RETURN TO RINGWORLD by Tsunami Media/Time Warner Interactive

Reviewed by Wesley R. Litt

          Computer      Graphics     Memory     Disk Space 
Minimum:  386/25 MHz    VGA,          640K      2MB 
Max/Rec:  386/25 MHz

Control:   Mouse
  Sound:  Pro Audio Spectrum 16, SoundBlaster, SBPro, Covox Sound Master
          II, Roland Rap-10 Sound Card.
  Notes:  PC CD-ROM, MS-DOS Version 5.0 or later, MS mouse Version 6.0 or
          higher

Reviewed version 1.523 on: 486DX50, 8MB RAM, Pro-Audio Spectrum 16
                          Double Speed CD-ROM
     Reviewer recommends: NA

This is the second installment of THE RINGWORLD series by TSUNAMI MEDIA INC. Appropriately named RETURN TO RINGWORLD their initial game was called RINGWORLD: REVENGE OF THE PATRIARCH. These games are based upon the RINGWORLD novels written by LARRY NIVEN. LARRY NIVEN is famous for his numerous novels. This space based adventure requires you solve numerous puzzles, mazes and test your hand at flying a balloon. The puzzles are tricky and quite challenging. This is an improvement over the first game in the series. At one time or another you must change characters during the game to progress. I found this quite different to what I am used to. And very different from the first game. Also you can not die in this game if you choose the wrong course you end back where you started.

THE STORY CONTINUES

As you begin the game you are the character QUINN (human male) . You get up, dress collect a few items from your room and head for the bridge of the ship the LANCE OF TRUTH. On the bridge you find your partners MIRANDA (female human) and SEEKER (kzin male). The first problem you have is to free the engines from a stasis field caused by the explosion of the kzin warship at the end of the first game. This requires some collecting of items in the ship and defeating the laser security system in the engine room. Once you complete this you still have no place to go until you figure out how to remove the info disk from Quinns body. Once you obtain this you have the co-ordinates of where to go. Then your off to RINGWORLD.

RETURN TO RINGWORLD is an adventure game that requires you to travel to the RINGWORLD in an attempt to prove your innocence. You have been branded criminals by the three races in known space. Humans want them for stealing THE LANCE OF TRUTH their ship, the PUPPETEERS want them for cheating them out of advanced technology and the Kzin want them for destroying their battleship called DESTROYER. To accomplish clearing their names they must get to the RINGWORLD and find information that will clear them. They arrive at Ringworld to witness the destruction of a primitive village where an old spaceship crashed a billion years ago. They return to the spaceport ledge to look for an access to the ring. While Quinn and Seeker are out looking Miranda and the Lance of Truth are captured by the games ultimate bad guy TEAL. This leads into numerous adventures by each of the three characters to complete the game.

Return to Ringworld does a very good job creating the scenes, the graphics are very good with lots of colour and detail to make them very pleasing to the eye. The voices for each character are excellent I felt they suited the characters they portrayed. A very good job was done casting the characters voices for this game. The puzzles were difficult and rquire some thinking in different ways to complete. There several mazes in this game some more difficult than others but all are solvable with persistence. There are a couple of areas where you do seem to wander for unusually long times without making any progress.

The interface is similar to the first game in that clicking the right mouse button brings a set of icons. These icons trigger action icons and menus. The game allows you save 10 games only. Which personally I find to be not enough but live with it. You can adjust sound levels and music levels. You can decide if you want to listen to the voices or read text instead.

I found this game to be generally quite enjoyable. With some areas I think need some work I am not a big fan of mazes, in this game there are several you must conquer to continue. The second item is that in a couple of places you run into screen after screen of identical scenery this gets boring rapidly. The overall replay value I would say is very low once done I feel that is it. There is not multiple solutions or methods to solve problems. So I would not play it again.

The manual gives all the basic information needed as well as a basic troubleshooting section at the end. Also one thing I liked was that on page 2 there is a list of all phone numbers for TSUNAMI. I tried the numbers for technical support and had no problem getting through immediately. The people were friendly and helpful.

Installing this game from the CD was a snap. It took maybe 60 seconds, it locates your sound card for you and suggests a directory for installation to your hard drive. On your hard drive the save games are kept and a batch file to start the game from the CD-ROM. This game runs from the CD-ROM with minimal hard drive usage.

In any future games I would like to see more save game slots. And possibly a system to let you know if you are going in the wrong direction. ex: in the shaft leading to the Vampire maze you can climb up instead of down for ever without coming to anything or being told to try going the other way. This was very frustrating.

CONCLUSION: I liked the game very much but it is not perfect. I would recommend it to people who are looking for a challenge the mazes can be frustrating but patience will prevail. The graphics were very good and voices excellent. I found myself at the end thinking it can't be done I want to keep going.