,
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you are faced with life-and-death decisions involving such seemingly mundane
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items as fruit, family albums, and horseshoe magnets. According to Sierra, the
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game was born out of a lifelong fascination with this epoch in American history
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on the part of game designers Doug and Ken MacNeill. The depth of their
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research, and the accuracy of their portrayal of life in the halcyon days of
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1848, is apparent.
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As in all Sierra graphic adventures, you wend your way through the landscape
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and manipulate your environment with the aid of an onscreen persona. In this
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case, you're Jerrod Wilson, a mild-mannered reporter from Brooklyn Heights, New
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York, who dreams of travelling west to the fabled land of California in search
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of wealth, adventure and your long lost brother. Only through astute use of the
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everyday objects you find around you, and with a shrewd insight into the devious
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ways of the programmers, can you find your heart's desire -- that is, assuming
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you can make it out of Brooklyn Heights.
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The first part of the adventure requires that you book passage to California,
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and here time is definitely of the essence. Once the official word is given that
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there is, indeed, gold in them thar hills, property values will plummet and
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transportation costs will be out of reach. There's a lot of ground to cover in
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Brooklyn, and barely enough time.
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The second part of the adventure is up to you, because there are three possible
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routes to California: overland by stage and covered wagon; by boat around the
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southern tip of South America; and by boat to Panama, then across the jungle to
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catch another boat on the Pacific side. Each trip has its own unique pitfalls,
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and none is totally safe. But all of them, if you're smart and lucky, will
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eventually get you to your destination: Sutter's Fort, California and the Great
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Gold Rush.
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The game box is chock full of goodies, including a map showing the various
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routes to the west coast, an 80-plus page history of the Gold Rush called
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"California Gold: Story of the Rush to Riches" (which doubles as the game's
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document-based copy protection), and both 3-1/2" and 5-1/4" disk formats. The
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game supports a wide variety of graphic cards (including EGA, CGA, MCGA, VGA and
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Hercules), has a joystick option (but is perfectly easy to use without it), and
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can be installed easily on a hard drive. In fact, I can't imagine anyone wanting
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to play the game using only the five 5-1/4" floppies, because of the
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interminable disk switching that must be involved. This is a _big_ game with
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quite a bit of breadth and depth. The graphics are very well done (though not as
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good as those Sierra has demonstrated in their newest products, such as KING'S
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QUEST IV), and they take full advantage of whichever color card you have. The
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sound, however, is rather primitive on the IBM, and can be shut off if desired.
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In terms of game play, there is little in the way of traditional puzzle
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solving; this is real life, after all, not a movie. But you will be presented
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with some challenging problems, such as a hotel whose secrets you must discover.
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A large part of the middle game has to do with survival: The road to California
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involved disease, starvation, bad weather, bad neighbors, and unfriendly fauna
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and terrain. Unless you make the right choices, you will never see the sun set
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over the ocean. The middle game also exposes you to a good deal of historical
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information as you traverse land and sea in your search for the gold.
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There are shortcomings in GOLD RUSH!, some of which arise out of its laudable
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quest for, and devotion to, historical accuracy. The actual travel sections move
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too slowly, provide little for the user to do except read and look at the
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pictures, and at times give too much history and not enough game. Some
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occurrences seem too arbitrary: You can die in this game just by being in the
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wrong place at the right time, and later, repeat the same actions but survive.
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For example, round the Cape of Horn, I ran into a storm and the boat sank. I
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restored, went through the same storm, and made it. (I did, however, enjoy
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watching the entire screen shudder and pitch!) This has been explained to me as
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"Game Imitating Life"; that's fine from an educational standpoint, but from a
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gaming standpoint, it seems too random for my tastes. On the other hand, I've
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experienced random events in other games that had no greater justification and
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less basis in historical fact. So, I suppose the solution -- as always -- is to
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save often.
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There are also activities that earn you points, but that don't really move you
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any closer to your goal. And the parser is very limited in comparison to other
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systems' adventure offerings. There are some necessary actions that will lea you
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floundering for the right combination of words. Finally, the game's sheer size
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can be daunting at times.
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But these are minor gripes. GOLD RUSH! offers a unique perspective and an
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involving storyline. It's fun to play, and educational to watch. That makes it a
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valuable commodity, in my estimation.
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GOLD RUSH! is published and distributed by Sierra On-Line.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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