Review by Richard Brindley Name: The Pandora Directive Publisher: Access Software Inc. Format: CD Available: Now Requires: O/S: DOS 5.0+ / Windows 95 Processor: 486DX66 (Pentium recommended) RAM: 8MB/12MB Windows 95 Graphics: VESA compliant SVGA 640x480x256 CD-Rom: Double Speed (Quad recommended) Soundcard: All major cards supported Tested on: O/S: Windows 95 Processor: Pentium 133MHz RAM: 32Mb Graphics: 2Mb Matrox Millenium CD-ROM: Toshiba 4.4x SCSI Soundcard: Soundblaster AWE32 Controls: Mouse + Keyboard | 
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It's Interactive Movie time
What exactly is an Interactive Movie? The people from Origin
would lead us to believe that it's a high-tech wrapper around
a pretty ordinary space shoot-em-up. The people from Sierra On-Line
would like us to consider being led around by our nose through
pre-rendered scenes with a single path to follow entertainment.
If you're really lucky you might get stuck on the only tough puzzle
in Critical Path, thus delaying the inevitable ending by up to
30 minutes.
Access Software, on the other hand, have concentrated on several things; a good plot, an easy-to-use interface, great graphics, and a non-linear style which enables the player to choose how difficult the game should be, what sort of character they want to play, and how they would like to react to particular situations.
Their track record is fairly impressive. The Pandora Directive
comes as a follow-up to the impressive Under a Killing Moon, which
was preceded by perhaps the first SVGA game I ever saw - Amazon.
Even though Amazon was thin in some places, it was one of the
first proponents of the "Interactive" genre, and came
out way before people like Sierra and Virgin had started making
their move.
Just call me Tex
The government has covered up the greatest secret of the 20th Century. Tex doesn't like secrets.
As with Under a Killing Moon, you once more play Tex Murphy, the Bourbon-drinking raincoat-wearing sloth, er, I mean sleuth. You have been employed by an ageing archaeologist to find his missing partner, Thomas Malloy, who has disappeared after extensive travels in search of an answer to a puzzle they had been working on for years.
| As the game progresses, you find out that Malloy has been extensively researching the ancient Mayan culture with a view to some startling information he uncovered about the rumoured UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico. You soon become deeply embroiled in the plot as a secretive government agency starts to throw its weight around. |  |
The cheese factory is on fire
| Just like any good film thriller, the plot and suspense factors are nicely intermingled with the obligatory love interest and excellent tongue-in-cheek humour. As for "The cheese factory is on fire", you'll have to play the game to find out!
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Cinematography
The use of rendered backgrounds, live acting, and 3D scenery rendered in real-time produces a rich and enjoyable environment. Rather than using 11th Hour - type pre-rendered paths structure, Access have gone overboard in allowing you to walk around the environment freely; you can walk in any direction, including up and down stairs and ladders, look up and down, crouch down behind objects, look under chairs, in fact pretty much anything you can do in a modern 3D action game. Of course, this makes the game trickier - you have to be very meticulous about searching for clues - but this is not necessarily a bad thing. In charge of the cinematography was Hollywood editor/director Adrian Carr (who has worked on Quigley Down Under, Man from Snowy River, and the Power Rangers film amongst others), and he is supported by a very able crew of cameramen, actors, and stunt-men.
| These stunt-men are very necessary; parts of the game can be quite physical and violent in content, and the fight scenes have been very well choreographed and filmed. | 
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So is it nut-numbingly difficult?
(1) No.
(2) Yes.
Eh?
Let me explain, Manuel. There are two levels of play - Entertainment
level and Game Players level. Entertainment level is the default
- the puzzles are easier, you don't need as much information to
complete sub-plot segments, and there is a full on-line hint system.
The hint system leads you from one logical step to another, and
can be very helpful if you have overlooked one annoying thing
which is stopping you from getting on. You earn points for each
task completed, and use of a hint means that points are deducted
from you. At Game Players level, there are extra puzzles to complete,
additional locations to visit, and no hint system. In addition,
you can decide whether you're going to play the hard-nosed but
honest P.I. struggling to overcome the forces of greed and corruption,
the cynical opportunist who would sell his granny to score the
big payoff, or any combination of the two. Depending on what character
you play and what decisions you make, the game has plot forks
a-plenty, and with seven different endings, you may well want
to play it more than once just to see what would happen if you
do things differently. Of course, the game is not entirely
non-linear; there are certain things you must do to progress
in the game, but with four or five sub-plots at any one time,
you have pretty much a free hand at how you're going to do things.
The Director's Cut
Pundits of the director's cut of Blade Runner (you know, when
they removed the voice over) may find Tex's plot-following voice-over
a tad annoying, but I find that it adds a certain ambience to
the aural experience. The combination of that, the localised sound
effects (hear that paper flapping? You need to get that), and
the jazzy Bogart-era sound track, and you end up with a pleasingly
immersive feel to the game.
