Stealth Unter Dem Radar
Rule Uresti
My name is Glames, John Glames CIA Field Operative extraordinaire. Let me tell you about my last mission: Operation Stealth. The Stealth Fighter is the latest radar invisible warplane - the pride of the U.S. Airforce, at least it was until person or persons unknown thieved it from under their very noses. Of course, it was a bit difficult to trace on account of the radar invisibility. So that was my mission - bring it back or kiss goodbye to a promising career.
Professor Carling provided me with lots of hi-tech toys: False attach case, exploding cigarettes, safe cracking devices - the sort of things that no self-respecting secret agent should leave the house without.
Did I mention the Paraguay connection? One of our agents in Santa Paragua sent a telegram asking for help with the Stealth Affair. I suspected that General Manigua, probably in cahoots with the commies as well. So from the airport I caught a taxi downtown into a world of subterfuge darker than the dark side of the moon on a very dark night.
Thus in Operation Stealth you assume the role of CIA Agent John Glames. This is done by means of Delphine Software's widely acclaimed Cinematique system, first seen in Future Wars. Everything can be controlled by moving the mouse pointer around the screen and pointer around the screen and selecting actions or objects from pulldown menus.
This system was criticised in Future Wars for being a little difficult to use: Some vital objects were so small that it was a matter of chance whether careful sweeps of the screen with the pointer would bring them to light or not. The positioning and size of objects is improved upon in Operation Stealth. This does not mean it is easy though - you still have to work out what to do with an object once you have found it!
The weak point of the Cinematique System is persuading Mr Glames to walk where you want him to. It is easy to confuse him into missing a door and even after quite a lot of practice a slightly misplaced pointer can send him onto another screen which means an irritating pause for disk consultation.
Like all adventures, Operation Stealth is heavily dependant on clearly presented text, and it seems that Monsieur Delphine Software is not entirely au fait with the finer points of the Queen's English. Getting someone from this side of the Channel to proof read the agme would surely have got rid of the more gross grammatical gaffs. A number of embarrassing unamusing messages spoils the overall atmosphere of the game too. But these are small points. The graphics, although done in a comic strip style, are a clear and colourful representation of John Glames' three dimensional world and must fill a large part of the three disks that comprise the Operation Stealth package.
All in all Operation Stealth is a pretty damn good adventure game. The depths of depression and frustration when you cannot solve a puzzle are surpassed by the raptures of joy when you finally untangle it. I would not regret mugging my piggbybank to buy the game and it has been interesting enough to keep me awake into the early hours of the morning on several occasions. And you cannot say fairer than that.
Stealth bombers, the USAF's infamous invisible war planes, are good. So good in fact, that the airforce itself has lost track of one. Last radio contact with the missing bird was over the banana public San Paragua, a dictatorship on bad terms with everybody, so the CIA are sending one man to get their jet back. A man named Glames: John Glames.
You are that secret agent, so after a hasty briefing you are flying down to Rio (or San Paragua, actually). To kick off the mission, you are armed with a briefcase crammed full of espionage goodies and your own native cunning. Ask the right questions of the right people, look in the right places and use the right gadgets and you will find that flying machine.
The adventure rolls like a movie from scene to scene, employing different views as the game changes pace. The main action is seen as a 3D adventure where the hero is guided by mouse clicks, with other angles used for the arcade action sequences, as the hero swims and runs for his life. This is Cinematique, an interactive system designed to avoid all that tedious text typing found in 'normal' adventures.
Glames struts into the airport, unaware and unprepared for the events ahead. To start the (thunder)ball rolling he must check for messages, steal a suitcase and get a false passport together. With no background info on the country, it pays to look everywhere and experiment with everything that is not nailed down - even things that are nailed down can prove useful. A forgotten coin in a vending machine gets you a paper, for example, which proves a source of life-saving clues.
Standing at the airport waiting to be kidnapped gets you nowhere, so actions must start speaking lourder than words. Emplooying the menu functions of use, operate, speak, take, examine and inventory you are free to move fast. Glames is an active agent and can do almost anything you want.
There is only one correct solution, so make sure than anything that can be done is done, every item examined, each possibility explored at the first opportunity. Even airport toilets prove invaluable, providing cover and powerfor secret devices. As the time ticks away, Glames visits parks, mineshafts and even the seabed - not all through choice. Expect the unexpected, be prepared and plan ahead.
As with all agents of the undercover variety, JG does not uncover plots as much as fall straight into them. In no time at all he will receive coded messages, be shot at, attemptedly drowned (twice!), get kidnapped and play at being a magician's assistant. And as the story gets more outrageous, so the addiction level starts to rise.
