IMG 93 04 Journeyman

Review: The Journeyman Project Reviewed by Neil Shapiro Type: Puzzle-Oriented Graphic Adventure Publisher: Presto Studios Inc. Retail Price: $ 9 9 . 9 5 Mail Order: $ 6 9 . 9 5 Requires: Mac II or better, 256 colors on 13" or larger, 5 MB RAM and CD-ROM drive Protection: Off-disk copy-protection IMG Rating: √√√√ 1/2 THE JOURNEYMAN PROJECT from Presto Studios is the latest entry into the Macintosh CD-ROM gaming sweepstakes to see what company will turn this revolutionary technology into a winning formula. Journeyman features wonderful digitized graphics, sound and animation, an involving story line and a puzzling plot. Is it not just a story about the future but the actual future of gaming itself? Future History. First, let's consider the story background. The game opens up in the city of Caldoria in 2318—about two hundred years after a unified world government was established. In 2308 the first contact was made with an alien race who gave Earth ten years to consider their Galactic proposal of having humanity join with them. Now, the ten year waiting period is up and the aliens are asking for a decision. But the decision is being influenced by the past—and the past is being changed. Time travel is a working discovery and some force is using it to change past history in order to make peaceable settlement with the aliens less possible. The player takes the part of a secret agent in the time-traveling Temporal Protectorate. The mission is to restore the time track to what it should be by thwarting the changes made in time before they are made! So far, interesting enough—but that could be the synopsis for just about any game on the scale from putrid to let's-not-eat-today-and-play. Any game player worth their scoreboard knows that the proof lies in how the graphics, interface, and "feel" of a game all add up. The Eyes Have It. Graphics are the first thing in Journeyman that leap out at you, grab you by the lapels and say in a sort of excited, slobbering voice "This is IT! You're going to like THIS!" Too many games on CD-ROM and on one of those fifty-floppies in a box packages go for graphics that are IMG™ April 1993 Page 28 Mon, Apr 26, 2021 bright and colorful and with-it and totally unbelievable. But the artists behind Journeyman have obviously studied their craft and would be capable of, say, storyboarding the next Ridley Scott movie. Better, the graphics all work together in an interactive manner that adds to the game's feel of being almost a virtual reality. As an agent of the Temporal Protectorate you have a cyborg bioattachment on your left eye called a Biotech Interface. Your Biotech Interface, depending on what biochips you have plugged into it, will display on a pop-up viewscreen below the main window all sorts of information. The Interface comes with game saving functions and ones are soon added to help you time-travel, map, and track enemies through different time z…