From: bprk_ss@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Brian park)
Newsgroups: rec.games.misc
Subject: Re: AMAZON : Frustrated
Date: 17 Nov 92 21:50:32 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York

>Has anyone else gotten frustrated with Amazon yet?

Yup.

>Several things about the interface really annoy me. The one that annoys me
>the most is the "SHOCK WARNING" stuff.
...
>I can see having a game end when you explicitly make a bad move, but
>to have the game end just by floundering around and trying to find out
>what to do next (especially when you're only given 20 seconds to 
>flounder) is a bum deal if you ask me. For example...
...
>But I can't see penalizing you for being cautious and/or prudent. And if you
>are going to do so, then you need to allow more than 20 seconds. Especially
>since often when you try to examine something without being right next
>to it, the stupid game says "Move Closer", an operation that requires
>about 10 seconds itself to accomplish.

Yeah, the whole SHOCK WARNING deal really blows.  What I think is even worse,
though, is that once you die, the game goes right back to the beginning, and
forces you to sit through that "Six weeks later..." spiel, without giving you
a chance to reload your saved games.  The first time it happened, I thought
maybe I spent six weeks in the hospital?  Okay, it's not a *huge* waste of
time, but I think it reflects a general lack of quality control.

>Also very frustrating is the implementation of the "SAVE" feature. With
>almost every other game I've seen, when you elect to save the game, the
>file that will be used to save the game is the save file used most recently.
>But in AMAZON the "default" game on the SAVE menu is the one at the top
>of the list, no matter how old or stale it is. I accidentally wiped out my 
>son's game by messing this up (geez, it's tough when your 11-year old won't
>talk to you!).

All too true.  Fortunately, I noticed that discrepancy early on, so I've been
careful to avoid that very problem.  What disturbed me was that you need to
click on the filename box and specify a name before you save a game.  Okay,
that might not be too bad either; but as you pointed out, it's very non-
standard.  (Most games that I've played will prompt you for a name when you
save.)  And when you're just starting out, since there *are no* saved games at
all to default to, the game gives you a "DOS error"!  It took a call to
technical support to realize that the game wasn't defective; it just wasn't
smart enough to tell me to use a filename!  That's *very* weak, IMHO.

>And, I finally gave up trying to walk by using the mouse; I use the arrow
>keys to walk most of the time. It was just too frustrating trying to walk
>by using the mouse.

Me too.  It was hard to believe that the "mouse walking" was so poor.  At
least in Martian Memorandum (Access' last memorable RPG outing), you didn't
really need to "walk" anywhere; you could accomplish all necessary tasks with
all the diverse commands at the bottom of the screen.  But in Amazon, for
instance, it took a full 10 mouse clicks for me to walk across the office to
the president's office!  That not counting the ungodly amount of time I spent
bumping into desks and the like.  I find it strange that with the proliferation
of "smart walking" RPGs of this type on the market, Amazon lacks the
maneuverability of most Sierra/LucasFilm/etc. games.  And I thought that the
days of walking off of cliffs were behind me.

>But, the graphics are fantastic if you have a good SVGA card! Plus, the
>digitized voices are great! The game itself is sort of so-so, but the
>effects make it worthwhile.

Hm, I hate to say it, but I'll have to say that this is argueable as well.
Notably, the Super VGA graphics are, IMHO, terrible.  Not only is there no
way to configure your system to start up in SVGA mode, but I can't see why
many people would want to use it.  It's exactly the same as the VGA mode,
except four times smaller; even in the interlude screens.  (Read:  3/4 of
your screen will be blank for these intermissions.)  And even during regular
gameplay, I felt that the SVGA was too small to be useful.

Not even the digitized sounds can save this game, since digitized speech has
become much more common over the last year or so.

I hate to be so critical, but I really have little good to say about this
game.  Hope you've had a better time than I did, though.

>=============================================================================
>Bob Marshall                     \\     "Women aren't as smart as they
>Lockheed Missiles & Space Co.     \\     think they are; they think we
>Sunnyvale, CA                      \\    men know a lot more than we
>marshall@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com\\   really do."
>"I tell the truth 'cept when I lie"  \\     - Tim the Toolman
>=============================================================================

Brian Park
bprk_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu