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From: thornley@milli.cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley)
Subject: Re: What are Shogun and Aurthur Like?
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References: <1995May9.220608.16995@guvax> <baf.800150232@max.tiac.net>
Date: Fri, 12 May 1995 16:33:40 GMT
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In article <baf.800150232@max.tiac.net> baf@max.tiac.net (Carl Muckenhoupt) writes:
>
>Arthur is actually one of their best games, IMHO.
>
There's something of a variation on the traditional maze, also.  If you
have to have a maze, there's no point in one where you can just drop
objects.

>Shogun, on the other hand, is Infocom's worst game.  It slavishly 
>imitates the novel, sometimes bringing the game to a premature end 
>because you diverged from the plot too much.  If you ever wondered why 
>gamers dislike linearity so much, try this game and you'll find out.
>You spend most of your time trapped in one room or other, searching for 
>the command that will advance the plot and trap you in a different 
>room.
>
I think you're being a bit too kind here.

Shogun is episodic, in that there are a couple dozen short scenes that you
play through sequentially; you can only play episode n if you've completed
episode n - 1.  In each scene, you can only do a limited number of things,
and pretty much have to stick to the plot.  If you play it, you will go
through things in one order.  If you don't think it's critical to the game
that you make love to Mariko or take a bath with her, tough.  If you don't
find some way to do that, you don't continue with the game (not don't
*finish* the game, but don't *continue* with the game).  Fortunately,
there's a good set of hints in case you don't remember the book well
enough.

Shogun also has the worst case of "I don't know what an X is" I've
ever seen.  It is sometimes necessary to refer to the Portugese navigator.
The only thing I found that works is his first name, "Vasco", which
is mentioned once early on.  The game will not recognize his last name,
nationality, occupation, or anything else I tried.  (At least, my
version doesn't.  It's possible that they fixed that before the LTOI
edition.)

DHT


