Presumed Guilty

It's your first day on the job as a new COPNET (Computer Operated Police Network) agent, and you're not sure if you're ready for your first assignment: investigating the curious death of a prominent scientist who was working on a top-secret government project. You quickly learn there's more to this case than meets the eye. Important new technology is missing, a neo-Nazi group is organizing a worldwide protest against COPNET, a KGB agent has been murdered, and surveillance tapes suggest there is a traitor in the President's inner circle.

You're beginning to uncover the outlines of a mind-boggling international plot when someone code-named "the Falcon" breaks into your private computer. He informs you that he has set you up to be framed for what may be the espionage crime of the century. Five minutes later, a Soviet diplomat appears on a news broadcast and identifies you as a Russian agent!

All this takes place, mind you, in the first half-hour of play. Then things really get tense. The Falcon trie? to crack your personal security code while you desperately try to ascertain his identity and the details of the ever-widening conspiracy. Using CORNET'S vast data banks, you can gather dossiers, photographic evidence, audio transcripts, and pertinent news items. Your goal is to assemble a collage of evidence before the Falcon gets to you.

The design team that produced last year's prize-winning game The President is Missing has come up with a real nail-biter in Presumed Guilty!. There's no problem obtaining clues — you'll be practically drowning in them — but discerning the pattern behind the clues will tax your deductive powers to the limit. The plot is global and intricate, and the game can take truly diabolical turns as the race between you and the Falcon gets tight.

The only flaw in this otherwise superb game is a manual that is poorly organized, murkily written, does not tell you how to initiate some basic investigative procedures, and in the crucial matter of hard disk installation is downright misleading. Once you're past these drawbacks, however, Presumed Guilty! will grab you by the throat.