JAMES BOND: THE STEALTH AFFAIR

 JAMES BOND: THE STEALTH AFFAIR (JB:TSA) is the second in a series of parserless
graphic adventures from Delphine Software in France, distributed in the United
States by Interplay. (The first was FUTURE WARS.) Like the spy movies that it
imitates, the game has more style than substance. Aficionados of Sierra-style
graphic adventures will find much here to like, but it's doubtful that JB:TSA
will win many new converts to this game genre. (This review is based on the
IBM-PC version.)

 In JB:TSA, the player takes the role of British super agent James Bond, on loan
to the American CIA to recover a stolen Stealth bomber. The original European
version of the game, available in import editions for the Atari ST and Commodore
Amiga, reportedly concerned a Bond-like agent named John Glaimes. Interplay,
hoping to increase sales with a movie tie-in, licensed the Bond name for the
American version of the game. And, in fact, the cartoonish figure of the main
character actually does bear a slight resemblance to Timothy Dalton's Bond.

 Most of the game takes place in the fictional South American country of Santa
Paragua, where spies seem to be hiding behind every palm tree. An evil spy
organization, apparently backed by the Soviets, is involved in a typical
nefarious plot and Bond has to stop it.

 The graphics are a straightforward 16-color port from the Atari ST version.
(Interplay has announced plans to release a full 256-color VGA version as well,
though it was not yet available at the time of this writing.) Within these
limitations, the art is surprisingly stylish and easy on the eyes. The music, at
least in the Sound Blaster version, consists mostly of well-done European-style
synth rock with a touch of a salsa beat to match the setting. (There is no
facility, as far as I can tell, for toggling the music on and off. Too bad,
because it does become annoying in large doses. Fortunately, many scenes are
silent.)

 The parserless interface is essentially the same one used in FUTURE WARS and
should ideally be navigated via mouse. Clicking on the left mouse button guides
Bond around the screen. Clicking on the right button calls up a six item menu,
from which you may select the verbs EXAMINE, TAKE, INVENTORY, USE, OPERATE, and
SPEAK using the left mouse button. EXAMINE, TAKE, INVENTORY, and SPEAK are
self-explanatory. USE allows you to use one item on another; OPERATE manipulates
a single item.

 Clicking on the EXAMINE or OPERATE commands with the right mouse button instead
of the left calls up a list of the items in Bond's inventory, so that these
items can be examined or operated. (Clicking with the left button allows you to
examine and use items in Bond's immediate environment.) This isn't intuitively
obvious to anyone who hasn't thoroughly read the manual, and can be a source of
some confusion early in the game, when Bond must open his briefcase (an
inventory item) in order to solve a puzzle.

 The dialog and text messages in JB:TSA read like hasty translations from the
original French. (A typical message, appearing when you try to use an object for
an inappropriate task, reads: "If you have anything else like this, go ahead and
finish it. It's like you did nothing.") Although Interplay has reportedly
polished up the text from the original import version, the rough edges still
show.

 The off-disk copy protection is annoying, at best. As in FUTURE WARS, you must
match portions of a monochrome picture onscreen with a color illustration on the
back of the manual, and identify the color of the indicated areas.
Unfortunately, some of the colors (dark green, light green) are close enough to
encourage mis-identifications. And several colors are difficult to identify in
poor light. I found that the brown areas of the drawing looked purple in the dim
illumination around my computer. Until I learned to hold the page next to a
light while making identifications, I was rejected roughly 50 percent of the
time. When rejected, you're returned to the title screen, which takes nearly 30
seconds to cycle back for another attempt at the CP screen. Color-blind players
are advised to approach this program with caution.

 The game itself is constructed in the same workmanlike, if uninspired, manner
as FUTURE WARS. The puzzles vary from embarrassingly simple to frustratingly
tough. As in most parserless games, many of the puzzles involve using inventory
items on objects in the character's environment until one of them produces a
desired effect. Other puzzles involve using the EXAMINE verb to detect tiny
objects in the scene, though there are fewer such puzzles here than in FUTURE
WARS. As in most adventure games, it's possible to miss an item early in the
game that's necessary for solving a puzzle later in the game. There are plenty
of slots for saving multiple games and they are unquestionably needed.

 JB:TSA runs on IBM/Tandy and 100% compatibles. It requires 512K of RAM, and DOS
2.1 and up. Sound support is provided for Roland and AdLib cards, and the
internal PC speaker. Graphics are displayed in VGA (16 colors), MCGA (16
colors), EGA, CGA, Tandy, or Hercules modes. The Microsoft Mouse is recognized
as an input device.

 If you're an avid fan of Sierra-style graphic adventures who's played
everything from Sierra and Lucasfilm Games, and you still need more games to
satisfy your insatiable appetite, you could do worse than to buy a copy of JAMES
BOND: THE STEALTH AFFAIR. But if graphic adventures are merely a passing
interest, you might want to pass on this one. It's competently done, but
unexceptional. Perhaps nobody does it better than Bond, but Sierra and Lucasfilm
still do this kind of thing better than Delphine.

 JAMES BOND: THE STEALTH AFFAIR is published by Delphine Software and
distributed by Interplay Productions.

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