MEAN STREETS

 Experienced game players tend to be a little cynical about game ads. Veteran
gamers know that advertising phrases like "revolutionary," "breathtaking," and
"stunning" are to be taken with a grain of salt. More often than not, games
advertised this way are more run-of-the-mill than revolutionary. This is
especially true when the ads are from small or unknown software companies trying
to break into the market.

 Therefore, I was somewhat skeptical when I read an advertisement last month for
a new adventure game for the IBM and compatibles. The ad promised "stunning,
digitized VGA graphics" and a "revolutionary new technology that allows MS-DOS
computers to play high quality sound effects, music, and speech without
hardware." Since there were no VGA adventure games out on the market, and the
sound on other IBM adventure games was limited to beeps and bloops, these claims
were pretty unbelievable. The name of the game is MEAN STREETS, the first
adventure game published by Access Software. (This review is based on the IBM-PC
version.)

 Playing the game dispelled my skepticism. In this case, the ad was accurate.
MEAN STREETS is a major technical achievement for the IBM, showing what can be
done with digitized graphics, 256-color VGA, and digitized sound. And it's a
pretty good adventure game, too.

 One of the features that makes MEAN STREETS remarkable is its use of VGA
graphics. VGA has been available for some time, but up to now it has not been
widely used in games. VGA offers a vastly wider range of colors than EGA -- 256
colors instead of 16. MEAN STREETS is the first adventure game to make use of
this ability, with spectacular results. Even though the MEAN STREETS VGA
graphics use the same resolution as EGA, the VGA graphics are sharper and mor
realistic than typical EGA graphics, due to the larger number of available
colors. Many of the images used in MEAN STREETS are digitized photos, which
enhance the impact. The game makes extensive use of animated photo portraits,
which have a subtlety of shading and movement not found in the animated drawings
used in most games. The people in the portraits grimace, fidget, and blink their
eyes realistically. The animation is rather rough, but the fact that these
characters move like real people instead of cartoons makes up for it.

 The most important innovation in MEAN STREETS isn't the graphics, though: It's
the digitized sound. Up until now, the IBM had been notorious for its lack of
sound capability. MEAN STREETS changes all that by including digitized speech,
sound effects, and music in the game. Unlike some other attempts at digitized
sound on the IBM, the sound in MEAN STREETS is quite clear. Not only can you
understand the digitized speech, but you can hear nuances like the slight
Chinese accent of one of the characters.

 The sound effects are also spectacular, ranging from the roar of machine gu
fire to the more subtle sound of a drawer opening. The music is less effective,
although that partly reflects the inadequacies of the IBM's small speaker.

 Best of all, this new sound process (called RealSound) will work on virtually
any IBM-compatible computer. The manual claims, "If it beeps when you turn it
on, then it is compatible with RealSound." Unfortunately, the sound lacks
dynamic range because the tiny IBM speaker was not built to do anything more
complicated than beep. To get around the low fidelity problem, Access has
included instructions for hooking up your IBM speaker to your stereo or boom
box. Only a little electronic know-how is required for this procedure, but I
suspect many gamers (like myself) will be too nervous about mucking with the
insides of their expensive machines to go through with it. The price you pay for
sticking with the IBM speaker is tinny sound and low volume. Aside from these
annoyances, the only major problem I found with the sound was an underlying
buzzing noise when music was playing and text was scrolling at th same time.

 MEAN STREETS is a murder mystery set in San Francisco and other various places
in California in the year 2033. You play the main character, private detective
Tex Murphy. Tex has been hired by the beautiful Sylvia Linsky to investigate her
father's death. The police think it was a suicide, but Sylvia is sure it was
murder. In the course of investigating this apparently straightforward case, Tex
finds himself involved in a mysterious conspiracy to control the world. Tex's
job is to find the leader of the conspiracy and solve the murder. Along the way
Tex meets mutants, thugs, robots, and corporate executives.

