Conference hydra::amiga_v1

1686.0. "Sex Vixens from Space" by BOMBE::MOORE (Where do you go when you're Toad Away?) Tue Sep 13 1988 23:42

    I picked up "Sex Vixens from Space" ($30, Free Spirit) at the show
    this weekend.  After an initial session of playing for a couple of
    hours I was ready to throw the damn thing away (see below), but I
    tried it some more last night and feel a bit better about it now...
    On a scale of 10, I'd rate it about 4.

    The box says this game is for ADULTS ONLY, what I've seen so far
    suggests an "R" rating.  The images are drawn (not digitized or HAM),
    of ladies shown with exposed breasts and some fairly obvious phallic
    symbols, etc.  Some of the required actions (commands) do include use
    of that 'F...' word.  The plot is pretty much "male ego" oriented,
    our hero is *not* the intellectual type.

    The best thing in this game is the quality of its art work, the
    scenes are reasonably detailed and nicely drawn, but I wouldn't
    say exceptional.  Some of the situations encountered are amusing.

    On the down side...
	Documentation consists of a single 8"x11" sheet of paper printed
	on both sides.  It contains very brief instructions about using
	the mouse and keyboard.  The rest of the space is filled with
	(useless) story material already reproduced elsewhere.  The main
	purpose of this paper seems to be to provide the copy protection
	keywords (e.g. page 1, line 17, word 4).

	The puzzles aren't particularly challenging.  Too often the most
	difficult task is finding *the* command the program is looking
	for.  They seem to use a very limited vocabulary (a lot of obvious
	synonyms don't work) and words which are not recognized at all in
	one location may be required in another.

	There is basically a single path to the solution, with many very
	short side branches.  In most cases the slightest false step leads
	instantly to your demise.  You are dead, the game is over, that's
	it.  Which brings us to Sex Vixens' greatest flaw...

	Apparently there are no SAVE/RESTORE functions in this game!  Every
	time you die, you must restart at the beginning and work your way
	back up to where you were.  As you progress, it may take half an
	hour to get through all the old stuff again, and more than once
	I've made another fatal mistake in my haste.  Arrrggghh!

	The program has a bug which can cause the machine to lock up, then
	you must reboot (and start over).  I've found I can avoid the bug
	by watching what happens after entering a command.  If the command
	text window just gets erased and no new text appears, you *MUST*
	click the mouse (anywhere) in the the PICTURE area.  ANY CLICK IN
	THE TEXT WINDOW WILL HANG THE MACHINE.

    Sex Vixens comes on two disks.  In poking around I discovered that there
    are several sound files included which I could load and play with Perfect
    Sound.  Unfortunately I have not heard a single sound while playing the
    game, has anyone else?  I *know* I've seen where the sound effects were
    supposed to be heard.  Maybe it requires more than 1 Meg of RAM...?

					- Bruce -

Re: .0

>	The program has a bug which can cause the machine to lock up, then
>	you must reboot (and start over).


While at the show, I bought a copy of AmNews, which included a short
demo of this game.

I run my system with GOMF with low memory bashing checking turned on.
The demo version of the game was stomping all over low memory!

I have found running GOMF with memory checking turned on (or the
PD program MemWatch which does the same thing) very educational.
It quickly give you a feeling of the incompetency of some
programmers.