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5 of
5 people found the following review helpful:
A Highly Qualified Four Stars, August 18, 2021I'm trying to work my way through the Infocom catalog, posting my thoughts on a gaming forum all the while.
In 1981, Dave Lebling assumed responsibility for porting Zork II to home computers. Meanwhile, Marc Blank worked on Deadline. The next year, Blank wrote/developed Zork III while Lebling worked on his own pet-project, a hard sci-fi adventure that would come to be known as Starcross.
Both Deadline and Starcross struggled mightily with the size limitations imposed by microcomputers: these games had to run on systems like the TRS-80. Blank, rather ingeniously, overcame some of the problems by the use of feelies, thereby moving in-program text to packaging. Lebling, unfortunately, did not have the same opportunity. In a game about exploring the unknown, how could feelies do such textual heavy lifting?
It seems uncharitable to hold Lebling accountable for the TRS-80's shortcomings, but these problems must be talked about all the same. The Starcross map is large--entirely appropriate for a massive alien artifact. The most important objects in Deadline are its suspects, and they are deeply implemented. Starcross, as a function of its large map, is wide but shallow. Most objects are briefly described (if at all), and interaction is largely limited to objects that in some way progress the game.
Depending on a player's taste, this may or may not be an issue. Starcross is chock-full of difficult-but-fair puzzles, and those who enjoy such fare are in for a treat. Be warned that some require very basic knowledge of chemistry and physics. I have seen a reviewer state that Starcross is not "Zork in Space," but I'm not sure how true that really is. In fact, I think that Starcross is a sort of "lessons learned" effort for Lebling. It improves upon Zork's weaknesses while capitalizing on its strengths (except for the jokes, which is a matter of taste): fair(er) puzzles, a logical and well-designed map, treasures that serve a clear function, and sense of exploration that feels purposeful. It is the intermediate step between Zork and Spellbreaker. I find a clear throughline leading from point A to point C.
Even forgiving as I do Starcross's light implementation, I should acknowledge two flaws. One is minor, and one less so--which is which depends entirely on your tastes! Many have pointed out the unfortunate possibility of verb-guessing in getting the red rod. I think these critiques are fair. The other problem is the ending. (Spoiler - click to show)I won't spoil it here except to say that it feels randomly tacked on and retroactively makes a good deal of the game rather nonsensical. It would seem that Lebling started with Rendezvous with Rama and ended it with 2001: A Space Odyssey. I think one Clarke novel per game is enough.
My rating is therefore a highly qualified four stars. If you are interested in Infocom games (perhaps Spellbreaker in particular), this is at least worth a look. There are many hard, satisfying puzzles here. The exploration is enjoyable despite the limited interactivity. However, those more interested in story and rich interaction will likely have a two-star experience.
- heasm66 (Sweden), August 10, 2021
- unWinnable State (unWinnableState.com), April 10, 2021
- Nomad, February 26, 2021
- steamfire, September 22, 2020
- Zape, June 3, 2020
- Walter Sandsquish, February 17, 2020
- monkeymind, December 22, 2019
- Otheym, August 18, 2019
1 of
1 people found the following review helpful:
Alien technology vs. the Infocom world model, October 26, 2018I needed several hints to finish Starcross and am slightly bitter about it. Not because the game is unfair, but because I really like science fiction and wanted to be good at being inside a sci-fi adventure! Spaceships, computers, aliens, high-tech gadgets... all stuff I like thinking about. I thought the theme would give me the extra determination I needed to tough it out and solve everything by myself, and I did make good headway at first, but ultimately I tripped myself up by thinking too much about how I wanted the game to be rather than how it is.
Starcross is from 1982. It was only Infocom's fifth game. Anyone playing this today should expect sparse implementation compared to modern games, and I certainly knew that going in, having played other Infocom titles. But the setting of a high-tech alien spaceship turns out to be a mismatch in a way that the more whimsical settings of Zork and the like are not. In Zork, when I come across a weird room containing something out of a myth or fable, I take it as a goofy fantasy reference and don't expect there to be much point in poking around the edges of the scenery. But in Starcross, when I came across a room with lights or machines or dials or doors in the descriptions, I wanted to examine everything closely. And in some cases, the game lets you. My favorite parts were when the game gives lengthy, detailed descriptions of control panels and what the symbols look like, and you have to figure out what it all means and how to make it work. There are some very good puzzles in this game that involve fiddling with alien technology. But there is also lots of scenery that I wanted to prod for clues, but couldn't.
