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Cat and Mouse on a Spaceship

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game emerged in the early 90's to rave reviews but apparently low sales, likely due to the fact that it began life as a Mac game (it was ported to PC later on, which is the version I own). It included incredible graphics and FMV (full-motion video) sequences that were the envy of it's day and an interesting plot. The crew of the space cruiser "Jeremiah O'Brien" become unwitting victims of a DNA changing plague after a computer malfunction during a wargame. The ship's malfunctioning computer, acting on it's wargame orders, is headed for an inhabited planet to unleash a load of devastating bombs. The crew is unable to change course and are systematically wiped out by the ships security bot, who uses thier DNA to identify them as friend or foe. Since the virus has changed everyone's DNA no one is safe and the crew are forced to leave behind clues, video logs, and untainted DNA samples behind for whoever comes to stop the ship.

And that's where you come in. You play the part of an unnamed crewmember of a mining ship, the only one close enough to respond to the O'Brien's distress calls. You have 3 unarmed, remotely-operated mining probes equipped with manipulator arms and scanners, as well as a healthy dose of wits. And you'll need every bit of it because from the word "Go" you will find yourself hounded by the ship's security bot in one of the most clever games of cat and mouse I've ever seen. The ship contains several levels and you'll spend much of your time traversing ladder-shafts and elevators in an effort to escape the security bot, whose red blip you can see on your map. Watching the little bugger follow you around the ship is unnerving and the game will make your adrenaline pump. Remember, you only have 3 probes to send over to the O'Brien, and once they're gone the game is over.

A large part of your task is to locate DNA samples left behind by the crew. These can be located in some various places, such as on crewmember beds, bathrooms, ladders, etc. Once the DNA is scanned it's placed into your probes memory so that you can open doors to other rooms (remember, the ship operates almost totally on the DNA identification of it's crewmembers) and can give the player increased access the further up the chain of DNA command one goes. The Captain's DNA is hard to find, but will grant you access to almost anyplace on the ship.

In addition to the DNA the crew, before their untimely deaths, contrived a number of schemes to stop the ship and put them in the form of video logs (an eerily reminiscent forerunner of the same idea that was used on System Shock 2) to derail the ship's deranged computer, as well as several ways to rid the ship of it's security bot. Killing the security bot requires using one's noodle to "lure" it into traps. But even if successful the ship launches a new security bot after 5 minutes, thus you only gain a short reprieve at best. The game includes 3 difficulty settings. The higher the difficulty, the more difficult it is to kill the security bot. In addition to this when the game is played on a higher difficulty it changes the method used to destroy the ship in the previous one. DNA and video logs are placed in different areas as well, which basically offers you 3 different games of Iron Helix in one fell swoop.

For it's day the game was indeed beautiful. The graphics were almost lifelike, although the control scheme felt more like something out of a 3DO game. The entire game is pre-rendered, meaning there isn't anything you can pick up, although this is the same reason it looked so good. The game had it's flaws however. The actually "play" screen itself was a tiny window, not quite 1/4 size area of one's monitor space. This means that you're likely going to have to scoot up close to see some of the game's finer details. The rest of the display is your remote control unit on your mining ship. In essence it's like playing a game on your 50" HDTV's PiP screen. This was likely done to boost performance on the older 486 machines it was made for, but it still detracts a great deal from the experience.

Otherwise this was a great game, and one I wish they'd do a much more elaborate remake of!

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