~4 minute readREVIEWS
Suspended For Commodore 64
In the world of text adventure games, Infocom has long been one of the leaders. In 1979, its programmers started writing their own language which enabled the adventure game player to communicate with the program using complex sentences instead of the usual one- or two-word commands. Ever since 1980, when Infocom marketed its first commercial success (Zork I), Infocom's games have almost always been on the various software best-seller lists.
One of Infocom's latest releases, Suspended, is no exception to the rule. It is an exciting, imaginative adventure game that's likely to keep you glued to your keyboard for hours.
The game is set in a future society where mankind has relegated all duties â- from the control of transportation to farming â- to robots and computers. While the human species continues to live on the surface of the planet, the robots move about in a huge underground complex controlling all the computers and machinery that is necessary to sustain life on the surface of the planet. However, the underground complex is not completely automatic, and that's where you come in.
In the game, you have been chosen as the winner of the semi-millennial lottery, and an honor it is. As such, you will serve as Contra's Central Mentality for the next 500 years. This is a position of immense responsibility because you must insure the survival of all life on the surface of the planet.
You will be placed in a state of suspended animation, and your brain will be used to control the Filter Computers, which control all systems on the planet surface.
Computers And Robots
To help you manage the huge underground complex and all its machinery, you are given the use of six robots. You communicate with the robots through the Filter Computers. The robots are individual personalities and each possesses unique qualities and talents.
The six robots are Iris, Waldo, Sensa, Auda, Whiz, and Poet. Iris is a visual robot, the only one capable of seeing. Waldo is your heavy-duty robot. He is capable of carrying many heavy objects and is able to perform tasks ranging from heavy equipment repairs to delicate microsurgery. Sensa has a mixture of different sensory apparatus. She can detect such things as vibrations in the underground complex, photon emission sources, and ionic discharges. Auda is all ears, the only robot capable of hearing. Whiz is the brilliant one. He is used as an interface to the four computers that are the main sources of information about the complex. Poet is the unusual one. He talks to you in rhyme. His messages are sometimes hard to figure out, but very informative once you understand his style. He is also a diagnostic robot with a highly developed sense of touch.
The four computers that Whiz operates (called peripherals) are an important key to the game. They are the Index, Technical, Advisory, and Historical Computers. By using Whiz, you can gain information ranging from the technical aspects of any object found in the complex to the history of various subjects. The Advisory Computer might even give you some advice on how to accomplish the task you're currently working on.
Playing The Game
The Filter Computers control the surface systems such as weather control, food production, and all surface transportation. When the game is first started, the Filter Computers have just begun to break down, and a major world catastrophe is in the making. The weather system is in error, and major storms on the planet's surface are killing the human population. The food-producing system (deep underground hydroponic farms) has gone awry and crops are dying. Without food, the population will starve. And the transportation system has become chaotic. The Floaters, Taxis, and Glide Ramps (forms of mass transit) are running uncontrolled and are killing people by the hundreds of thousands.
Your job as central controller is to repair the Filter Computers and reset all the surface systems to normal operation. You must use your robots, and you encounter a number of extra surprises along the way.
A Busy Program
While Suspended is enjoyable and stretches your imagination to its limits, the great complexity of the program itself does result in one minor drawback: occasional slow response. Because the program in Suspended has to keep track of six characters, the response time can be somewhat slow. Infocom's special language enables you not only to communicate with the robots using complex sentences, but also to issue multiple commands in one statement. Some commands require as long as two or more minutes for a response. This is to be expected in a "thinking" game as complex as Suspended â- many computer chess programs take hours to ponder their moves.
If the small inconvenience of a sometimes slow response does not bother you, then I can highly recommend Suspended.
Suspended
Distributed by:
Commodore Business Machines, Inc.
1200 Wilson Dr.
West Chester, PA 19380
1-215-436-4200
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