[{"TitleName":"Jewels of Babylon","Publisher":"Interceptor Software","Author":"David M. Banner, Terry Greer","YearOfRelease":"1985","ZxDbId":"0006512","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 13, Feb 1985","Price":"£0.85","ReleaseDate":"1985-01-24","Editor":"Roger Kean","TotalPages":132,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Roger Kean\r\nConsultant Editor: Franco Frey\r\nArt Editor: Oliver Frey\r\nProduction Designer: David Western\r\nAdventure Editor: Derek Brewster\r\nStrategy Editor: Angus Ryall\r\nStaff Writer: Lloyd Mangram\r\nContributing Writers: Matthew Uffindel, Chris Passey, Robin Candy\r\nClient Liaison: John Edwards\r\nSubscription Manager: Denise Roberts\r\n\r\n©1985 Newsfield Limited.\r\nCrash Magazine is published monthly by Newsfield Ltd. [redacted]\r\n\r\nTelephone numbers\r\nSubscriptions [redacted]\r\nEditorial/studio [redacted]\r\nAdvertising [redacted]\r\nHot Line [redacted]\r\n\r\nPhotosetting by The Tortoise Shell Press, Ludlow; Colour origination by Scan Studios, [redacted]; Printed in England by Carlisle Web Offset Ltd (Member of the BPCC Group), [redacted].\r\nDistribution by COMAG, [redacted]\r\n\r\nSubscriptions: 12 issues £10.50 (UK Mainland post free), Europe: 12 issues £17.50 post free. Outside Europe by arrangement in writing.\r\n\r\nNo material may be reproduced whole or in part without written consent of the copyright holders. We cannot undertake to return any written material sent to CRASH Magazine unless accompanied by a suitably stamped addressed envelope. Unsolicited written or photo material which may be used in the magazine is paid for at our current rates. The opinions and views of correspondents are their own and not necessarily in accord with those of the publishers.\r\n\r\nCover by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"JEWELS OF BABYLON\r\n\r\nProducer: Interceptor Software\r\nMemory Required: 48K\r\nRetail Price: £5.50\r\nLanguage: Machine code\r\nAuthor: D. Banner, T. Green\r\n\r\nJewels of Babylon follows in the footsteps of Message from Andromeda and Forest at World's End and if you were to buy this latest offering there would be few surprises, for all intents and purposes this is the same program but with a pirate/desert island backdrop. In effect it's the same cake with a different flavoured icing. It's almost inconceivable that a programmer could continue to churn out the same old game without attempting any improvements to refine the product, but this is the case we have here. All the old criticisms concerning the first two games still hold strong.\r\n\r\nImpressive, high quality graphics appear very quickly and only appear automatically on your first visit to a location, which is a nice touch, but when you count up, there really aren't that many graphics. The input routine has opted for neatness as opposed to efficiency; there is no cursor and no beep on entry although to be fair input remains mostly error-free. Descriptions are short and unimaginative giving the whole a weak impact and there is no score. This game uses some awful system of text scrolling whereby the top part scrolls up and off when you input at the bottom.\r\n\r\nThe game boasts 100 locations. I went through 50 without solving a single problem, unless you count making the natives' supper a solution to a problem. Like its predecessor, Forest at World's End, it often falls back on cliche and is about as interesting as a jumblesale paperback book.\r\n\r\nThree thousand years ago, before the Christian era, a fabulous treasure was crafted by the master craftsmen in the old city of Babylon. Such was the beauty of this collection, many men died to obtain possession of it. At the end of the nineteenth century the jewels were in English hands. In a great gesture of friendship, Queen Victoria intended to give them as a wedding present to an Indian Princess. On route from West Africa the ship carrying the jewels was attacked by pirates who took them, leaving the crew for dead. You are the sole survivor of the attack. After recovering from your wounds, you vow to reclaim the jewels. After much marching you locate the pirates' base on a remote island. Your objective is to search the island, find the jewels and return them to the ship.\r\n\r\nThe vocabulary often goes beyond verb/noun but despite the instructions suggesting adjectives, adverbs and prepositions are needed to avoid ambiguity, there are many cases where this is demonstrably not so and all the extra input required does is to make the language that bit more unfriendly. Take, for example, your first task - to get into the boat from from the ship to enable you to go ashore. CLIMB LADDER and ENTER BOAT are not accepted, but CLIMB DOWN LADDER and CLIMB INTO BOAT are. I admit there is a thin dividing line between greater sophistication and unfriendliness, but the program could provide more prompts to coax you along the right path. When you see a smooth, vertical slab of rock on your travels, you can't move or push it, but surely you should be able to examine it?\r\n\r\nIf, for you, an adventure is not complete unless it has a maze then here you can get all dizzy amongst no less than three. Amazing.\r\n\r\nJewels of Babylon shows all the traits of a game knocked off an assembly line. Some of its shortcomings are common to many while the conspicuous absence of any real problems is more typical of this series from Interceptor. If variety is the spice of life then this game is one big amorphous lump of monosodium glutamate.\r\n\r\nCOMMENTS\r\n\r\nDifficulty: quite difficult\r\nGraphics: very few but are fast and well designed\r\nPresentation: has awful habit of scrolling description off as soon as new input is introduced. No use is made of colour\r\nInput facility: often pedantic requiring more than verb/noun for no good reason","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"General Rating: Could prove a challenge.","Page":"96","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Derek Brewster","Score":"6","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"Excellent graphics in THE JEWELS OF BABYLON, but the program doesn't really live up to the pictures."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Atmosphere","Score":"6/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Vocabulary","Score":"5/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Logic","Score":"6/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Debugging","Score":"10/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall Value","Score":"6/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 37, Apr 1985","Price":"£0.95","ReleaseDate":"1985-03-21","Editor":"Bill Scolding","TotalPages":148,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"EDITORIAL\r\nEditor: Bill Scolding\r\nDeputy Editor: John Gilbert\r\nStaff Writer: Chris Bourne, Clare Edgeley\r\nDesigner: Craig Kennedy\r\nEditorial Secretary: Norisah Fenn\r\nPublisher: Neil Wood\r\n\r\nADVERTISING\r\nAdvertising Manager: Rob Cameron\r\nDeputy Advertisement Manager: Louise Fanthorpe\r\nAdvertisement Sales Executive: Kathy McLennan\r\nProduction Assistant: Jim McClure\r\nAdvertisement Secretary: Maria Keighley\r\n\r\nMAGAZINE SERVICES\r\nSubscriptions Manager: Carl Dunne\r\n\r\nTELEPHONE\r\nAll departments [redacted]\r\n\r\nSinclair User is published monthly by EMAP Business & Computer Publications\r\n\r\nIf you would like to contribute to Sinclair User please send programs or articles to:\r\nSinclair User\r\nEMAP Business & Computer Publications\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nOriginal programs should be on cassette and articles should be typed. We cannot undertake to return them unless a stamped-addressed envelope is included.\r\n\r\nWe pay £20 for each program printed and £50 for star programs.\r\n\r\nTypeset by Saffron Graphics Ltd, [redacted]\r\nPrinted by Peterboro' Web, [redacted]\r\nDistributed by EMAP Publications Ltd.\r\n\r\n©Copyright 1985 Sinclair User ISSN No 0262-5458\r\n\r\n96,271 Jan-June 1984"},"MainText":"JEWELS OF BABYLON\r\nInterceptor\r\nMemory: 48K\r\nPrices. £5.50\r\n\r\nWow, you think, as soon as you've loaded Jewels of Babylon, what faberooney graphics! Don't get overexcited though - there aren't that many.\r\n\r\nThe setting would do justice to Desert Island Discs - a remote, tropical sea-girt spot with dunes and palm trees. Somewhere in the interior lie concealed the jewels of the title.\r\n\r\nPromising? Possibly, but first try to get into the wee rowing boat. Enter boat? Climb down? No - it's got to be 'Climb into boat'. The interpreter is not hyper-friendly.\r\n\r\nOnce ashore you explore. There are a few objects littered about but it is possible to wander around like a total wally for endless stretches.\r\n\r\nEndless perserverance may well get you somewhere but personally I play games to be entertained.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"24","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Richard Price","Score":"4","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Gilbert Factor","Score":"4/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 44, Jun 1985","Price":"£0.95","ReleaseDate":"1985-05-16","Editor":"Tim Metcalfe","TotalPages":132,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Tim Metcalfe\r\nDeputy Editor: Paul Boughton\r\nEditorial Assistant: Lesley Walker\r\nStaff Writer: Seamus St. John\r\nDesigner: Brian Cookman\r\nProduction Editor: Mary Morton\r\nAdventure Writer: Keith Campbell\r\nAmerican Correspondent: Marshall M. Rosenthal\r\nPublicity: Marcus Rich\r\nArcades: Clare Edgeley\r\nReader Services: Marcus