Operation : Inner Space

The Journey Inside the Computer

A Review of Operation : Inner Space

by Jason Bednarik

Operation : Inner Space is your average shoot-’em-up with the exception of

your targets. In this very different game, you are a spaceship that is shrunk

and sent into a computer. Once inside the computer, your mission, if you

choose to accept it, is to capture or destroy ALL of the icons inside your

system directories. This is no small task, considering that my windows

directory easily has over 300 icons alone.

Operation : Inner Space does have some interactive features which make the

game more exciting to play. You can roam around freely as you like and skip

to different directories at will. There are no formal laws in the game, so

the player can be as violent as he or she wants.

However, destroying a ‘good’

icon, attacking an Inner Space police officer or resisting arrest will get

you into the Hall of Justice. Inside the Hall, your ship gets put on trial

for a crime and is fined a certain amount of ‘resources’ for the violation. A

resource is a numerical value that is gained from capturing an icon which are

used like money. Subsequent violations tend to increase the amount that you

are fined.

If your ship gets damaged from hitting obstacles or fighting enemies,

pressing ‘H’ on the keyboard will call the Inner Space ambulance. Your ship

flies inside what seems to be a computer to get repairs, fuel, or add weapons

to your arsenal. Your ship can be destroyed if it is damaged badly or the

engine fails.

CONTROLS

The controls are a bit quirky. On the keyboard, the up arrow is forward

thrust while the down arrow is the brake. The left and right arrows are

self-explanatory. Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, it is far from easy.

To navigate your ship, you must first turn in the direction of your

destination. Then, you must press the up arrow to move forward. To go another

direction, you have to rotate around and then press the up arrow. First-time

users of the game may find this rather annoying and difficult. I agree the

first time I played, I kept smashing into asteroids and other ships which is

quite discouraging.

Using a 4-button controller helps to solve this problem. However, there is no

perfect medium. It took a few days for me to acquaint myself with the

controller, but in the end the game seemed easier. On the other hand, using a

joystick/flight stick can be treacherous because of the setup. The game can’t

fully utilize all of the buttons that a joystick has to offer and it may be a

bit awkward trying to turn the ship around.

GRAPHICS

Aside from the control problems, this game is plauged by a few bugs. About a

week after playing the game, some of the graphics became garbled which were

unable to be fixed from leaving the game and restarting the computer.

The

cutscene graphics were even worse and you could barely make out the general

picture on the screen. After many hours of trying to debug the program, I

decided to deinstall and then reinstall the entire game, despite the fact

that I had almost finished my quest of rounding up the stray icons. So far,

the graphics have stayed in their original state after installing it all over

again.

A feature that helps to diversify this game is the ‘Ship Factory’. The

factory is a mini application that is used to change the graphics of a ship

and the sound clips associated with it. For instance, if I wanted to make the

a ship look like a stealth fighter, I could simply edit the graphic. Suppose

I wanted to change the gun’s sound to that of a real machine gun. I would get

a sound clip and import it into the ship’s mini program.

SOUND

The sound quality is rather good, especially if you own a 32-bit

wavetable-synthesis sound card. This type of sound card can mix eight sounds

to create music and sound effects. There are also a few types of sound

options – standard, dynamic, and dynamic 3D. Standard sound is the worst

level of sound to add to the game. Dynamic sound is for 16-bit sound cards

that are capable of shifting sound from the left to right channels and

vice-versa. 3D dynamic sound is primarily for 32-bit cards and can move the

sound left to right and front to back. This gives the most realistic sound

possible.

The sound effects have clear and decisive sound quality and realistic voices.

However, the sound clips feature a young woman’s voice saying ‘You’re hot’

when you pick up an icon, ‘Please stay’ when you try to exit the game, ‘Try

to come back in one piece’ when you enter a directory, and ‘Let me guide you

in’ when entering the ambulance. A man’s voice says ‘Aye laddie, I’m coming

to get you’ when being attacked by pirates or enemies.

THE FINAL WORD

All in all, Operation : Inner Space is a good game for fun, but it easily

loses its appeal about a week later because it is quite repetitous and

capturing a thousand icons plus fighting a monster called the Inner Demon

doesn’t make it much more challenging, just more tedious. If you’re looking

for a game to hack into, or have a blast from the past, give it a try.

Basically, Operation : Inner Space boils down to a 16-bit version of Atari’s

Asteriods. For serious gamers, this is just another remake of an old game

that’s not worth $29.95.

Gamer’s Zone Scorecard

Product:	Operation : Inner Space
Company:	Software Dynamics Compuserve : 71621, 1163 Internet : 71621,1163@compuserve.com Fax : 403-240-0105 Voice : (403) 240-0103 (8AM – 5PM Pacific Time)

Cost:

$29.95

486DX or better, 4MB RAM, 16-bit sound card,
video card, 780KB hard disk space, 3.5″ floppy drive.