Previous Next

The idea in New York City is that, as a tourist you must visit twelve locations within a certain time. Included on your itinerary are the Empire State Building, Central Park Zoo, the UN Building, World Trade Centre and Grant's Tomb.

More prosaically, you must also pay a call to such places as the subway, city hall, bank and post office.

New York is shown on screen in the form of a large, scrolling plan of the city. The graphics are very blocky and what you get are large chunks representing different buildings interlaced with roads.

You begin by travelling around the city in a car. If you run out of gas or collide with another vehicle in the fairly busy traffic, your car is towed away to the garage lot where storage charges being mounting up.

Getting the car back means paying bills for storage, gas and repairs.

On foot you are safe from the traffic while on the pavements and can soon reach some of your destinations.

Provided they are open you can enter, whereupon the display will change to reveal the building's interior.

This is where the game is at its most disappointing. The interiors are graphically boring and all you get to do once inside is play a very simple and crude arcade game.

The most common one is to make your way to the top of a grid of platforms and ladders, grab the prize and exit (ho hum).

In the zoo the game consists of erecting fences around escaped animals (yawn). At the bank, you dodge guards and bullets (zzzz) while at the post office you must grab a letter and try to mail it (snore).

And really that's about all there is to it. You just keep wandering around streets and playing silly, uninspiring arcade games for which you either earn or lose money. And keep doing this until your time is up.

Three or four years ago, one could have said that this game had some merit. Now, though, it looks as if it came out of the Ark! Zippy graphics and a wider variety of challenges might have helped redeem it.

In a word, boring. My advice is to either save your money or look at some of the other offerings Americana Software have at this price.