Acorn User


Enthar Seven

Author: Harry Sinclair
Publisher: Robico
Machine: Acorn Electron

 
Published in Acorn User #044

Hooray! An adventure on disc! It's great to be able to sit down and start adventuring without the customary ten minute wait.

Complaints out of the way first. The interpreter is a bit irritating, making you use exact forms of words - for instance STICK instead of ATTACH although it recognises both words, and TURN TORCH ON instead of TORCH ON. These games are hard enough without the interpreter getting snooty!

There are also some fatal errors. If you try to save your position but the disc you are using has a full catalogue - not difficult if you save your position at different points in the game - the whole thing dies and you are given a 'Bad Program' message!

Enthar Seven

Now the game. You're in a spaceship which is itself suffering from a fatal error - it's falling apart. Racing to the escape pod (collecting a few things on the way) you leap in and blast off, as it were. When you come to, you are on a long-deserted space station on Enthar Seven. What you have to do is get into the spaceship which is in the car park outside, and head for home. Of course you know it's not that easy. Enthar Seven is divided into seven (surprise) sectors, each with its own secrets and dangers. My team has been absolute rubbish in all sectors but one, where we've been able to collect a few items. Sadly, we can't find anything to do with them yet. As far as I can tell, there is only one maze, and that isn't difficult.

The descriptions of locations, etc, are read in from disc and everything works smoothly and quickly. It seems odd though that the technique hasn't been extended to include graphics.

An enjoyable and baffling adventure, and a very good buy - especially when the disc errors get sorted out.

Harry Sinclair

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