 The game has four basic components: investigating suspects, searching rooms,
gunfights, and traveling from place to place in your flying car. Investigation
makes up the bulk of the game. You can ask suspects about other characters in
the game, or about a short list of other subjects. If the suspects seem to be
withholding information, you can threaten or bribe them. You use the information
gathered by questioning to get new leads. But like any murder mystery, there are
plenty of false leads and dead ends. This questioning process uses ordinary
text, not digitized speech. During questioning, animated portraits of the
suspects are shown. The suspects' facial reactions are often amusing, and
sometimes useful.

 You can also obtain information by calling your secretary or your informant on
the videophone. Your secretary will tell you what she knows for free, but your
informant will only give you information for a price. The videophone sequences
feature digitized speech and some of the best animation of the game: Your
secretary blows you kisses, but your informant rebukes you with a digitized "Be
realistic!" if you offer too little for information.

 Your investigation sometimes requires searching a room. These segments are
presented from a third-person perspective, as in a Sierra game. You guide an
animated figure of Tex around a room, and manipulate objects using a no-typing
system similar to MANIAC MANSION. The number of commands is limited: You can
look at items, get them, move them, open them, turn them on or off, or taste
them. Rooms have puzzles to solve, and most of them are simple find-the-key
problems. When you enter some rooms, a burglar alarm goes off, and you have a
short period of time to disarm it.

 Carrying out the investigation can be dangerous. Every so often you meet
hostile thugs. When you run into bad guys, the game switches to an arcade
shoot-out between Tex and the gun-wielding goons. These sequences -- featuring
the digitized gun fire and crisp animation -- show MEAN STREETS at its technical
best. The difficulty level of these sequences is adjustable, which is good new
for those of us with slow reflexes.

 The most unusual aspect of MEAN STREETS is the method of transportation. You
travel from place to place in your 21st-century "speeder," a flying car. The
speeder, in fact, is a full-fledged flight simulator. Controlling the flight
simulator is fairly simple, and it's impossible to crash. For those unable or
unwilling to steer themselves, there is an auto-pilot feature. The data base for
the flight simulator covers the whole state of California, including such
landmarks as the Golden Gate Bridge, Mount Shasta, and the Hollywood sign. The
flight simulator graphics are relatively rudimentary, however, in direct
contrast to the digitized graphics used in the rest of the game.

 MEAN STREETS clearly has some problems. The animation is primitive compared to
a Sierra game, the puzzles are mostly easy, and the options available when
investigating suspects or searching rooms are extremely limited. Because of the
complex graphics and sound, screens are often slow to load. Characters in the
game have no memory: If you insult a character, leave, and then return, the
character will have forgotten the insult. The same graphics screens are used
several times -- all of the characters who live in the suburbs seem to live in
the same style of building. The most annoying feature of the game is the flight
simulator. It takes at least a minute to get from place to place using the
simulator, even on auto-pilot. During the course of the game that adds up to a
lot of time spent sitting around waiting to arrive at your destination. This
gets to be very dull very quickly, and shortly you begin to wonder why Access
didn't simply allow you to bypass the simulator section altogether.

 Compensating for these faults are the handsome graphics and the wonderful
sound, as well as a strong storyline and a sly sense of humor. I hope the
problems in MEAN STREETS are due simply to its being Access's first adventure
game, and I look forward to their next release. Even with its faults, MEAN
STREETS is a technical breakthrough, comparable in many ways to KING'S QUEST I's
pioneering use of animated color graphics. But next time, guys, work on the
adventure and skip the simulator!

 This version of MEAN STREETS for IBM-PCs and compatibles requires 512K of
memory. The game supports VGA, EGA, and CGA, but the digitized graphics lose
much of their impact in CGA and, of course, the colors are terrible! The game
doesn't support a mouse or a joystick. The game is not disk-protected, but uses
a manual-based scheme of copy protection.

 MEAN STREETS is published and distributed by Access Software.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253