Jeffery\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Louise Matthews\r\nAssistant Advertisement Manager: Bernard Dugdale\r\nAdvertising Executive: Sean Brennan\r\nProduction Assistant: Melanie Paulo\r\nPublisher: Rita Lewis\r\n\r\nEditorial and Advertisement Offices: [redacted]\r\n\r\nCOMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES POSTAL SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE. By using the special Postal Subscription Service, copies of COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES can be mailed direct from our offices each month to any address throughout the world. All subscription applications should be sent for processing to COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES (Subscription Department), [redacted]. All orders should include the appropriate remittance made payable to COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES. Annual subscription rates (12 issues): UK and Eire: £15. Additional service information including individual overseas airmail rates available upon request. Circulation Department: EMAP National Publications. Published and distributed by EMAP National Publications Ltd.\r\n\r\nPrinted by Severn Valley Press. Typeset by In-Step Ltd.\r\n\r\nCover: John Higgins"},"MainText":"3,000 years ago some fabulous jewels were created by master craftsmen in the old city of Babylon. They came into English hands in the 19th century, but were lost to pirates who left all but one of the crew of the boat that was carrying them for dead. This is where the Adventure begins, for you are the one who survived and have vowed to reclaim the jewels.\r\n\r\nSo it is that you find yourself on a bright pink ship off some remote island. Yes, it's bright pink, and no amount of fiddling with the TV will make it go the colour you thought 19th century ships were supposed to have been. The island itself is a place of golden sand and clear blue skies, just the place to spend a holiday - except for the cannibals!\r\n\r\nThe graphics are more less instant and are among the best I have seen on a Spectrum. The text allows full-sentence input, although in most cases you have to get the wording just right.\r\n\r\nBabylon is said to have over 100 locations, although most of them are maze rooms, making pen and paper a must for this Adventure. So is a \"save\" tape, for there is plenty of wildlife about and a spider might just happen to drop from the trees onto your shoulder, or a water snake give you the once over as you battle your way across a swamp. Most of the time, such encounters are just for fun, but there is always that chance that the spider will sink its fangs into your neck!\r\n\r\nMost of the puzzles seem to be the \"find your way around\" or \"get past something\" type and, although they all seem to have logical answers, it's getting the right words in the right order that's the real trick. That made playing Babylon a little on the difficult side at times, but still a very interesting Adventure with lots of action.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"103","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Paul Coppins","Score":"6","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Personal Rating","Score":"6/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Big K Issue 11, Feb 1985","Price":"£0.85","ReleaseDate":"1985-01-20","Editor":"Tony Tyler","TotalPages":84,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Tony Tyler\r\nAssisted By: Richard Burton\r\nArt Editor: Ian Stead\r\nFeatures: Nicky Xikluna\r\nSoftware: Fin Fahey\r\nContributors: Steve Keaton; Kim Aldis; John Conquest; Bill Bennett; Gary Liddon; Sean Cox; Richard Taylor; Alex Boitz; Richard Cook; Andy Green; Tony Takoushi\r\nCartoonists: Tony Benyon; Steve Way; Rogers Wade Walker\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Erica Vickers [redacted]\r\nAdvertising Executive: Gareth Cooper\r\nGroup Advertising Controller: Luis Bartlett\r\nPublisher: Barry Leverett\r\nPublishing Director: John Purdie\r\n\r\nAddress: [redacted]\r\n\r\nPublished approximately on the 20th of each month by IPC Magazines Ltd. [redacted]. Monotone and colour origination by G.M. Litho Ltd [redacted]. Printed in England by Chase Web Offset, Cornwall. Sole Agents: Australia and New Zealand, Gordon& Gotch (A/sia) Ltd.; South Africa, Central News Agency Ltd. BIG K is sold subject to the following conditions, namely that it shall not, without the written consent of the Publishers first given, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade at more than the recommended selling price shown on the cover, and that it shall not be lent, resold or hired out or otherwise disposed of in a mutilated constitute or any unauthorised cover by way of trade or affixed to as part of any publication or advertising, literary or pictorial matter whatsoever. © IPC MAGAZINES 1985."