The Clue logo

Computer games answer numerous what if? questions that flit through the mind from time to time. For example, "What if I were to drive a Formula One car around Silverstone? How would I get on?" F1 Grand Prix helps you find out. Or, "What if I were able to jump several times my own height, manipulate myself into lots of pliable shapes and call upon the help of a devil cat from Hell?" Putty Squad would answer with flying colours.

Petty theft
The Clue takes a similar theoretical concept and explores how capable of committing various thieving crimes in post-war London you would be. To help realise these plans, you're put in charge of Matt Stuvysunt.

As with all criminals, you start with small crimes before graduating to the big time. To add extra intrigue to things, your story is narrated in retrospect by an older, wiser Matt. This is quite handy in that it keeps the proceedings in perspective. If you want to try the same job from an different angle, it also lets you analyse where you could have planned proceedings better.

Initially, Matt's faced with a minimal amount of choices over his actions. But as he proceeds, meets people, visits more locations, turns over various buildings, gathers more possessions and gains an overall feel for the environment he's working in, the options he can use increase. The player feels more in control of Matt's destiny, has more freedom of manoeuvre and can act accordingly.

The crux of the game lies in your ability to plan, vet and coordinate people while holding numerous variables in your head such as times of police patrols, reliability, abilities of accomplices and expected financial reward. Become accomplished at planning and the game world becomes your oyster.

The gameplay is an old fashioned adventure style point and click interface. In a way, it complements the period setting. But the graphics don't. They're flat, make minimal use of colour and due to the lack of any animation, verge on being boring.

Several other mechanisms don't quite work either. For example, it's possible to loiter at a location for as long as you want - occasionally Matt interrupts to say that he's going to 'root to the spot' or something. But it doesn't make any difference to what's going on.

Frankly my dear...
And there's a character called Frank Maleya who hangs around outside the Fat Man's Pub. If you decide to wait for 48 hours, he stays there and smokes the same cigarette. It's hardly conductive to the atmosphere.

The same thing happens with the hotel you live in. After you've paid for the first three days, no more is said about your failure to pay the cumulative bill. Strange fare indeed.

Gripes aside, The Clue piques your curiosity and engages your theoretical criminal abilities. This fast becomes addictive and you'll find yourself thinking more and more like a burglar. Whether that's a good thing or not remains to be seen.



Der Clou logo Amiga Joker Hit

London ist immer eine Reise wert, besonders für karrieregeile Langfinger - nur hier sind schließlich die Kronjuwelen abzugreifen! Dann mal nichts wie ab in die A500-Zeitmaschine oder das leistungsstärkere 1200er-Modell, denn bei NEO sucht noch Meisterdiebe für die 50er Jahre.

Es kann sich hier also nicht um die Versoftung der gleichnamigen Gaunerkomödie mit Robert Redford und Paul Newman handeln, denn die spielte vor dem Krieg und in Amiland. Dennoch sind Parallelen zum thematisch verwandten Hollywood-Streifen nicht zu übersehen, geht es doch hier wie dort um schwere Jungs, minuziöse Austüftelung und trockenen Humor, während die schiere Seele von Charleston, Blues und Swing alle Gehörgange frei-pustet.

Doch nun genug der Vorrede, denn Matt Stuvysunt, ein netter Junge vom Lande, trifft jeden Moment in Victoria Station ein, um sich seinen Anteil vom großen Kuchen der Inselmetropole abzuscheiden.

Während dieser ersten Spielzüge scheint es, als entfalte sich hier ein wunderbar altmodisches Grafikadventure - da muß erst mal ein Zimmer für den Helden beschafft werden (mit lumpigen drei Pfund in der Tasche ein schier aussichtsloses Unterfangen), da wäre hübsches Wägelchen nicht übel (noch viel aussichtsloser), und in den einschlägigen Kneipen kann man mit allerlei interessanten Leuten ein Schwätzchen halten.

Geld läßt sich jedoch anscheinend nur auf der schiefen Bahn verdienen, und so macht sich der Einbrecher in spe alsbald ans Ausspähen von Kiosken, Tante-Emma-Läden und reichen Landhäusern...

Je nach dem Objekt der Begierde besorgt man sodann Werkzeuge und engagiert bis zu drei fachlich geeignete Kumpel, damit das Fluchtauto gefahren, die Alarmanlage ausgeschaltet oder der Wachmann aus dem Verkehr gezogen werden kann.