The Cast
| Tex Murphy is a twenty-first century detective who sincerely believes he was born one hundred years too late. To compensate, he goes to great lengths to emulate the classic PIs. Complete with fedora, trenchcoat and wise-guy banter, he tries to project a world-weary image, but comes across as hard-boiled as a marshmallow. |
| Jackson Cross is a government agent who frowns on compromises and smiles when he kills people. He uses his position of power to further his own agenda, which is known to only him. |
| Gordon Fitzpatrick is the eccentric and enigmatic older gentleman who hires Tex. He's probably a little older than you'd think and his background is as mysterious and inscrutable as his fashion sense. |
| Headstrong, beautiful and vaguely vulnerable (not necessarily in that order), Regan Madsen is harder to figure out than a long tax form. Her philosophy of romance is: I dance with love... until it tries to lead. | |
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| Thomas Malloy used to work for the military, analysing symbols found on the UFO wreckage at Roswell, New Mexico. Now retired and clinging by a thread to life, he spends his last days in fear. What he found out at Roswell has him on the run from everyone but the Girl Scouts. |
| Chelsee Bando runs the news-stand across the street from Tex's office at the Ritz Hotel. For a long time, she's resisted Tex's advances, but now she's turning thirty years old and is starting to think in the long-term. As Tex succinctly put it, the older she gets, the better he looks to her. |
| Emily Sue Patterson sings at the Fuchsia Flamingo, the tacky-yet-sincere night-club next door to the Ritz Hotel. If working at the Flamingo wasn't bad enough, she's being stalked by a killer that supposedly hung himself in a Nevada jail cell. |
| Figuratively speaking, Archie Ellis is the brains behind the Cosmic Connection, a magazine and a new-age shop frequented by conspiracy theorists and UFO crackpots. Given a chance, Archie will tell you everything you never wanted to know about alien abductions, crop circles and the dangers of smoking. |
| Elijah Witt is the reclusive author of such books as There are Messages from Outer Space. Worshipped by thousands and dismissed as a knucklehead by millions, Witt keeps himself occupied by hanging up on innocent callers and cashing royalty checks. |
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| Lucia Pernell, the star investigative reporter for the Bay City Mirror, would send her grandmother up the river for a hot story. Tough and aggressive, she believes everyone has a weak spot. Sometimes it's higher and sometimes it's lower, but the worst are people like Tex, who don't think they have one. |
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| Lt. Mac Malden is Tex's connection in the San Francisco Police Department. Mac fancies himself to be a first-rate cop, but the only things larger-than-life about him are his nose and his gut. Mac's in the early stages of a mid-life crisis, precipitated by his wife running off with his best friend. If Mac ever finds out where the guy is, he'd like to buy him a drink. |
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| Fresh off a diet and getting his teeth fixed, Louie LaMintz, the owner of the Brew & Stew diner is primed for love. Since there aren't any takers on the immediate horizon, Louie contents himself with being Tex's romantic counsellor. As he tells Tex, the only thing easier than falling in love is getting married. What counts is knowing someone really well and still liking them. |
| Rook Garner, the gnarled and vinegary proprietor of Rook's Pawnshop, is Tex's friend in the loosest sense of the word. Any evidence of inner camaraderie and compassion is well-hidden behind an onslaught of verbal assaults and name-calling. According to Rook, Tex wouldn't know subtlety if it walked up and punched him in the face. |
| Clint, the one-eyed chocoholic, has climbed the social ladder from a dumpster to the Cocoa Cabana, a chocolate shop which always seems to be running low on stock. Clint owes his good fortune to a C.U.B. grant given to him by the Agency to Curb Urban Blight. |
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| Zack Williams is the new manager of the Electronics Shop, which has changed its policy from credit-only to cash-only (at least for Tex). Featuring a new line of Robco products, including the hot-selling Cyber Nanny Home Parenting System, Zack's business is a candy store for someone like Tex. Now all he has to do is pay off that pesky bill he ran up in Under a Killing Moon. |
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| Nilo Paglio is the slimy, cigar-chewing owner/landlord/extortionist at the Ritz Hotel. It's mid-April and Tex is a little late on his February rent, which has Nilo breathing down his neck like a drunken sailor on the last night of leave. |
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| Gus Leach is the huge, ugly mutant who has poured his heart and soul into the Fuchsia Flamingo night-club. The place is a cross between Vegas vamp and Mayan myth, with a hearty helping of naugahyde thrown in. Gus' hobbies include physiognomy, interior decorating and maiming people who insult his club and/or singer, Emily Sue Patterson. |
| Crazy Gary roams Chandler Avenue aimlessly, yet wildly, like a futuristic Moses strung out on Demerol and bad Scotch. Having waged a war on all meat-eaters, Crazy Gary preaches that the path of regularity is straight and narrow and that a meal of chilli dogs and chocolate milk is Satan's lunch. |
| The shrivelled, kindly landlady of the Garden House is like a great-great-grandmother figure to her boarders. But don't take her for granted; she's as quick to slam the door in the face of an intruder as she is to pinch a cheek and say 'I wish you were my nephew.' |
| Glenda serves up the drinks at the Brew & Stew, as well as large, steaming helpings of home-cooked bon mots. Her philosophy on relationships is that it's love or money, one or the other. |
Conclusion
| A worthy addition to the "Interactive Movie" genre. This game feels to me like a combination of the edge-of-the-seat night-after-night compulsive viewing of Murder One mixed in with a large dash of Unsolved Mysteries, topped off with a soupson of SledgeHammer . It's also very good value - this game will take you a long time to complete, but maintains the interest value throughout. |  We would kill for this technology |
======================= Rating: 9/10 (Classic!) =======================
