Neuromancer

The Good
One of the things that stood out in my mind, playing it recently for the first time, is how alive the world felt. You could log on to BBSes in the game and make posts. You could download files from them, and upload files on to other BBSes. The actual possibilities the game was able to compute were of course not too deep given the computing resources of a late-80s PC, but when playing it felt quite real.

The other great thing about the game was the music. I don't know how great the PC version sounded, but the Devo music that a C64 SID put out was wonderful. I still hum it every now and then.

The Bad
Going along with the alluded realism, the world seemed to me too open. While I'm not an excellent adventure gamer myself, it often seemed to vague as to what the player was supposed to do next in some situations.

Another big problem was the adaption. William Gibson originally wrote a very dark novel, while Interplay programmed it with a tongue-in-cheek style. Every now and then you get awareness of it being a computer game. There's also the program floating around on one of the BBSes called Battle Chess 3000...

The Bottom Line
A combination of William Gibson's dark world and the tongue-in-cheek attitude of early adventure games.

The Good
Neuromancer is a well-conceived blend of cyberpunk and Sierra-style gaming. The alternation between the "real" world and the matrix is stark and unsettling, with genuinely different styles of gameplay. All of the main elements from the book are there, though Neuromancer is careful not to be too straitjacketed by its source. The graphics are well done, with a suitably grey, dark-toned colour palette.

The Bad
Games based on great books invariably suffer from the comparison, and Neuromancer is no exception. Perhaps the main element missing in the game is the incredibly crowded, bustling cityworld that surrounds William Gibson's characters in print - everything seems very small and sparse. Cyberspace is extremely tough to navigate, especially at first, and it's hard to generate any real empathy or feel for what's going on.

Despite a fair amount of freedom, the game does still seem like a walking tour through the plot, and fans of Sierra titles will probably think that Neuromancer isn't quite up to scratch on puzzles, graphics and atmosphere. As with virtually every other PC game from this period, Neuromancer is outclassed by its sister version on the Amiga.

The Bottom Line
Fans of the book, or cyberpunk in general, should probably take a look at Neuromancer. It tries to do a great deal, and doesn't quite reach any of its goals, but is still a worthy attempt at a different kind of adventure game.