~2 minute readGames & Books
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky (Infocom, on disk for most home computers, around $35 to $40)
Those of you who have read and enjoyed Douglas Adams's novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy will find it no help whatsoever when it comes to solving the computer adventure game based on the book. This, of course, is as it should be, but is small comfort; for the game does not succeed as completely as one might have hoped.
You are Arthur Dent, the hapless hero. Your house is about to be destroyed to make room for the British equivalent of an interstate highway. As if this weren't enough, you're told by your close friend Ford Prefect that he's from outer space and that the earth is about to be destroyed to make room for an intergalactic highway. Miraculously, you and Ford are spared to wander the universe and solve puzzles.
The game manages to capture the book's off-the-wall humor. While this is sometimes fun, it is also the game’s biggest flaw. There are too many places where you are just a reader rather than a player. Long passages go by that require absolutely no creative input; although you are prompted to type in something at these points, what you type is usually immaterial, since you're just marking time anyway. You must wait for the destruction of your house and then of the earth; you must wait in the dark between trips in space; and there’s no way to speed things up.
In other games from Infocom’s fine line of all-text adventures, you have almost complete control over where you go. You make a map, explore the territory, and can retrace your steps if you do something in the wrong order. Here, though, you are tossed randomly from one scenario to another. Each presents one or two problems to solve, and then you're transported back to your spaceship —- where, unlike the settings in most Infocom games, there's very little exploring to do.
Mr. Adams is a very humorous writer, and he has tried to cram every joke he can into the game. Too often the result is that gameplay is sacrificed for a cheap laugh. At one point, for example, you're told that there is an exit to port. After trying to exit port a number of times, out of frustration you try to exit aft —- and you succeed. The computer then tells you there is no exit to port; it was just a joke. Ha ha.
The game does have its good points, however. From time to time you are called on to do some creative thinking, which is refreshing and welcome when it happens. The puzzles require cleverness and more than a little skill in the art of lateral thinking. The Bugblatter Beast situation, for example, is solved with a perfect blend of humor and total disregard for the laws that govern the universe. At such high points in the game, you know that beneath the flaws there beats an Infocom heart. You just find yourself wishing it beat just a little stronger.
This article appeared in
Games
Apr 1985
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