Life is not all correct decisions and cognitive nonsense, since spies live as much on their wits as by their Iqs. Interspersed throughout the game are arcade sequences that seek to kill you real quick. Escaping from one perilous situation Glames faces some daunting cave diving, without the aid of an aqualung or safety net! Once inside the head honcho's mansion he has to dart through a maze of doors avoiding guards in a desperate bid to save his lady.
Da vermutet wird, dass sich der Vogel jetzt im sdamerikanischen Santa Paragua befindet, mach sich unser 007-Verschnitt mit dem nchsten Flugzeug auf den Weg dorthin. Aber leider ist kein Geheimagent so geheim, dass nicht auch die lieben Kollegen von seinen Ausflgen Wind bekommen wrden. Und da man beim KGB ebenfalls Verwendung fr ein so hbsches Militr-Spielzeug htte, belebt auch hier die Konkurrenz mal wieder das Geschft.
Wer "Future Wars" gespielt hat, darf die nchsten Zeilen getrost berspringen, allen andern sei nochmals kurz erklrt, was man sich unter "Cinematique" vorzustellen hat. Nun, eigentlich nicht anderes, als ein Grafik-Adventure mit Maussteuerung im Stil der Sierra-Games - nur, dass man hier die Tastatur komplett vergessen kann! Und an die etwas eigenwillige Mausbedienung hat man sich schnell gewhnt...
Zudem wurde das System fr Operation Stealth nochmals deutlich verbessert; nicht zuletzt dank entsprechender Anregungen der Fachpresse (hstel...). So gibt es jetzt eine Art Luppe, die kleine Gegenstnde vergrert darstellt und somit das lstige Absuchen des Screens erleichtert, auerdem mu der Held nicht mehr unmittelbar daneben stehen, wenn er etwas untersuchen will. Und da Wichtigste: Man kann nunmehr auch Sachen aus dem Inventory auf Gegenstnde anwenden, die sich ebenfalls im Inventory befinden - gerade dieses Feature erweitert die Aktionsmglichkeiten ungemein!
Alles in allem ist Operation Stealth ein erstklassiges Game - Grafik und Animationen sind von Feinsten, die Geruschkulisse ist realistisch, und zwischendurch rhrt satter 16-Bit Sound aus den Boxen. Die Cinematique-Technik konnte beim Vorganger schon gefallen, jetzt macht die Sache einen wirklich ausgereiften Eindruck. Die Verbesserungen bringen es allerdings mit sich, da das Spiel nun lngst nicht mehr so leicht zu lsen ist wie "Future Wars". Aber was ein wahrer Abenteurer ist, der freut sich ber knifflige Herausforderungen - besonders in so ansprechender Verpackung! (wh)
When French software house, Delphine, released Future Wars late last year they immediately established themselves as the most exciting overseas software house around. The game's blend of adventuer and graphics was one of the smoothest yet seen and it merited the awards it won.
Operation Stealth is their follow-up, and the only surprise is to find it distributed by US Gold rather than Palace who discovered them. Otherwise the game is all that converts to the first one could expect - an excellent graphic adventure.
The plot for Operation Stealth revolves loosely around the bomber of the same name. Quite how something the size of the Pentagon's flying wing disappears is not explained (perhaps discovery of the flaw is what led to the recent decision to cease production on the plane), but it falls to a CIA Agent to locate its whereabouts. Taking time off from undermining East European governments and propping up Colombian drug rings, you are that government agent.The credits unfold cinematically, and the scene fixes, as with Future Wars, on a large skyscraper. Inside is your agent, John Glames, and his boss. A quick flick of the mouse button will fill you in on your mission before you are despatched, briefcase in hand, to Santa paragua. As your plane lands at the airport, so your problems begin. Attempting to pass through customs will result in a guard blocking your path and demanding your passport. Whatever you do, do not give him the US one you are carrying, he will simply arrest you.
It is at this early point in the game that you should examine the invenotyr you are carrying and, most importantly, the contents of your briefcase. Nip off somewhere quiet and open it up to reveal an invaluable set of secret agent's gadgets contained within, which includes a shaver containing a tape recorder, an acid squirting pen and a decoder for safes. As you play the game, you will learn that it is necessary to check out every possibility on each screen. Often the smallest objects need checking over to unravel some of the fiendish lateral thinking puzzles in the game. As with Future Wars, every problem can be solved by using an object in some way.
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