<!--
	Title: (Games & Books) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
	Author: Randi Hacker
	Source: Games, v9(4)
	Date: April 1985
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

<span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: var(--article-sidebar), Arial, sans-serif;">The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy</span>
by Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky (Infocom, on disk for most home computers, around $35 to $40)

<hr>

Those of you who have read and enjoyed Douglas Adams's
novel *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* will find it no help
whatsoever when it comes to solving the computer adventure
game based on the book. This, of course, is as it should be,
but is small comfort; for the game does not succeed as completely
as one might have hoped.

You are Arthur Dent, the hapless hero. Your house is about
to be destroyed to make room for the British equivalent of an
interstate highway. As if this weren't enough, you're told by
your close friend Ford Prefect that he's from outer space and
that the earth is about to be destroyed to make room for an
intergalactic highway. Miraculously, you and Ford are spared
to wander the universe and solve puzzles.

The game manages to capture the book's off-the-wall humor.
While this is sometimes fun, it is also the game’s biggest
flaw. There are too many places where you are just a reader
rather than a player. Long passages go by that require absolutely
no creative input; although you are prompted to type in
something at these points, what you type is usually immaterial,
since you're just marking time anyway. You must wait for
the destruction of your house and then of the earth; you must
wait in the dark between trips in space; and there’s no way to
speed things up.

In other games from Infocom’s fine line of all-text adventures,
you have almost complete control over where you go.
You make a map, explore the territory, and can retrace your
steps if you do something in the wrong order. Here, though,
you are tossed randomly from one scenario to another. Each
presents one or two problems to solve, and then you're transported
back to your spaceship —- where, unlike the settings in
most Infocom games, there's very little exploring to do.

Mr. Adams is a very humorous writer, and he has tried to
cram every joke he can into the game. Too often the result is
that gameplay is sacrificed for a cheap laugh. At one point,
for example, you're told that there is an exit to port. After trying
to exit port a number of times, out of frustration you try to
exit aft —- and you succeed. The computer then tells you there
is no exit to port; it was just a joke. Ha ha.

The game does have its good points, however. From time
to time you are called on to do some creative thinking, which
is refreshing and welcome when it happens. The puzzles require
cleverness and more than a little skill in the art of lateral
thinking. The Bugblatter Beast situation, for example, is
solved with a perfect blend of humor and total disregard for
the laws that govern the universe. At such high points in the
game, you know that beneath the flaws there beats an Infocom
heart. You just find yourself wishing it beat just a little
stronger.