Kandidaten für solche Jobs hängen zwar unter jedem Zweiten Zapfbahn herum, doch sollte man bei der Auswahl mit Bedacht zu Werke gehen: erstens wäre es schlecht, jemanden einzuladen, für dessen Fähigkeitsprofil man momentan gar keine rechte Verwendung hat, und zweitens gibt es da noch Tanjas Verwandte, die Polizeispitzel - welche sich natürlich besonders bereitwillig anwerben lassen!

Den Löwenanteil der Spielzeit wird man jedoch (zumindest bei den größeren "Dingern") mit dem Ausbaldowern des Plans vor einem optisch anspruchslosen Automapping-Screen verbringen.

Hier können die Gefährten sekundengenau hin- und her-dirigiert werden, um diesen Schreibtisch aufzubrechen oder mit jener Tür noch einen Moment zu warten. In Ehren ergraute Altzocker mag das zwar völlig zu Recht an die 64er-Antiquität "They Stole A Million" erinnern, aber was macht das schon? Schließlich was das Teil schon alt, als die Welt noch jung war, und seither gab es nun mal nichts auch nur annähernd Vergleichbares!

Derlei Puzzeleien können den Spieler dann jedenfalls wirklich stunden- oder gar tagelang beschäftigen, und wenn schließlich alles auf den Punkt genau stimmt, naht der Moment der Bewahrung:

Als selbst-laufender "Videofilm" geht der Bruch nun aus der Vogelperspektive über die Bühne, wobei man jederzeit auf jeden Handlungsträger umschalten darf, um ihn zu überwachen. Dazu können die Profi-Knackis der Redaktion auch nur raten, denn bei der anfänglichen Observation mögen durchaus wichtige Details übersehen worden sein, und manchmal hat man ganz einfach bloß Pech, weil vielleicht die Alarm-anlage zäher ist als erwartet.

Eingreifen kann der Boß vor dem Screen in diesem Stadium zwar nur noch sehr begrenzt, aber wenn die Aktion völlig aus dem Ruder zu laufen droht, läßt sie sich wenigstens mit sofortiger Wirkung abblasen!

Soweit man Euch nicht auf frischer Tat ertappt, folgt anschließend ebenfalls selbst-laufend die Ermittlungsphase von Inspektor Gludo, dessen Name keineswegs zufällig an seinen Kollegen Clouseau aus Blake Edwards' "Rosaroter Panther"-Filmen erinnert. Hierbei könnte etwa das Fahrzeug identifiziert werden (was eine neue Schleuder erforderlich macht), oder es zieht sich gar ein Indizienring um Herrn Stuvysunt zusammen, der dann im schlimmsten Fall hinter schwedischen Gardinen landet.

Doch auch viele positive Spielausgänge sind möglich, denn die Story verzweigt sich unaufhörlich, und wem Matts eigentliches Lebensziel (die Kronjuwelen) nicht so wichtig is, der kann z.B. an einem bestimmten Punkt der Geschichte mit einem netten Mädel aussteigen, um Rosen und Kinder zu zücht(ig)en.

Bis dahin wird man mit liebenswerten Details förmlich bombardiert: Alle Autos samt ihren Leistungsdaten sind authentisch, die größeren Gebäude findet man in einschlägigen Stadführeren wieder, und teilweise stimmen sogar die Grundrisse.

Auch der schräge Humor kommt nicht zu kurz, etwa indem man die Gebeine des ollen Karl Marx ausbuddeln und als Kuriosität verscheuern kann. Dazu ist die Maus-/Menüsteuerung hier gleich um Klassen besser geglückt als bei "Whale's Voyage", aber vor allem stimmt die Atmosphäre von Anfang bis Ende.

Das liegt natürlich in erster Linie an der dichten Story von Karam Nada und in zweiter an der tollen Musik - die Optik ist hingegen trotz des schwarzhumorigen Intros und der zusätzlichen Farben und Animationen selbst am 1200er mehr brauchbar als wirklich schön. Davon abgesehen unterscheidet sich der Normal-Clou je nach RAM-Lage maximal durch zwei fehlende Soundtracks vom "Großen Bruder".

In der Summe also ein packendes und vor allem originelles Stück Software! Aber tut uns und Euch bitte trotzdem den Gefallen und startet Eure Gangsterkarriere als ehrliche Käufer... (jn)



The Clue logo

They haven't got one. It would appear.

