GAME: Plains Of Passion
AUTHOR: Paul Swift
PLATFORM: ADRIFT 3.9 http://www.adrift.org.uk/cgi/new/adrift.cgi
SOUND: no
GRAPHICS: no
REVIEWED: 29th May 2007
WALKTHROUGH: n/a
DOWNLOAD: http://newsletter.aifcommunity.org/minicomp2007.zip


Damn, this was frustrating. I hate games with item carrying restrictions that never seem to work out quite right. I can carry X amount of items, try to pick up another, find I can't, try to pick up something different, find I can. Aarggghghh! Then I need to use my computer but I can't because I don't have all the required items but it never tells me what they are. Then there's the DVD player and the DVD I have but only WATCH DVD works. Attempts to use it, turn it on, etc, etc, don't.

But, finally, I got everything to work and there I am, transported to the Plains of Fantasy… and the bugs here hit so hard even the most heroic hero in a world of heroes would be left running off with his D20 between his legs. I checked my inventory at one point and saw this oddity:

YOU ARE WEARING A MICROPHONE HEADSET AND A GROIN ATTACHMENT, AND YOU ARE CARRYING NOTHING. 1337-H4XX0R-GUY IS CARRYING -HIS ARMOUR- -HIS SWORD-

Between one move and the next I appear to have become two different characters. I was further confused when trying to give my sword to Hotgurl19 and being told that I couldn't give away items that I didn't have. Yet I did have it. It was right there in my inventory. Only, funnily enough, when I tried to GET SWORD *again*, it let me pick it up a second time and after that finally seemed to realise I was actually carrying it.

As for what Hotgurl19 is like? Beats me. I can't examine her because the game doesn't seem to understand who I'm referring to. I can talk to her, but following every conversation option fails to get me anywhere. In a game where interaction (of a very specific kind) with the sole female NPC is required, the fact that you can't even examine her is a major flaw. In the end, I just had to quit. The writing was nice enough and the setting was kind of amusingly tongue-in-cheek, but this game is a long, long way from being finished and is in desperate need of some proper testing.

Arousal: (as I didn't get as far as a proper sex scene) not much.