GOLD RUSH!

 Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when men were men,
mules were mules, and women were occasional graphic representations; where a
man's fortune could be drawn from the merest flakes of yellow metal. Do you have
the grit, determination and luck to strike it rich?

 GOLD RUSH! is an unusual change of pace from the KING'S and SPACE and LEISURE
SUIT quests for which Sierra is rightly famous. (This review is based on the
IBM-PC version.) Instead of being set in some fantastical realm, or the far
reaches of the universe, it's set in the bedrock of history. In fact, there are
few games (and few programs overall) that have a firmer foundation in documented
historical fact. Instead of dealing with the Magic Door or the Strange Raygun,
you are faced with life-and-death decisions involving such seemingly mundane
items as fruit, family albums, and horseshoe magnets. According to Sierra, the
game was born out of a lifelong fascination with this epoch in American history
on the part of game designers Doug and Ken MacNeill. The depth of their
research, and the accuracy of their portrayal of life in the halcyon days of
1848, is apparent.

 As in all Sierra graphic adventures, you wend your way through the landscape
and manipulate your environment with the aid of an onscreen persona. In this
case, you're Jerrod Wilson, a mild-mannered reporter from Brooklyn Heights, New
York, who dreams of travelling west to the fabled land of California in search
of wealth, adventure and your long lost brother. Only through astute use of the
everyday objects you find around you, and with a shrewd insight into the devious
ways of the programmers, can you find your heart's desire -- that is, assuming
you can make it out of Brooklyn Heights.

 The first part of the adventure requires that you book passage to California,
and here time is definitely of the essence. Once the official word is given that
there is, indeed, gold in them thar hills, property values will plummet and
transportation costs will be out of reach. There's a lot of ground to cover in
Brooklyn, and barely enough time.

 The second part of the adventure is up to you, because there are three possible
routes to California: overland by stage and covered wagon; by boat around the
southern tip of South America; and by boat to Panama, then across the jungle to
catch another boat on the Pacific side. Each trip has its own unique pitfalls,
and none is totally safe. But all of them, if you're smart and lucky, will
eventually get you to your destination: Sutter's Fort, California and the Great
Gold Rush.

 The game box is chock full of goodies, including a map showing the various
routes to the west coast, an 80-plus page history of the Gold Rush called
"California Gold: Story of the Rush to Riches" (which doubles as the game's
document-based copy protection), and both 3-1/2" and 5-1/4" disk formats. The
game supports a wide variety of graphic cards (including EGA, CGA, MCGA, VGA and
Hercules), has a joystick option (but is perfectly easy to use without it), and
can be installed easily on a hard drive. In fact, I can't imagine anyone wanting
to play the game using only the five 5-1/4" floppies, because of the
interminable disk switching that must be involved. This is a _big_ game with
quite a bit of breadth and depth. The graphics are very well done (though not as
good as those Sierra has demonstrated in their newest products, such as KING'S
QUEST IV), and they take full advantage of whichever color card you have. The
sound, however, is rather primitive on the IBM, and can be shut off if desired.

 In terms of game play, there is little in the way of traditional puzzle
solving; this is real life, after all, not a movie. But you will be presented
with some challenging problems, such as a hotel whose secrets you must discover.
A large part of the middle game has to do with survival: The road to California
involved disease, starvation, bad weather, bad neighbors, and unfriendly fauna
and terrain. Unless you make the right choices, you will never see the sun set
over the ocean. The middle game also exposes you to a good deal of historical
information as you traverse land and sea in your search for the gold.

 There are shortcomings in GOLD RUSH!, some of which arise out of its laudable
quest for, and devotion to, historical accuracy. The actual travel sections move
too slowly, provide little for the user to do except read and look at the
pictures, and at times give too much history and not enough game. Some
occurrences seem too arbitrary: You can die in this game just by being in the
wrong place at the right time, and later, repeat the same actions but survive.

 For example, round the Cape of Horn, I ran into a storm and the boat sank. I
restored, went through the same storm, and made it. (I did, however, enjoy
watching the entire screen shudder and pitch!) This has been explained to me as
"Game Imitating Life"; that's fine from an educational standpoint, but from a
gaming standpoint, it seems too random for my tastes. On the other hand, I've
experienced random events in other games that had no greater justification and
less basis in historical fact. So, I suppose the solution -- as always -- is to
save often.

 There are also activities that earn you points, but that don't really move you
any closer to your goal. And the parser is very limited in comparison to other
systems' adventure offerings. There are some necessary actions that will lea you
floundering for the right combination of words. Finally, the game's sheer size
can be daunting at times.

 But these are minor gripes. GOLD RUSH! offers a unique perspective and an
involving storyline. It's fun to play, and educational to watch. That makes it a
valuable commodity, in my estimation.

 GOLD RUSH! is published and distributed by Sierra On-Line.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253