Treasure of Meathos

Micro Adventurer

SW

TREASURE OF MEATHOS MICRO: Spectrum 48K PRICE: £5.00 FORMAT: Cassette SUPPLIER: J Copland, [redacted] Adventure games are becoming more and more popular. They open up worlds of enchantment that the eager adventurer can dip into. Of the many types of adventure games, the text adventure has to come at the top of the list. There are no intrusive graphics to distract the dedicated and imaginative player from total immersion into a really great scenario. They are the real classics of the genre. Treasure of Meathos is a text adventure - the graphics are its excellent title page. The story line is fairly trite - long dead kings, fabulous treasures, magical monsters, and death trapped tombs. (Shades of King Solomon's mines meets the Pharaoh's tomb). The idea is, of course, to get the treasure and preferably stay alive to spend it as riotously as possible. It's not an exciting, or even a new story line, but Treasure of Meathos does have some pleasant surprises up its sleeve (or is it down its dungeons). The characterisation is excellent. The "Hero!" and that means you!, meets and becomes involved with a whole series of amusing and occasionally annoying characters everything from daft dwarfs to gruesome grandmas. The characters have to be dealt with on a fairly realistic basis, and you can't always judge by appearances. So if a sweet old grandmother type asks you for a hand-out, remember that charity begins at home. Although the characters are excellent, the locations are not. Descriptions are crude, brief, and often downright boring, especially when the same description comes up for the umpteenth time for a supposedly new location. The vocabulary is poor, though you can talk to your computer in sentences, not just two words. The spelling is dreadful, even by my rather lax standards, and although there are some delightful flashes of humour they are somewhat spoilt by repetition. A joke's not funny the sixth time round! There are the usual 'save game' facilities, and you have the chance to see just how much of the game you've completed when you quit. For someone fairly new to adventuring, Treasure of Meathos would probably keep you amused and entertained for quite some time. But for experienced or master adventurers it just isn't up to standard. In fact, you need to play down to its level, rather than up to yours. At its price it's a reasonably good buy, and would probably make an excellent gift. But if the author had spent as much time on the locations as he obviously has on characterisation, then he'd have a winner on his his hands.