},"MainText":"GEM\r\n\r\nMAKER: Interceptor\r\nFORMAT: cassette\r\nPRICE: £5.50\r\n\r\nSole survivor of a pirate attack on a ship carrying the fabled Js of B, you have found the pirate's islands base and set out to recover the hot ice. In standard Interceptor style, it's a mainly text adventure, 100+ locations, with periodic and brilliant, if rather unnecessary, graphics, far superior to those of their earlier Forest At World's End. A very sophisticated command analyser makes it possible, and necessary, to enter complex actions. Getting off your ship, for example, is done by 'climb down ladder'. There are three maxes, jungle, swamp and thicket, very early on with not much in the way of loose objects to use for mapping them. Beyond them lie further hazards, such as lip-licking cannibals, before you get to the main course. Fraught and exciting.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"17","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"John Conquest","Score":"2","ScoreSuffix":"/3"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"3/3","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"2/3","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"2/3","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"2/3","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Personal Computer Games Issue 14, Jan 1985","Price":"£0.75","ReleaseDate":"1984-12-13","Editor":"Chris Anderson","TotalPages":172,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Chris Anderson\r\nDeputy Editor: Steve Cooke\r\nProduction Editor: Roderick George\r\nArt Editor: Ian Findlay\r\nStaff Writers: Peter Connor, Bob Wade\r\nEditorial Assistant: Samantha Hemens\r\nCartoons: Kipper Williams\r\nScreenshots: Chris Bell\r\nArt Director: Jim Dansie\r\nGroup Publisher: John Cade\r\nPublisher: Tony Harris\r\nGroup Advertisement Manager: Peter Goldstein\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Sarah Barron\r\nAssistant Advertisement Manager: Phil Pratt\r\nSenior Sales Executive: Ian Cross\r\nProduction Manager: Noel O'Sullivan\r\nAdvertisement Assistant: Andrea Lawrence\r\n\r\nPublished by VNU Business Publications, [redacted]. Typesetting by Spectrum Typesetting, [redacted] Origination by Fourmost Colour [redacted]. Printed and bound by Chase Web Offset [redacted]. © VNU Business Publications 1984."},"MainText":"MACHINE: Spectrum, Amstrad\r\nPRICE: £5.50\r\n\r\nIf you think the screen-dump of the bridge on the opening page of Adventureworld is impressive, then check out Jewels of Babylon from Interceptor, because there are plenty more where that came from. Ever since Heroes of Karn the company seem to have made a point of including high-quality graphics in their games, and this one is no exception.\r\n\r\nAt the beginning of the game you find yourself in a boat moored a short distance from a tropical island. To get into the adventure proper you must enter your rowing boat, row north, and on landing at the island your adventure begins. Not all the locations have graphics, but those that do are beautifully depicted. Your objective is to explore the island, find the treasure, and return to your ship.\r\n\r\nThe cassette cover gives you the impression that the program will understand 'standard English', but this is not the case. Here's a typical sequence from the game to illustrate the point:\r\n\r\nComputer: You can see: a smooth vertical slab of rock.\r\n\r\nPlayer: Examine rock.\r\n\r\nComputer: Please rephrase that\r\n\r\nPlayer: Examine slab\r\n\r\nComputer: I don't know the word 'slab'\r\n\r\nPlayer: Look rock\r\n\r\nComputer: Please rephrase that.\r\n\r\n...and so on. The moral is that just because a program 'makes full use of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions' (as this one claims to do) doesn't mean it's going to be any easier to get along with.\r\n\r\nOther niggles about this game include random death, where the player gets killed off by poisonous spiders falling from above without warning, and very scanty location descriptions, though I suppose the graphics make up for the last shortcoming.\r\n\r\nPerhaps I was just having a bad day, but I didn't find Jewels of Babylon an easy game by any means. Even the maze had me foxed for quite a while, since there aren't an enormous amount of objects for you to collect and then use to drop and mark your position. I kept ending up in a native village at supper time, only to find out that it was guess-who on the menu.\r\n\r\nAs a result I'm determined to get back to this game and crack it, so I have to admit that, for me anyway, it possesses addictive qualities.\r\n\r\nThe game boasts over 100 locations, so there's going to be quite a bit of exploring going on in the Wizard's cave over the next few days.