1.
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 01:33:43 -0800
From: Stuart Smith
Today I bought the new game, "Jack The Ripper" from Gametek. It seems really good so far! The illustrations of the sites are dead accurate. And according to the manual, ALL the known evidence is included in the game. However, since the ripper is unknown, fictious clues have been added as well, and from one game to another these may change, so that you will have different solutions to each game.
I only played the tutorial so far. But the game looks like lots of fun! And the music is SUPERB!
2.
Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 11:30:32 PDT
From: Gene Emery
It's hard to keep track of the layers of weirdness you have to face when you start playing ''Ripper'' (Take 2, DOS/Windows, $60).
The year is 2040. You're Jake ``Another body, another byline'' Quinlan, a crime reporter for the New York Virtual Herald, who finds himself covering a criminal unlike any the city has ever seen.
The victims have been torn apart with a speed and surgical precision that's inhuman, attacked by a mysterious weapon that's described by the medical examiner as something that must be ``a cross between a Veg-O-Matic and a diamond cutter.''
Every time the Ripper strikes, he's sends you a video message, appearing as a green blob and suggesting that you might know him.
The cop in charge of the case seems to be destroying evidence at the same time he's trying to solve the murders.
Then your girlfriend, who thinks she's close to discovering the Ripper's identity, ends up in a coma after escaping one of his attacks. But the hot-shot brain specialist responsible for her care mysteriously refuses to give her the treatment that could bring her out of the coma.
And that's only on the first of the six CD-ROMs that make up this game.
With appearances by movie stars Christopher Walken, Burgess Meredith and Karen Allen, ``Ripper'' is an impressive achievement. It reportedly cost $4 million to create this game, and the investment shows.
Its graphics are wonderfully detailed, allowing players to move smoothly through the computer-generated sets, even when there are actors in the scene. The folks behind ``Ripper'' make it look easy to mesh flesh-and-blood humans with a virtual world.
It's helpful to know some of the terms and concepts behind cyberspace, the surreal world familiar to science fiction fans in which information and computer programs often appear as physical objects, but they don't necessarily behave in the same way as their real-world counterparts. A piece of knowledge you need to know, for example, appears as a bubble that, once learned, is absorbed directedly into the head of the human figure that represents you.
You'll need to spend a lot of time and effort trying discover the passwords that give you access to various cubbyholes in cyberspace and battling creatures that represent the computer programs designed to keep out intruders. It's fun to see this strange cyberworld displayed so imaginatively.
You'll probably also need a hint book. Some of the puzzles you'll need to solve are very challenging.
At one point in the story, the hero complains that ``I was beginning to think I was in a bad mystery novel where EVERYONE did it.'' Actually, ``Ripper'' has four different endings. The folks at Take 2 say you should be able to play the game several times without getting bored.
``Ripper'' has some of the usual inconsistencies you find in these complex games.
When Jake goes to the brain clinic to visit his comatose girlfriend, for example, he tells the doctor, ``She looks pretty bad.'' But he hasn't looked at her yet.
Some of the quirks are more serious. The time zone map you'll need to solve one of the puzzles is wrong, and I had to load in the correct solution to the related puzzle several times before the game would recognize it.
``Ripper'' is rated for ages 17 and older because of the realistic blood and strong language.
There have been plenty of attempts over the years -- both good and bad -- to come up with new versions of the story of the monster who brutally murdered at least five prostitutes during a three-month period in 1888. There's no doubt that this futuristic tale of a new Jack the Ripper makes the cut.
More information about Ripper is available here.
Back to the Reviews Conference Page
Back to the Conference Main Page