CNET Cover-Up at Roswell Review

Originally at http://zuni.cnet.com/Content/Reviews/Cdcentral/Reviews/0,50,545,00.html; Kylara located it here.

Animated teen scientist Jonny Quest is back, on the TV screen (his Real Adventures air on the Cartoon Network), and on the computer screen--in The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest: Cover-Up at Roswell. The old series takes on a polished and politically correct new look in this CD-ROM game--but it's still doggedly intellectual. Cover-Up at Roswell, the first in what most likely will be a series, is basically a hodge-podge of mind-bending puzzles with cartoons interspersed. It's a fun adventure for kids and aging baby-boomer Jonny fans, but a snooze for hardcore gamers.

up and running Players join the Quest Team (which now includes Race's daughter Jessie in a nod to girls), and help find pieces of an alien ship that landed on Earth. Though they might expect much of the adventure to deal with aliens and the supernatural, players end up spanning the globe in search of these alien objects, heading to New York City, a rain forest in Peru, the Serengeti, the Devil's Triangle, and Utah.

The game's design has its ups and downs. On the upside is a simple interface that lets you quickly jump into the action. You click around the screen to move about, and each puzzle has helpful instructions and even hints on the help menu. The fact that you're moving within a cartoon makes the cut scenes work better, since video and cartoon look so much alike here. The promo on the box says "high-speed motorcycles, bi-planes, jeeps--and you're at the wheel!" but this is rubbish. You can maneuver an underwater vessel, as well as a raft in the rapids, but neither from a first-person perspective.

On the downside of the game's design: there's no way to shut off the background music or adjust the volume, especially annoying after you've endured the theme song for the thousandth time. The mini-games include putting out fires with an extinguisher and shooting rats with a slingshot: harmless fun, but not too challenging.

Jonny Quest does include one nice bonus: 3D glasses that give many of the puzzles (and even some menus) an eye-popping perspective. Though a good number of the puzzles are old hat, this will be a satisfying adventure for anyone who can't get enough of Jonny, Hadji, Bandit, and the crew.

by Mark Glaser

From: Press, Interviews, and FAQs