Previous Next

If only The Black Tower had been as good as the cassette inlay said - I'd have had a great treat. Boredom, however was the main outcome.

Let me translate some of the inlay's hyperbole for you. Take "exciting". If an excruciatingly slow response coupled with the most mundane text seen this side of a telephone directory is exciting, this is a thriller. Take "magical lands". If a wood, a large forest, a huge forest, a pub and a hut are magical lands then welcome to Oz.

Take "exciting people". I met one, a character called Josh about whom I was told absolutely nothing. Any attempt to examine an item was stonewalled with "Curiosity killed the cat". Take "interesting places". If location graphics that would shame a three-year-old are exciting, my doodles should hang in the Tate. The "difficult problems" part, turned out to be true - the problems of keeping awake!

What can you say about an adventure that, when fed with the verb ZQX (or any real word it doesn't recognise) responds "You can't do that... yet". Yet?

I placed The Black Tower in the slot of my magical one-armed bandit and hit the jackpot - three raspberries.