The Age Cover-Up At Roswell Review

The following appeared in The Age (Melbourne, Australia) on February 11, 1997. The citation is Riekert, Mary. Quest CD combines fun and learning; reviews - home. The Age; Computers, p. 11.

Quest CD combines fun and learning; Reviews - Home

WE ARE speeding down a tunnel trying to get through before a total computer malfunction closes access. Alarms are blaring and lights flashing - this is a 3D emergency. We make it through in time to join a mission which will require quick wits and fast reflexes. My daughter adjusts the 3D glasses and whispers reverently: "Cooool!"

"Now this is fun," her 13-year-old friend says. He has just explained that the trouble with parents is they take computers too seriously, unwittingly honing in on the paradox of buying software for the home.

When a parent pays upwards of $50 for a program they hope it will be educational; when children get a new CD-ROM they just want to have fun.

The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest: Cover Up at Roswell (Win/Mac, $49.95) is an adventure game based on the '60s Hanna-Barbera TV show. The series has been running on cable TV and has just started on Channel 7 as a twice-weekly show.

The two-CD set is produced by Virgin Sound and Vision, the children's software publishing arm of Richard Branson's Virgin Group, and is being distributed locally by Village Roadshow.

The storyline in Cover-up at Roswell revolves around a spaceship that has crashed on earth, jettisoning objects as it comes through the atmosphere. Jonny Quest and his friends have to find the objects before the evil Dr Surd and his Men in Black do. The stakes are high - if they don't succeed this could be the end of the Quest team and the world.

Players travel through exotic 3D cyberworlds using gadgets from the TV show, such as a global positioning unit and a tracking device. From the Amazon rainforest to the Devil's Triangle there are adventures and challenges, which require logical thinking and an action plan.

First, you have to help the team get that computer working again and it is not a simple. With the 3D-glasses, words and objects take on a holographic quality, and before you know it you're sucked into Questworld armed only with the secret password. Who said this was just for kids?

For those with Internet access there is a Quest web site at www.questworld.com where you can enter a competition to be selected to join an international team on a one-week of adventure at a classified tropical island destination. The catch is you have to watch the TV series for further clues.

Six Jonny Quest video titles are to be released from April, to be followed by Jonny Quest action figures, clothing and toys.

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