Suspended: Review

David P. Stone

BASIC INFORMATION
NAME:	Suspended
TYPE:	Adventure
SYSTEM:	Many (Atari reviewed)
FORMAT:	Disk
PRICE:	$39.95
PUBLISHER:	Infocom Cambridge, MA

Suspended is the latest in an unbroken chain of outstanding adventures from Infocom. It's premise is ingenious and intriguing.

In a cryogenic state, deep within the bowels of the planet Contra, your sleeping mind monitors the filtering computers that maintain a balance of the planet's food, transportation, and weather systems. Contra's population depends on these systems. Your conscious mind is the failsafe system. You are to be awakened only if there is an emergency. There is, of course, an emergency.

After awakening your task is to direct the actions of six robots to repair and reset the filtering computers so you can get back to sleep. Sound like fun? Get ready for some long and sleepless nights because if you don't fix them in a hurry, humans from the surface will show up with your replacement clone to pull your plug. The result: high tech death.

Each robot has a name, a set of special skills, and its own personality. The personalities seem to grow on you. As the game progresses, the robots turn from talented pawns into trusty friends. Each robot has a primary skill plus some degree of mobility and grasping extensions. IRIS sees (when she's working). WALDO manipulates objects and moves by sonar. SENSA senses. She can detect vibrations, photon emissions, and ionic discharges. AUDA hears. She's particularly good at eaves-dropping. WHIZ is the brains of the outfit. He's your link to the complex's computer memory banks. Finally, there's POET. He speaks in cryptic clauses that accurately describe his environment — if you can just figure out what he's referring to. Also, he has a special diagnostic sensor that works when you direct him to touch something. All in all, they are quite a crew (with only a hint of sexism in their roles).

Both cryogenics and robots are enjoying a certain popularity nowadays, so the themes of Suspended are well timed. Of course, the idea of robots has been around for a long time. Ones with personalities were first rocketed to popularity in Isaac Asimov's science fiction classic I, Robot. That work tapped, and perhaps exploited, man's fear of technology and his ultimate inability to control his destiny.

The robots in Suspended are not from the same world as Asimov's, but they are not from the other side of the universe either. They serve you faithfully within their limitations and have no delusion of power or superiority. However, throughout the adventure you are very much aware that you have no hands but their hands ("extensions"), no senses but their senses. You may find this frustrating when you want a robot with "dainty extensions" to grasp, or a robot with no visual scanner to see.

You can talk to the robots individually or as a group. You can even have two of them team up to perform a single task that neither could do alone. A few handy abbreviated commands are available: ARL (all robots, report your locations) and ARR (all robots, report). These two commands are especially useful when you are still exploring and have temporarily lost track of which robot is where. Another feature that makes this game a cut above other adventure games is you don't have to type in every move. For example, you can send a robot from one side of the complex to the other by simply telling him to go there. Meanwhile, you can have other robots perform other tasks. Another time/typing saver is the "FOLLOW" command; just tell one robot to FOLLOW another one and he will do so as long as it is physically possible. These two features help make the game very playable.

There are several phases to learning and enjoying Suspended. First, there's exploring and testing to discover all the individual maneuvers necessary to fix the filtering computers and complete the game. Next, there's putting all the pieces together to make sure they fit. Then comes the honing process —- developing the critical path that minimizes your total number of moves.

Having fixed the filtering computers in the least number of moves that you believe to be possible, the adventure is still not over. No need to file Suspended on the shelf with all those other dusty adventures. You are now ready for the next phases: playing the advanced, harder, and expert levels. Things happen quicker on these levels, but the basic scenario is the same. One level beyond all these is impossible. It is just that.

If you've experienced Zork, Deadline, or Starcross, you already know about the quality of Infocom's parser (the part of the game's program that interprets your input and responds accordingly). It's the best on the market. The program accepts complete, complex sentences, not just two-word input. As with earlier Infocom adventures, Suspended recognizes over 600 words; and, more importantly, it responds intelligently to most user input. So, there is seldom a need to test combinations of verbs and subjects to hit upon the exact words that the game designer had in mind.

