<!--
	Title: (Adventure) Bureauacracy
	Source: Zzap!64, #27
	Date: July 1987
	Transcription by Steve Derby
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*Infocom/Activision, £34.00 disk only*

**NB: COMMODORE 128 ONLY!**

Douglas Adams did it with *Hitchhikers*. The Wiz isn't exactly sure *what* he did, but
the result was one of Infocom's best selling games. Now he's
done it again with *Bureaucracy*. Yup, there's no doubt about it, this
game is as tricky as *Zork*, as devious as *HHGTTG*, and as frustrating as
getting an engaged tone from Directory Enquiries for the 800th
time in succession... But it's an exquisite torture, mein Wizardlings,
and I must advise all of you with the necessary hard cash (and
suitable machinery) to stump up and add it to your collection.

<img class="float-right-half" src="/public/img/articles/zzap64-bureaucracy-review/bureaucracy-packaging.png" alt="Bureaucracy packaging">

The story goes as follows. You have changed your job and in
doing so changed your address. Your new employers, Happitec,
are to send you on an all expenses paid trip to Paris and your bank
have issued you with a little change of address form, which you
have filled in and returned to them. Now all you have to do is sit
back and wait for the postman to deliver a fat cheque from your
employer so that you can collect some cash, your air-ticket, and
make your way to Gay Paree.

Unfortunately, there is some trouble with the mail. Apparently
the bank's computer system has had a spot of bother with your
change of address form and sent all your stuff to your old address.
To cut a long story short, that means no cash from your local
branch of the Fiduciary Trust. Combine that with a local postman
who has bravely delivered all the mail in your street to the wrong
addresses, and you begin to have a problem.

By the time you've battled it out with the bank, an old woman with
an elephant gun, a psychotic parrot, a starving llama, and a
paranoid freak who lives in a camouflaged house and entertains
visitors with an arsenal of death-dealing hardware, you've not only
got a problem, you've got the beginnings of several mental disturbance.
This is definitely men in white coats material -- and it's
likely to be you they're coming for.

The game comes in the usual high-standard Infocom package,
complete with a flyer for the magazine Popular Paranoia, and a
form to fill in for a new Beezer credit card in triplicate. The form itself
is hilarious -- each page of the three part set has different text printed
on it, so while you're filling in the top copy agreeing to cover all
charges due on the card, you're also filling in the bottom copy,
which says 'Beezer may sign any documents on my behalf and I
agree to be liable for anything', as well as other more obscure concealed
declarations ('I like sheep', to name but one).

Publicity agents have it that Douglas Adams endured a real-life
experience related to change of address difficulties (haven't we all)
and that these inspired the game. Bureaucracy, whether it be in the
bank (where you get shunted from one cashier to the next) or in the
taxi (you have credits cards -- they only take cash), is held up for
ridicule and damnation throughout the game. The program itself
begins by asking you to fill in an on-screen software license form,
which of course is not quite as efficient and straightforward as it
looks...

But in the final analysis it's the little bits of quirky humour that
make the game and could only have come from the warped mind
of one such as Mr Adams. For example, the parrot lacks a left
wing. That means it's a right wing parrot, liable to spout fascist propaganda
at the slightest provocation. Of course, the next time you
play it may only have a left wing...

Then there's the unspeakable 'nerd' woh keeps coming up to
you trying to sell you the most horrendously useless computer
peripherals. Igmore him, and his final words are 'Hey! Can I go out
with your sister?!' -- Ugh...

A new prompt-response system enables you to have more concise
conversations with characters. Apart from the usual Infocom SAY
TO and CHARACTER, MESSAGE forms of communication, you'll
also find yourself interrogated by some of the characters. The system
then throws up a double prompt, which means you have to give a
particular answer, as in:

**'Do you want to make a withdrawal'**<br>
&gt;Yes<br>
**The teller hands you a withdrawal slip.**

This is used to great effect in some instances, particularly in the
fast-food restaurant, where you are prompted for endless choices
of diet coke, distilled water, and other not so goodies. It's also used
in a bizarre and highly amusing set of questions and answers with the
local paranoid, who decides your future by asking you about
'Them.' You may not know it, but 'They' update their files on you by
going through your garbage -- that's when they're not dying like
the rest of us from hideous killer diseases spread by... yogurt.
Always supposing that you've escaped the dreaded killer bees
which, of course, are being unleashed on America by vindictive
Mexicans.

My only criticism of this game is that it isn't quite as verbose on the
text front as other Infocom games. The humour, however, makes up
for the slight lack of scene-setting, and the rest of the gameplay is as
good as ever.

*Bureaucracy* is a very enjoyable game. Adams and Infocom obviously
share a certain vein of highly infectious humour -- I guess they
must eat yogurt together. As it is, if you save up your pennies and
blow them on this little number I doubt very much if you'll be
disappointed.

<table class="larger" style="font-weight: bold;"><tbody>
<tr><td>Atmosphere</td><td>92%</td></tr>
<tr><td>Interaction</td><td>93%</td></tr>
<tr><td>Lasting Interest</td><td>92%</td></tr>
<tr><td>Value For Money</td><td>85%</td></tr>
<tr><td>Overall</td><td>90%</td></tr>
</tbody></table>