Games, v8(12)

~1 minute read

Dec 1984

Computer Capers: Adventure

Planetfall

Randi Hacker

The end justifies the means in Planetfall -— even murder, after a fashion —- and those who take their scruples into the game with them should abandon all hope of winning.

As usual, Infocom has given adventurers an all-text game containing an intricate, absorbing, and humorous series of puzzles. You are low ensign on a starship, which is about to blow up (cause unknown). Fortunately, the gods look out for shlemiels, and you alone escape in an emergency vehicle to fulfill your destiny, which is on an ostensibly uninhabited planet. With your emergency survival kit, you must explore abandoned settlements, locate crucial rooms and tools, and save the planet from the many disasters that threaten to destroy it. And you must work quickly, since there's a virus in the air that could kill you if you take too long.

The game is full of such futuristic stuff as teleportation booths, computerized life support systems, and lasers. You even latch on to a robot companion who is loyal and true and tells the same stories over and over —- just like real people do. Use him mercilessly.

There is logic and order to the story line. Every time you come up against what seems to be an insoluble problem, a little creative thinking will get you out. This makes Planetfall a totally satisfying game. You can, by the way, finish it without completing all the steps leading up to the ending, but in that case the ending will be different.

Infocom; AP, AT, C64, IBM, MAC (D); $45.

This article appeared in
Games
Dec 1984

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