Never having so much as paid a gas bill late in all my life. I know little about the criminal underworld. In fact, I didn't even know there was one until Panorama did something about it a couple of weeks ago. As it turns out, there are members of our community who, rather than earning an honest living as bus drivers, or coal miners, or creators of the world's mightiest computer games magazine, prefer instead to simply enter people's houses while they're out and take whatever they need. Without even paying for it.

IT PAYS
And it's just this sort of behaviour that The Clue aims to reproduce. You are Matt Stuvysunt, a young chap who's arrived in 1950s London to seek his fortune. (Or, rather, other people's). And, although you don't know much about the ins and outs of crime, you do know that burglaries are pretty tricky to pull off on your own.

So the first thing you need to do is scour the city's pubs and bars for accomplices. Various people will present themselves, and it's up to you to decide who's got the necessary skills and seems trustworthy.

In doing so, you'll come across one fellow who'll set up your first 'job' for you, suggesting a location (a news stand in a remote location) and providing a getaway car. Ideally you'll need someone to drive the car, and something to prise the till open with, but otherwise this should be pretty straightforward.

As your heists get bigger and more complicated (there are 20 buildings to infiltrate, the last being the Tower of London), you'll have to worry about alarm systems, guards, safe doors and police patrols. And even if you bag the loot and escape, you'll need to evade capture by the police, so be careful not to leave any clues, and consider having your car resprayed if it gets spotted.


Rather than earning an honest living

SHOOTERS
Yes. This is a German game, and the translation is rather patchy. It's never impossible to understand what's going on, but the atmosphere does suffer. The user interface is pretty shambolic, too. You have to keep moving the cursor between the bottom of the screen where you click on words to perform actions, and the top of the screen, where lists of options scroll past for you to choose from - the pictures in between are purely 'decorative'.

But the bit that matters - the burglary planning bit - does actually qork quite well. Having 'cased the join' to locate alarms and things, you then go back to your hotel rooms and work through each step of your raid on a map. Everything needs to be planned, down to who'll keep lookout, who'll disable the alarms and how you'll escape afterwards. Once you've done al that, click on 'Run the plan'(or something) and your team will go into action.

It's definitely better than it appears at first sight, and certainly gets more fun the more you play, and it's undoubtedly an original idea. Refreshingly original, in fact. But... oh, I don't know. The presentation does let it down, and the taking-taxis-around-London stuff gets a bit tedious when all you really want to be doing is breaking into people's houses.

I did quite like it, but I honestly don't think I'll be playing The Clue ever again.



The Clue logo CU Amiga Screen Star

Sim Crime hits the Amiga and political correctness is thrown out the window. 'Ronnie' Dillon learns that crime doesn't pay, even if you are wearing a duffel coat.

Burglary is a very complicated thing, far more so than you would expect. It isn't just a case of smashing a window, running around turning furniture over and grabbing whatever you can. There's a huge amount of planning involved, as I once discovered in a newsagent somewhere in Islington.

Don't worry, though, it was a long time ago. To give you some idea of how long ago it was, I had unbuttoned the middle fastener on my duffel coat, and was using the opening to stuff as many rubber dinosaurs inside as possible. Needless to say I was deservedly caught the moment I tried to leave, but that's another story altogether.

POOR SKILLS
In The Clue, you are a poor traveler with certain skills, who has managed to find their way to London in the 1950s. You already know that one of the best ways to get rich quick is through crime, and London of the 50s is a good place as any to start indulging in a little burglary.

From this modest starting point you have to collect your fortune, from ripping off small corner shops and newspaper kiosks to robbing the Bank of England, the grave of Karl Marx and eventually going for the big one - the Crown Jewels themselves. OK, so that might seem a little adventurous for an inexperienced thief with no money and no possessions, but then aren't challenges the things that games are made of?

So you start in Victoria Station, with only a little cash and no idea where to go. On entering a cab, you are told that you are the one millionth customer of the company, and are issued with a pass for free cab journeys for a whole year. Then you are dumped in Holland Street and left to your own devices.

On the corner stands a strange looking South American, smoking a cigarette and looking your way, You walk over and talk to him, and find out that his specialty is as a lookout man, and should you ever have any work to push his way, he's happy to accept.

With your head spinning, you walk into a local bar, where you find three more unusual types, including an attracting young housewife who is bored with her humdrum life, fancies something a little more exciting, and has a better than average knowledge of cars. You've done it, you've already been introduced to the fringes of the London criminal underworld.

