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	Title: (MARKETALK: Reviews) Suspended
	Author: Margot Comstock Tommervik
	Source: Softalk, v3(8)
	Date: April 1983
	Transcription by Steve Derby
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**Suspended.** By Michael Berlyn. When Infocom released *Zork* two years
ago, it was evident that this new company cared about quality and its
customers. The full parser was an innovation —- freedom from putting the
cat in the hat in two words or less, and a vocabulary that seemed to want
to understand even when it didn't.

On top of the technical excellence, the adventure story was entertaining
and its puzzles logical and intelligent.

As new Infocom products arrived, they merely cemented these impressions.
Innovation and excellence are a way of life for the folks at Infocom.
A breakthrough is something they must make approximately
once a week.

Meanwhile, high in the mountains of Colorado, a science-fiction
writer was not plying his trade. He'd fallen in love with the Apple he'd
bought to write his books on and had taken to writing computer adventures
instead, under the banner of Sentient Software. But Berlyn couldn't
stop plotting. The clever, rounded plots that make good fiction kept
creeping into his adventures, bringing them critical acclaim despite their
limited parser (cleverly done) and Berlyn's beginning programming
status. *Oo Topos* was a promise that Cyborg began to fulfill.

Like the people at Infocom, Berlyn drove himself for the best he
could produce; he would push beyond his capacity.

Wouldn't it be wonderful, adventurers might muse, if Infocom and
Mike Berlyn could get together? It would, and they did, and it is.
The first product of Mike Berlyn at Infocom, working with Infocom's
specially developed tools and methods and the input of the company's
designers, Marc Blank and Dave Lebling, is exactly what you
might expect in your wildest dreams: a highly intelligent, intricately plotted,
totally playable, challenging and satisfying adventure, and, of
course, a breakthrough.

*Suspended* takes place on a computer-controlled planet; the failsafe,
in case of computer malfunction, is human —- that is the role the player
assumes; and, as you begin, the computer has just malfunctioned.

Awakened just enough from a cryogenic sleep to think clearly, but
still in a vulnerably suspended state physically, you must direct the actions
of (here's this week's breakthrough) six unique robots to manipulate
the controls that maintain the planet manually and to ferret out the
causes of the malfunction and correct them.

Each of the six robots is individual, with strengths and weaknesses.
Auda can hear; she cannot see. Iris can see, but she is confined to a small
section of the control center. Sensa can detect physical waves and emissions,
but she cannot manipulate things well. Waldo can manipulate just
about anything, but he cannot always figure things out. Whiz is terrific
when he's getting information from the central computer, but he's little
more than an errand runner away from his plug. And Poet, well, Poet's
makers missed the boat in debugging; he does his job well —- he understands
much through touch —- but he speaks in poems and riddles.

There's a good argument that the robots are essentially personifications
of human senses; if that fascinates you, consider it now. Once you
begin playing *Suspended*, you are apt to be so charmed by the individual
personalities of the six robots that you won't want to think of them as
symbolic of anything. They are themselves, varied and colorful and
friendly.

The robots are independent of each other. You can send several to
various places and have others do other things while the first are on their
way. In fact, to win the game, you'll have to find efficient ways to keep all
the robots working simultaneously. Infocom provides a full-color laminated
map with stick-on symbols of the six robots to help you keep track
of who's where.

The object of *Suspended* is to repair the malfunctioning parts of the
control center with the least possible fatalities planetside. At first, it
seems impossible to finish the job at all before angry humans from the
planet storm the control center to replace you for a job poorly done. But
once you've solved all the puzzles, the temptation to go back and do it all
more efficiently is strong. Can you do it with no fatalities?

Berlyn has succeeded in devising an adventure that is so absorbing,
so compelling in the pleasure of the achieving, that you can replay it
again and again.

Recognizing this, Berlyn included three extra modes of play, advanced,
configure, and impossible. Advanced starts you off later in the
game with one robot out of commission. Configure lets you choose your
own parameters —- how many robots are functional, how soon angry humans
come in from the planet. Impossible —- well, impossible's a joke.

As usual with Infocom games, the vocabulary is even more extensive
than the last Infocom game. If you are using your mind, *Suspended* will
probably understand you. If there's an approximate common word for a
concept and a precise uncommon word, try the precise one. That's the
way the minds at Infocom work, too. It's a pleasure.

*Suspended* is an intelligent, logical, well-plotted, compelling and absorbing,
challenging and satisfying text adventure that begs to be played
over and over again.

What more can an intelligent adventurer ask? Graphics?

Bite your tongue.

*Suspended*, by Michael Berlyn, Infocom (55 Wheeler Street, Cambridge, MA
02138; 617492-1031). $49.95.