As everyone who has read their ads knows, Infocom doesn't do graphics. Instead, their parser and their prose tell the story. However, the quality of the prose in Suspended is different than in other Infocom games. The prose in Suspended is mostly reports and replies from the robots. While there is little purple (in the prose), each robot has a particular way of saying things that contributes to establishing its character, revealing its personality, and developing an enjoyable atmosphere for the game.

True to form, Infocom has maintained their tradition of producing the high quality documentation. The game includes a plastic molded mask of a cryogenic sleeper -— sure to spook small children and entertain all others (and, by the way, of no use in completing the game); a full-color, two-fold map board of the underground complex with six vinyl markers — one for each robot; and, a well written instruction booklet. Besides containing necessary background information and procedures for playing the game,

the booklet is cleverly written, slightly wordy, and filled with wry understatements about your cryogenic predicament. As a total package, the documentation for Suspended leaves no gaps and does more than enough to establish the mood for the game.

One task of the adventure writer is to provide just enough clues, in the instruction booklet and in the game itself, for you to be able to figure things out. Too many clues and the answers are given away. "Hint" systems allow the writer to be skimpier with the clues since they allow you to move forward even if you do get stuck. Suspended incorporates one of the cleverest hint systems you are likely to see. It is totally integrated into the story line.

Hints are dispensed via the underground complex's Central Library Core (CLC). The CLC is a master computer that has three areas from which WHIZ can access historical, technical, or advisory information about objects that the robots find. A fourth area of the CLC provides an index to the other three. So, for example, after telling WHIZ to plug in at the Index, you can command him to ask about an object (e.g., "WHIZ, ASK ABOUT PANEL.") If information on a "panel" is available, the Index will list which of the other three areas contain the information so you can send WHIZ there to access it.

Obviously, this information gathering process is time consuming, and when you get to the stage of putting the pieces together to complete the adventure, there will be no need to send WHIZ to the CLC. Also, the game can be successfully completed without accessing the CLC at all. So, if you are a die-hard adventurer who thinks hints are for sissies, don't plug WHIZ into the CLC. But, be prepared to see the shadow of your replacement clone more than just a few times.

One can't help but wonder, "What if Infocom hadn't provided the map of the complex? What if they hadn't provided an integrated hint system? ...would the game still be playable?" The answer is "yes" — however, it would have been not only a different game, but a different type of game, more like the early-style adventure where all you knew was that you were to explore, collect treasure, and perhaps, escape.

If you are an adventurer who is looking for a treasure-based adventure, and take special delight in exploring and mapping each room for yourself, or discovering if there even is a next room, then that aspect of Suspended will not excite you.

About strategies. You will want to develop your own strategy for mastering the game; however, when you first get started, forget about fixing the filtering computers, that'll come later. First, get to know your robots. Explore each robot's capabilities and limitations. Take them all to the same room and compare their reports. Like the well-worn tale of the blind men and the elephant, the robots will each give you their unique, but incomplete, perspective.

As the robots find objects, things that need to be done will become apparent. Soon, you'll be on your way to putting together the pieces to complete the adventure. You'll discover that there is more than one way to complete the adventure. Without revealing what they are, let's just say that your friend's lives are in your hands.

As you command one robot to go here, another to go there, the game becomes like running a very, very complex football play. Each player must be in a certain place at a certain time for the play to work. Also similarly, there's more than one way to make a touchdown.

The same disasters strike at the same time every time the standard game is played. Note when these occur, and consider strategies to get certain things done before they occur. One thing that does change is something called the "reset code". When you find out what it is, be sure to write it down — it's different each game. You'll also discover how each of the planet's systems can be monitored and manually controlled from within the underground complex. Bringing the systems under control is essential to minimize surface-side deaths until you replace the proper cables and bring the filtering computers back into balance.

Finally, fear and terror are underlying themes of the game. However, don't let an unfounded fear that the game is too complex keep you away from it. True, at first, Suspended may seem unwieldy, perhaps overwhelming ...all that documentation, ...six robots to control at once, ...what do I know about fixing computers, anyway?

Let your fears be calmed, the game is very playable, even replayable, once you understand the premise. The robots are easy to control, once you get to know them. And, you don't have to know anything about fixing real computers. So, get out the documentation, a pencil and plenty of paper, and boot-up the disk — people are dying and you're half asleep! — people are dying and you need to wake up!

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