Blown Away
$14.95		(Win) (Jewel Case w/ Manual) (BLOWNAPO)

Imagination Pilots / IVI Publishing

Game

Suitable for all audiences

Ratings:

79% from PC Gamer

It's You Against the Clock...

It's You against an evil villain. It's You against the most insidious mind-blowing games ever invented.

You, the Player, are James Dove, a member of the Boston Bomb Squad and an expert at dismantling bombs. Your job is to outwit the brilliant, but sinister, Justus, an Irish Machiavellian terrorist bomber obsessed with avenging the death of his mentor, Gaerity, for which YOU are responsible.

Justus, like Gaerity, knows the secrets of your past - a past that you thought was long buried - like your past name, Liam, and your past affiliation with the underground. He also knows about your daughter, Lizzy, your friend, Patrick, and your teacher, Sam. He even knows of your relationship with Robin Small, the newscaster. Only you have the ability to stop him and unravel his surprising plan.

Welcome to Blown Away. You're about to embark on a very remarkable interactive adventure which we've carefully crafted to provide serious and continuing challenges to all levels of players. Blown Away is because it changes substantially every time you play, it's virtually impossible to master. Like life itself, and like working for the Bomb Squad in particular, Blown Away is hard and full of choices. Some are easy, some are difficult, and some may even be deadly. But they all have consequences and, every once in a while, luck plays a part in the outcome as well. As any seasoned bomb guy will tell you, he'd much rather be lucky then smart. It saves a lot of fingers and toes.

In any event, the ultimate and very simple object of this game is to move from the start to the finish in the fastest possible time. Saving the many hostages and defusing the numerous bombs, booby traps and other devices also impacts your overall score. But in the final analysis, time is of the essence. While quick reaction times are helpful in some of the predicaments, the best players will combine pure speed with careful analysis.

And, by the way, if any of this sounds a little too much like school or hard work, just remember that every action you take in this game is subject to constantly ticking timers and nasty little clocks of all sorts which track your progress in the deadly race against time. And then, of course, there's Justus, who's out to blow you (and everyone you know) straight away.

Over time, as you continue to play and practice, we expect that you will develop specific strategies and approaches for each of the major challenges which include word and number games, puzzles and mazes, tests of strategy and hand-eye coordination and other mind-blowing tests of your powers of observation and critical thinking. Eventually you will learn how to proceed in each case. But, to keep things interesting, the computer will continually vary the correct solution to the particular problem so that you never know what the answer should be until you begin each session. And, of course, if you're not careful, it may be too late at that point to do anything.

Requirements: 486/33 or better IBM-compatible full Multimedia PC Level 2 system, 8 MB RAM and 5 MB free hard disk space, 640 x 480 Super VGA Monitor with 256 Colors, Double speed CD-ROM drive with minimum 300 KB/sec transfer rate, 16-Bit Microsoft Windows compatible Sound Card and speakers, Microsoft Windows 3.1, MS-DOS 5.0 or higher, and MS-DOS CD-ROM extensions.

Reviews:

PC Gamer, February 1995

"This new title, loosely based on the movie of the same name, concerns a bomb-squad cop (you) who's in pursuit of a crazed bomber. The story is told through video clips, which then pop you into some nicely rendered 'virtual rooms' full of hot spots. Click on a hot spot, and you might get to play a little game."

The games within Blown Away aren't bad at all, kind of a mix of logic puzzles that reminded me of 7th Guest. But there are number puzzles, word puzzles, and even a recreation of the old Labyrinth maze-and-marble game that works surprisingly like the real thing. A nice variety."

"And then there's the video - which, like the puzzles, isn't bad at all. It's full-screen stuff, and runs nicely on a windows-accelerated video card. And the starring villain (a scruffy dude named Jimmy Scaggs) turns in a memorably creepy performance."

"The video and puzzles, however, have such a tenuous relationship to one another that the whole affair adds up to considerably less than the sum of its parts."

Computer Gaming World, January 1995

"The acting is reasonably good, and the tension is at times equal to a typical suspense flick - especially when you're defusing a bomb. Unlike many 'interactive movies', you do actually affect the plot, and the game can be replayed since the solutions to the puzzles change with every play."

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