Please login to submit a screenshot

Mirrorsoft, £5.95 cass

Mirrorsoft have been attempting to make themselves a credible software house for some time now. So it was with some enthusiasm that I opened the Ashkeron package at the office yesterday. The game is a mixed graphics and text adventure of the fantasy genre which, at first sight, has some rather interesting features.

The game arrived neatly packaged in a standard cassette sized box with transparent cover and full colour inlay. However, Mirrorsoft have still got quite a way to go, regarding computer adventure games and that fact is typified by this game. Without sounding unfair to Mirrorsoft, I do not want to spend too much time commenting on Ashkeron, as it was, quite frankly atrocious.
The plot is the usual offering, a quest to be completed within a certain time limit. The reward? The hand of your Princess in marriage. Okay, don't fall over with the shock. It's far more sensible to start off simple; there's more chance of doing the job well.
All the more amazing that Mirrorsoft got it totally wrong!
The game consists of mixed text and graphics display but
there's nothing to become excited about here. The text is simplistic and the graphics are appalling. It's terrible to have to be blunt about games like these. It would be much easier to use such phraseology as 'fell short of their aspirations.' It doesn't sound so bad. But it gives the impression that it nearly made it. There's no way Ashkeron nearly makes it to anything other than the bin.
The logic is terrible. When night falls, the views are still shown in daylight and when you die it sometimes says that you have lasted several days. The vocabulary is either embarrassingly small, or the input routines are up the creek because the game hardly understood a word I said. One gimmick which ought to be a saving grace, is the fact
that moving can be handled by a joystick. This should have speeded things up a little but because the graphics window uses primitive screen scrolling, getting anywhere takes ages anyway.
There may be some interesting puzzles in the game somewhere, but they aren't really worth finding. The whole affair seems amateurish and half-finished. Ashkeron, I'm afraid, isn't destined for anything other than oblivion.

Atmosphere 28%
Plot 25%
Interaction 22%
Lastability 17%
Value for money 23%
Overall 20%