The storyline might almost be taken straight from a film or video game for all the depth it has, and there are definite references to the likes of Alien and Doom scattered throughout. The player awakens suddenly as emergency sirens are going off and is informed that events have been hectic over the past few days as rumours have circulated that civilians have been used in experiments to create abominable monstrosities. Whew! If you think that sounds clichéd as hell, you're right. It's also delivered in a few short sentences right at the start of the game without the least effort made to create any sense of dread or horror. For all that the player reacts to this news, it's like he hears it every day.

Exploring the base where the games takes place leads the player to encounter several NPCs, all of whom are either unconscious or dead. Apparently there has been a large battle at the base through which the player slept through. One NPC I was able to interact with, although only after I'd tried several commands, met with failure, and typed 'hint'. Apparently the 'heal' command is used by this game but as this isn't a standard command that you normally find in text adventures, it wasn't one that I thought to type. Conversation with the characters is clumsy; "talk to [name]" isn't implemented so the awkward "ask [name] about [subject]" has to be used instead. I had varying levels of success with this although for the most part I was just typing words at random in the hope of sparking a response as "guess the conversation topic" puzzles have never much appealed to me.

Another character I found, a Ltn Hawks, I wasn't able to bring around at all. Even though the description following my healing attempts told me he was feeling much better and was now stable, all attempts to communicate with him led to me being told he wasn't "animate". I don't know if this is a failing on the part of the system or the writer but it was certainly strange and a real mimesis-breaker. I got the same reaction upon trying to wake him, so "animate" doesn't mean "unconscious" as I'd first assumed. Pity. As the only other NPC I'd encountered to that time was Andinne and I'd only managed to elicit a couple of responses from her, I was hoping for a bit more from Ltn Hawks. Unfortunately not. Strangely, even when you've healed Hawks the room description still lists him as being "possibly dead".

Several things aren't covered in the game and the most jarring are the entities you encounter from time to time. Trying to examine them hits you with the time old message that you see no such thing, even when they're right in front of you. Another time, I found a room with an alien inside. Examining the alien produced no response yet examining the shadows gave me a wonderful view of the alien. Right before it killed me.

In fact, getting killed in this game is simplicity itself. Even after finding a gun, I regularly got myself massacred by every enemy I came across. It's also possible to put the game in an unfinishable situation if, like me, you blindly assume that gun you found is for shooting aliens with. Silly me. It's actually to shoot the lock off a chest you come across.

There are a few guess the verb moments that annoyed me no end. The chest mentioned in the previous paragraph appeared to be empty to me the first time I examined it yet after I'd looked in the walkthrough, I realised I needed to search it. Which I did. Upon doing this, I discovered a laser cutter, a flare and a battery inside. Why wasn't I able to see these when I examined the chest? After all, it's not like they were hiding or anything. Another room had a grid that couldn't be opened yet could be pulled. Any half-decent beta tester would have picked up on these errors surely?

All in all, the lack of storyline and ease of getting killed, not to mention leaving the game in an unfinishable situation, left me feeling that while this wasn't a complete stinker, it wasn't anything to write home about either.

4 out of 10