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"113","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Steve Cooke","Score":"6","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"The rope bridge from The Jewels of Babylon."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Atmosphere","Score":"5/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Complexity","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Interaction","Score":"5/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"6/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"ZX Computing Issue 21, Oct 1985","Price":"£1.95","ReleaseDate":"1985-09-26","Editor":"Ray Elder","TotalPages":124,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Ray Elder\r\nEditorial Assistant: Cliff Joseph\r\nGroup Editor: Wendy J Palmer\r\nSoftware Assistant: John Gerard Donovan\r\nSales Executive: Alice Robertson\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Barry Bingham\r\nDivisional Advertising Manager: Chris Northam\r\nCopy Controller: Sue Couchman\r\nPublishing Director: Peter Welham\r\n\r\nOrigination and design by MM Design & Print, [redacted]\r\nPublished by Argus Specialist Publications Ltd, [redacted]\r\n\r\nZX Computing is published bi-monthly on the fourth Friday of the month. Distributed by: Argus Press Sales & Distribution Ltd. [redacted]. Printed by: Garnett Print, Rotherham and London.\r\n\r\nThe contents of this publication including all articles, designs, plans, drawings and programs and all copyright and other intellectual property rights therein belong to Argus Specialist Publications Limited. All rights conferred by the Law of Copyright and other intellectual property rights and by virtue of international copyright conventions are specifically reserved to Argus Specialist Publications Limited and any reproduction requires the prior written consent of Argus Specialist Publications Ltd.\r\n\r\n©Argus Specialist Publications Limited 1985"},"MainText":"Interceptor Micros\r\n£5.50\r\n\r\nThe cover artwork for the cassette inlay of Jewel Of Babylon is strikingly similar to that for Mordon's Quest, as both feature skulls and swords. This is the only thing between the games which is similar because where Mordon's Quest is full of atmosphere with lengthy text descriptions. Jewels Of Babylon is not, despite the brilliant graphics which accompany certain locations.\r\n\r\nThe story goes thus: in Babylon, 3000 years ago, master craftsmen created a set of jewels, so beautiful that men would kill for them. By the end of the 19th Century, the jewels' bloody history had brought them into the possession of Queen Victoria, who intended to give them as a wedding gift to an Indian Princess. The ship carrying the jewels though, is attacked by pirates who leave the crew for dead and take the jewels. You have survived the attack and plan to regain the jewels. You travel to the pirate's island, which you must search to find the jewels, and return with them to your ship.\r\n\r\nSeveral of the locations boast excellent graphic pictures, which give highly detailed views of your surroundings. The text descriptions though, are very sparse and don't adequately support the pictures. There are few taxing problems and it is possible to visit about half the game's locations with very little trouble at all. The adversaries for these first few locations are the island's wildlife - snakes, crocodiles, spiders and lions. Most of them are easily dealt with or easily avoided. There is very little challenge until you reach the later stages, despite the fact that the game claims to be for 'advanced players\".\r\n\r\nThe game goes beyond the standard Verb/Noun input, but uses non-standard vocabulary which makes it more difficult to tell the game exactly what you wish to do. To leave your rowing boat, rather than CLIMB ASHORE or LEAVE BOAT, you have to enter CLIMB OUT BOAT. Small points like this increase the difficulty of the game, but in the wrong way. Rather than having difficult problems which need ingenious solutions, Jewels Of Babylon makes it difficult to find the correct phrases to use to get the response you want, which just results in annoying the player. Rather than playing a game, you're simply trying various phrases until you hit upon the right one. A more user friendly attitude would have improved the game.\r\n\r\nJewels Of Babylon is packaged in the video style cassette case which seems to be all the rage now with software houses. Fancy packaging does not make up for a poor game and only increases the price. If Jewels Of Babylon had been a £2.50 Firebird game then it would have been well worth the money.\r\n\r\nOf the two graphic adventures reviewed this issue Subsunk and Jewels Of Babylon, Subsunk has simpler graphics but a far better game, whereas Jewels Of Babylon consists of excellent graphics but a very poor game.