~3 minute readLetters from Paradise
Prognosis for Phobos Phobia
It was with mixed emotions that I read your review of Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2. It seems clear to me that you must be among those who long for the good old days when films were black and white, comic books were a dime and you could get an American-made gas guzzler with a distinct personality, meticulously designed tail lights and a grill reminiscent of a gargantuan grin. Mind you there is nothing wrong with any of these bits of memorabilia or those who long for yesteryear. In fact, thanks to this faithful band, both The Lost Treasures of Infocom and the latest release of Volume 2 of these classics are selling extremely well. Those products are well-written, contain imagery that can be best visualized via the printed word and have stood the test of time. But sadly, the merry band that was Infocom can no longer be supported with such text adventures.
Excerpting from your commentary, I found that you properly recognized that our 1990s version of Steve Meretzky's original hit did still provide the user with the option of playing the part of either a male or female protagonist, had an interface that was "intuitive and unambiguous" and "includes the most ambitious speech support effort ever packed into an entertainment product." Not bad, I'd say. In addition, you also pointed out, quite correctly, that the game package includes the LifeSize Sound Enhancer, a device that requires no additional computer hardware and provides high-quality digitized audio.
Our goal is to appeal to the expert users, such as yourself, while at the same time to make a contribution to the movement to broaden the marketplace for interactive entertainment and to attempt to entice those who have, to date, held out and not purchased a computer with products that will appeal and not be quite so difficult to install, play and successfully complete. To find a happy medium between these two honorable goals is admittedly difficult. Our subsequent products may well be more acceptable to the former camp. However, to continue to provide text adventures at a time when the medium is becoming increasingly more visual would be a mistake, in our opinion. To provide a graphic adventure with puzzles that are obtuse, at a time when novices are beginning, albeit slowly, to enter the marketplace would be counterproductive to the industry's goals. Analogously, I personally avoid, at all costs, the crossword puzzles from the Manchester Guardian because they are so abstruse and difficult.
I can appreciate your recollections about the old days when Infocom was king, when graphics in 256 colors (or more) didn't exist and the marketplace was limited to those hearty souls who loved to type and tirelessly responded to the admonition, "I don't understand that word," but that was 8 years ago and those were books. Now we're doing movies. And while many people prefer the former, we are confident that it will be multi-media products like Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 which will, in the long run, help to expand the base of end-users and ultimately result in many more products being developed.
Peter Doctorow
President, Activision/Infocom
We think mixed emotions is exactly what the Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 review should have evoked It was a mixed review which recognized both the technological advances within the game without affirming what the reviewer perceived as the trade-off of less-challenging game play for audio-visual effects. We trust your reasoned response will underscore the rationale behind that trade-off and encourage those looking for a simpler style graphic adventure to give it a try.
This article appeared in
Computer Gaming World
Oct 1992
These historical, out-of-print articles and literary works have been GNUSTOed onto InvisiClues.org for academic and research purposes.
