The Quivering

Borrowing from almost every horror cliche available, this adventure owes almost as much to films like Evil Dead as it does to the text-based adventures of old. As Josh you must rid the world of the demonic 'Big O' by collecting imps and objects littering the way. The game kicks off outside an English pub, and it's not long before you find your uncle (transformed into a raven), who tells you what's been going on. The developers have tried admirably to inject humour, and while there are a few good lines, it's hard not to cringe at the attempts at facetiousnes from our disparaging hero. Graphically, it's reminiscent of-the recent Journeyman 3 adventure where you have a full 360-degree field of view and pre-rendered movement between the various locations. It actually works very well, even though having to press the spacebar to skip to the next place soon becomes awkward.

As mentioned previously, the 'feel' of the game is decidedly old-school: access to certain areas is only allowed by possession of the relevant object, and without the correct items in your inventory, death always seems to be just around the corner. This problem is compounded by the lack of limitless savegames - each imp you collect allows you to save the game once. The adventuring itself is pitched at just the right difficulty, though seasoned adventurers will hardly find it original.

Some of it's frustrating (such as not being able to skip through speech, for example), but on the whole The Quivering is a plucky little adventure that, while it doesn't break any new ground, is certainly worthy of approval for simply being entertainment.