\r\n\r\nOverall then, Jewels Of Babylon is a simple 'pirate and treasure' type game with spectacular graphics, but little game. If you want a graphic adventure then get Subsunk. If you want a REAL adventure, then get Mordon's Quest. Give Jewels Of Babylon a miss.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"71","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Brian Robb","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Personal Computer News Issue 89, Dec 1984","Price":"","ReleaseDate":"1984-11-23","Editor":"Peter Worlock","TotalPages":66,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editorial\r\nEditor: Peter Worlock\r\nDeputy Editor: David Guest\r\nProduction Editor: Lauraine Turner\r\nSub Editor: Harriet Arnold\r\nEditor's Assistant: Karen Isaac\r\nNews Writer: Ralph Bancroft, Sandra Grandison\r\nFeatures Editor: John Lettice\r\nSoftware Editor: Bryan Skinner\r\nPeripherals Editor: Kenn Garroch\r\nHardware Editor: Stuart Cooke\r\nPrograms Editor: Nickie Robinson\r\nArt Director: Jim Dansie\r\nArt Editor: Dave Alexander\r\nAssistant Art Editor: Tim Brown\r\nLayout Artist: Bruce Preston\r\nPublisher: Cyndy Miles\r\nPublishing Assistant: Tobe Bendeth\r\n\r\nAdvertising\r\nGroup Advertising Manager: Peter Goldstein\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Bettina Williams\r\nAssistant Advertisement Managers: Laura Cade, Claire Rowbottom\r\nSales Executives: Claire Barnes, Phil Benson, Mike Blackman, Julian Burns, Steve Corrick, Tony Keefe, Andrew Flint, Christian McCarthy, Isabel Middleton, Sarah Musgrave, Tony O'Reilly, Anita Stokes\r\nProduction: Richard Gaffrey\r\nAdvertisement Assistant: Jan Moore\r\nSubscription Enquiries: Gill Stevens\r\nSubscription Address: [redacted]\r\nEditorial Address: [redacted]\r\nAdvertising Address: [redacted]\r\n\r\nPublished by VNU Business Publications, [redacted]\r\n© VNU 1983. No material maybe reproduced in whole or in part without written consent from the copyright holders.\r\nPhotoset by Quickset, [redacted]\r\nPrinted by Chase Web Offset, [redacted]\r\nDistributed by Seymour Press, [redacted]\r\nRegistered at the PO as a newspaper"},"MainText":"PRICE: £5.50\r\nPUBLISHER: Interceptor Micro's [redacted]\r\n\r\nJewels of Babylon were turned into a beautiful collection of treasures by master craftsmen more than 3,000 years ago in Babylon, and after many men had died in their pursuit they wound up in English hands by the end of the 19th century. Queen Victoria offered them as a wedding present to an Indian Princess, but the boat carrying them was attacked by pirates after leaving the shores of West Africa. The crew were left for dead, and all perished except for... guess who? Yes you.\r\n\r\nAt the start, you have tracked the pirates down to their island, and the game opens with a beautifully drawn scene of the deck of your ship, the rigging, and the island off which you're anchored. Only a limited number of the locations have an accompanying picture, but they are all well drawn and appear instantly. The picture only appears the first time you visit a location, but can be recalled at any time by typing 'Look', which otherwise reprints the text.\r\n\r\nThe program allows for full English sentences to be entered, though of course you can use the terse 'Go North, get coconut' if you wish. In some ways this expands the potential of the responses, but in other ways it limits them. In the first location on board ship, for instance, you can see 'A ladder leading down to a small rowing boat alongside.' Type 'Down' and 'You can't go in that direction.' Climb down? 'Please rephrase that. 'Go down?' I don't know the word Go. 'Climb down ladder? Eureka, you're in the boat.\r\n\r\nExploring the long sandy beach provides you with a plank, and in the palm trees above there's a coconut, and a bottle. Closer examination reveals this contains rum. There are very few objects around at first, and the game does rely rather too heavily on mazes. There were three in the first 30 or so locations (over 100 in all) - a swamp, a jungle and a thicket. The maze of paths in the very thick thicket led eventually to a cannibal village, where the beauty of the graphics was not matched by the looks on the faces of the natives, who had seemingly not given up their cannibal habits.\r\n\r\nYou usually get a slight warning of impending death, so the SAVE option should get a healthy use, and while an initial island walkabout gave the impression that this wasn't going to be the toughest of adventures (I may regret that later), it nevertheless had a very nice feel.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"48","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Mike Gerrard","Score":"8","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"8/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]