Although the game promises to have a graphical interface it really is just an upgraded text adventure with some simple click and point interaction. Visual effects have been programmed into 446 AVI files, so there is really a lot to watch, but it starts getting tedious after a while anyway as 'moving around' inside a room isn't always as simple and easy as it looks. In order to solve a puzzle, some objects lying on the floor have to be taken but due to the fact that the right slide has to be triggered before this can be done this becomes a rather frustrating experience. At the end of the game you have to resuscitate the ship's main computer, Titania, and this robotic creature gabbers nearly for five minutes without the possibility to shut her up. While she is explaining what has happened to the ship and who may be responsible for all this and why she thinks you should take the helm and lead us back to Earth the only thing you can think of is that it was a big mistake to wake her up to begin with. Douglas Adams himself can be seen two times in the game, once as the enthusiast author ordering us to hurry up with the game (a237.avi), the second time as Leovinus (a113.avi) in something that can be defined as being the most boring epilogue for a game ever. It's the description of the game in a nutshell, I can only deduct that somewhere during the development of the software the creators must have lost the interest (or the money). It's a pity, because the conversation engine that can handle more than 5000 situations and contains, apparently, 10000+ sentences is a real treat. Ask about The Beatles, about Monty Python, about Douglas Adams, 42, Life, the Universe and Everything, the maximum air velocity of an unladen swallow and you'll get some very daft answers. Forget the game - just keep talking to the bots, that is were the fun is... Full review: http://atagong.com/archives/2006/10/entry_300.html
Having played city builders and transport sims for the last 3 decades I jumped on a recent GOG budget release of the CIM collection. There are considerable flaws in the game. Apparently you can't force a bus to take a certain route and thus avoid traffic jams. (The route is automatically designed by the stops.) Constructing tram tracks is often a hit and miss operation and you better save before starting a tram line. I have had situations where it was impossible to put a track on a certain location in Berlin, while opening a saved game and putting the track on exactly the same spot worked. Sending trams on a less utilised track to avoid traffic jams is not possible. The pathfinding for boats is buggy to say the least. I have had the occasion where a boat could go from A to B in a straight line, but refused to find the path in the opposite direction, or by taking an enormous detour (Amsterdam). And last but not least, the information screens with statistics aren't really that clear. I know I have been spoiled by OpenTTD, but a screen with profit/loss numbers per bus or per line could've come in handy.
One of the best games I ever played, with the exception of the last 'boss' scene that is utterly irritating, boring and different from anything else. Unfortunately lots of people signal it fails to run in Win8. The demo version, by the way, has a complete different chapter that is not in the game, so why not try this out to see if it runs on your system.
When the game hit the stores it wasn't finished, so I remember that there was a general menu described in the booklet that didn't make it into the game. The blur also read the missions were built upon diplomacy rather than to seek and kill and destroy. Bollocks. I remember one mission where I managed to incapacitate an enemy ship and tow it back to headquarters, but the game refused to end. The only solution was to blow the enemy ship to smithereens, thus killing everybody inside. Weird interpretation of the word diplomacy, if you ask me. But all in all a nice game, with nice missions.
