Starcross

The Good
Despite being rated as one of the most difficult games, I was able to complete most of the puzzles in the game, which were mostly realistic & made sense. The story & atmosphere in the game is very good, with large amounts of text throughout, which is common of Infocom games.

The parser as you might expect was very good, with a large vocabulary, containing all the words you would need. You are able to die multiple deaths in the adventure, but they are not unfair & in most part expected, & you have the usual save/restore facility allowing you to have many saved games

The Bad
Despite having a lot of depth to the game & containing many characters, it was a bit dead in places, mostly collecting rods, & would have liked more interaction such as with the spider. As mentioned the puzzles were mostly common sense, except for a hard one in the Lab, but there is a maze of sorts in the game which although not hard to overcome, didn't make any sense why you would be lost.

The Bottom Line
This is an excellent example of an atmospheric science fiction type environment, with lots of details involved. Obviously who ever designed it gave it lots of thought. Despite this, it is not so enjoyable as a game, & you find yourself trying to get through it as a chore rather than an enjoyment. Other adventures from this period that I have played from Infocom such as the Zork 1-3, Infidel, & Deadline have been much more fun.

Overall, an good quality adventure from this period, which has tried to take a more serious position than normal, but gets bogged down a bit unfortunately. Like all Infocom games I would certainly recommend it, despite its faults.

The Good
The Sci-Fi "lost spaceship" story works well. Neat alien artifact ideas keep it fresh.

The Bad
The difficult puzzles are even more difficult due to some poor working and parser limitations.

The Bottom Line
For experts only.