As every American should know by now, the California gold rush took place in 1848. When the gold was discovered, people throughout the US went to California to see if they can strike it rich, and be among the first people to out-earn others. 140 years later, Sierra decided that we should play an adventure game based on these events. Simply called Gold Rush!, the game tells the story of Jerrod Wilson, a young man who grew up in Brooklyn Heights, NY with his brother Jake. Putting a horrendous past behind him, that saw his parents being killed during a storm, and his brother forced to leave the country due to an unfair trial, Jerrod decides to sell up the family home, resign from his job as a newspaper journalist, and travel to California - not only to find gold, but to search for his lost brother which he has not seen in quite a while.

As Jerrod, you must to be prepared for the long journey. There are three routes that you can take to get to California, but before you leave Brooklyn, you must think ahead and buy shit that will help you get to California safely. You can sign up with the Joint Mining Stock Company who will take you to California via wagon. As the team leader, you must make critical decisions, such as what animals to take on the route, and when it is time to go. You can also travel via the Cape Horn Route. This is done by getting on a ship, and surviving on a perilous journey where you have to survive a storm and find a way to get food. And last but not least, you can take the easy route via the Panama. This route may take you through beautiful scenery and you get to California in the least amount of time than the other routes. You will, however, have to face an evil tribe, as well as surviving the dangers of the jungle.

Regardless of the route you take, you watch your team go on the move – a map appears with the chosen path outlined in red. During these scenes, the game tells you about the area that you are passing by, and its history. If you do not want a lecture, you can disable the messages by pressing [F8] on the keyboard. It is these scenes that the game determines how prepared you really are. If you did not buy all the necessary equipment prior to leaving Brooklyn, you will surely die a horrible death. You can also die if you make the wrong decisions along the way.

Gold Rush! is another Sierra game that uses the AGI interpreter which plagued other legendary games such as King's Quest and Leisure Suit Larry. This means that the game is limited to only 16 colors. However, I felt that the graphics were slightly detailed than the games made before it. Most of the scenes are outdoors. I really enjoyed walking around Brooklyn and enter buildings just to see what they were like during the good old days. I also took in the magnificent views like Independence, Missouri, Green River, Sutter's Fort, and the nearby town.

Back in its time, the game required a bit more memory than the games before it, because some scenes in the game required a larger version of Jerrod to be drawn on screen, but Gold Rush! is not the first game to feature a large character sprite – I still remember seeing a large Rosella sprite in King's Quest IV.

Using the AGI interpreter meant that Sierra had to use a series of beeps and tweets for certain events in the game. One thing that I admire is the tune that plays whenever you score points like in later Sierra games. A tune like that was not even heard of in any AGI game to date. The theme song, as well as the rest of the music in the game, sounds much better on the Amiga.

Like any human being, you can die in Gold Rush!. If you happen to die, you get a death message, like you did in later Sierra games. This death message may not appear in a dialog box, but it instead appears at the bottom of the screen, and it is enough. Again, this was not heard of in earlier games, which say some crap message like “Thank you for playing ... Next time, please be a bit more careful.”

The Bad

For a Sierra game that was made in 1988 such as King's Quest IV and Police Quest II, they decided to use their SCI0 interpreter, yet they decided to just do one more game using AGI. They lost me on this one.

The Bottom Line

Gold Rush is an adventure game that is based on a series of events that happened during the California gold rush. It is a game that you need to decide which one of the three routes that you need to take, and what shit you need in order to survive until you finally reach California. The game offers a nice, big lecture about the area, or the history of it, that you are passing through. But you can choose not to listen to the lecture. The nice graphics and sound effects just shows how Sierra'a AGI interpreter has improved, leading up to the beginning of a new era for SCI0 games.