The upside is that there isn't much cruelly hidden stuff (there is one case where SEARCH really should yield success, but I didn't get stuck because of it). There aren't even that many objects you can pick up. The room connections are straightforward and the ship is quite easy to map out. Almost all of the possible dead-ends come from doing things in the wrong order or wasting items in ways that obviously have no effect. I can only think of one action in the game that seems like an alternate solution but actually ends up making the game unwinnable. There are also no wacky, jokey, implausible, or otherwise off-the-wall solutions. In that respect, the game is quite fair. Thinking "What sort of thing might I actually try if I was in that situation?" can get you a long way. Of course, you may come up with several plausible solutions, so you still need a lot of methodical perseverance to figure out which particular one was implemented, and the game isn't going to give you any nudges if you only get close, but that's just how you have to play these old games. Overall, the structure of the puzzles and traps has more in common with an old Dungeons & Dragons module than, say, Riven. I should have remembered that, and I should have spent less time wishing for clearer details from the game and more time thinking about how to give my actions more specificity. Old Infocom games may not implement every single noun, but the world model does allow you to specify where you put something or where you look.
The parts I liked best about Starcross probably make up 50% of the game. I wish the whole game was figuring out symbols and technology, but the other half is still well-constructed and fair, so I give this game high marks for the era. Also, as it turns out, there is an in-universe explanation for why the game's puzzles are the way they are. It's not a terribly satisfying one, but I appreciate the attempt at thematic consistency.
- nosferatu, July 20, 2017
- Spike, February 26, 2017
- Greg Frost (Seattle, Washington), February 11, 2017
- Christopher Hall (London, Great Britain), November 19, 2016
1 of
1 people found the following review helpful:
Helped spur my interest in sci fi novels?, June 14, 2016I was born in 1971 and I think I played this game in 1984.
Not long afterward, I would become an avid reader of science fiction novels (particularly form Asimov and Clarke), and this game may have helped kick-start that habit.
Playing this game, I would fill my head with imagery of a colossal cylindrical spacecraft, primitive inhabitants, alien machinery, etc. The text-only interface was more than adequate for navigation, interacting with objects, and communicating with beings.
My main complaint with the game is that there is a critical challenge with a non-intuitive solution. This is the task of obtaining the red rod. I was never able to find the solution to this on my own.
There was one other critical challenge that I wasn't able to solve on my own. That was the task of using the pair of disks. However, unlike the challenge with the red rod, the game developer had provided a hint that I could have picked up on.
The game would have been better if there were more rooms to explore, more objects to find, more inhabitants to communicate with, and more puzzles (with intuitive or multiple solutions) to solve.
One final comment: there seems to be a strange hole in the plot where the game developer forgot that you (the visitor) and the inhabitants breathe the same atmosphere. However, this issue can be easily overlooked.
2 of
2 people found the following review helpful:
Infocom's first scifi; big map, Star Trek feel. Little comedy, lots of wonder, February 3, 2016Star cross was fun to try on my own without a walkthrough, at first. You are a miner in space, looking for an asteroid, when you encounter an unusual object.
This game plays out on a large cylindrical map, with dynamics similar to those described in Ender's Game. You encounter a wide variety of creatures. The map eventually overwhelmed me; it is a huge map, and hard to draw out yourself (just look at the official maps!).
I used a lot of hints, eventually (including one near the beginning).
The main gameplay mechanic is a lock-and-key type puzzle, where you find about a dozen color-coded objects and corresponding places to put them.
I actually preferred this to Planetfall; that game's 4 timers (hunger, sleep, (Spoiler - click to show)disease, flood), combined with an empty map and red herrings, left me frustrated (Enchanter's three similar timers were compensated for by a simple map and dense useful object placement). Star cross was fun, even though I mostly used a walkthrough. The deaths were all fun, too.
- Thrax, March 11, 2015
- shornet (Bucharest), March 23, 2014
- The Custodian (The Cloud), April 10, 2013
- Jimmy Gonzolo (New Mexico), January 19, 2013
- Doctor Zero (USA), December 10, 2011
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