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	Title: (SOFTWARE REVIEWS) Bureaucracy
	Author: Steve Morgenstern
	Source: Family Computing, v5(8)
	Date: August 1987
	Transcription by Steve Derby
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HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS: Amiga, 128K Apple IIe/IIc, C 128, IBM PC,
Macintosh.<br>
PUBLISHER: Infocom<br>
PRICE: $40

You've just gotten a fantastic new job
and an appropriately fantastic new
home as well. Not only that, your
fantastic new employer is about to
send you off for two week's training —
all expenses paid — in Paris!
Wow! All you have to do is take your
expense check (it should be in today's
mail) over to the bank, grab a
bite to eat, take a cab to the airport,
and it's off to Paris.

Unfortunately, the bank never processed
your change of address form,
so the check doesn't show up — and
from that seed of bureaucratic bungling
Douglas Adams spins an interactive
tale of extraordinary complexity
and uncommon strangeness,
involving computers, cannibals, llamas,
fast food, and air traffic controllers,
although not necessarily in
that order.

The game's puzzles vary widely in
difficulty; some are absolutely a
snap, while others are mind-bogglingly
obscure, and bring you to a
dead stop until you solve them.
There also seems to be an unusual
number of red herrings in this
game — people, objects, or strategies
that seem promising and can lure
you into spending hours trying to
use them, but ultimately prove to
have been merely side issues.

While the puzzles drift into the
realm of unfairness from time to
time, the quality of the writing is
consistently excellent. While not
quite as funny as Adams's previous
game, *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy*, it's a genuine pleasure to
read *Bureaucracy*. The author taps
into a rich vein of popular paranoia,
skewering petty annoyances such as
rude waiters and interminably complex
airline terminals while reminding
us that "just because you're a
paranoid doesn't mean they aren't
out to get you."

Have a hint book or a few imaginative
friends handy while you play
*Bureaucracy*. It doesn't quite live up
to the lofty standards set by its bestselling
predecessor, but it's still far
more entertaining than 97 percent
of the software on the shelves.