UGLY DOGS?
Popping across the road, you book in the Ugley Dog Hotel. Realising you have no money, you give a fake address at reception, and are shown to your room, which you know is to be your base of operations for the entirety of the game. Here you can plan your robberies, call any accomplices you may need to contact and, of course, stash the loot.

On entering the room, however, you receive a phone call. A friend of a friend has a job for you, and wants to meet you in the pub across the road in fifteen minutes. You walk over and meet him and he tells you about a kiosk he wants to hit That's it - you're on your way!

Sound exciting? It really is that good, and it just gets better and better. The Clue is more than your average adventure game, taking a very interesting plot, and then spicing it up with loads of humour and some real intensity.

After spending a couple of days staking out an old people's home, another couple of days finding the right group of people to join you, and then another day working out the plan itself, right down to who is in what position at any given moment, you end up on the edge of your seat watching the robbery unfold, and then fall off your seat as you watch the police investigation into the robbery, where you find out just how careless you may have been in any of the stages.

It's a very easy game to play, as you will have found out if you've played our exclusive coverdisk this issue. A row of commands at the bottom of the screen show you exactly what you can do at any given time, and an interactive and dynamic database shows you everything you've seen and heard so far.

Although you start with nothing, in no time at all you have a wealth of information to work with, from building layouts and notes on the times when the police are likely to be around to full character profiles and access to the personal thoughts of the character you are playing.

The game looks fantastic, as you can see from these screenshots. Coming from Austria, the game doesn't paint an accurate picture of London, but more a stylised image which fits the rest of the game perfectly. That said, you will still recognise most of the major landmarks enough for their to be a real atmosphere to the game, and that's what will really keep you playing.

In a way, The Clue is a simulation of being a master criminal. I know that sounds like a strange idea, but it's one that is so original that you just can't help getting sucked into the game.

As an adventure, it throws a lot more at you than just mere puzzle solving. It can all seem a little daunting at first, but once you learn the game systems, it becomes an extremely involving and enjoyable experience.



The Clue CD32 logo CD32

Kompart UK * 01438 840004 * £25.99

Point-n-click-n-nick is the order here, for you are Matt Suvysent, a criminal in Fifties London. Start with a nice safe job and as your ambitions escalate, plan the big heist in the Tower Of London.

You spend a lot of time wandering around pubs and places hoping to meet willing accomplices, checking out the 'filth' and casing joints. Robbery planning is a whole lot of fun but for the most part, the rest of the game is rather dull. Speech has been added to this version but it pipes only in parts.

For the patient with a penchant for pllering, The Clue may be worth nicking, or purchasing, as more commonly-known, particularly because there are so few of this type of games for the Amiga. More experienced adventure games players will probably find it limiting.



Der Clou CD32 logo CD32 Amiga Joker Hit

Auf den Disk-Amigas geht Matt Stuvysunt ja schon seit Monaten auf Beutezug, jetzt kann er seine schillernde Ganovenkarriere am geeigneten Medium fortsetzen - NEO hat das London der 50er Jahre nun auf CD gepreßt.

Nach wie vor hat Mattyboy die Charakterzüge eines Szene-Cracks: Er wäre halt gar so gerne reich und berühmt, die Legalität ist Nebensache. Und was hier mit dem Leerräumen von Kiosken und Tante Emma-Laden beginnt, soll letzten Endes im ganz großen Coup gipfeln: dem Raub der Kronjuwelen!

Auf den ersten Blick wirkt diese strategisch-simulative Gaunerkomödie (der Humor kommt keinesfalls zu kurz) zwar wie ein altmodisches Grafikadventure, aber schon bald avanciert das taktische Ausbaldowern von Einbrüchen nach Art des 64er-Klassikers "They Stole A Million" zur Hauptbeschäftigung des Spielers.

Dabei werden zunächst bis zu drei spezialisierte Ganoven als Verstärkung angeheuert, anschließend kann man auf einer Arrt Automapping-Screen seine Leute sekundengenau hin und her schieben, um Alarmanlagen auszuschalten, Schlösser zu öffnen oder Nachtwächter für ein paar Stündchen einzuschläfern.

Der Clou lebt wie gesagt nicht unbedingt von der Optik, auch wenn sie AGA-Qualität aufweist, doch die 30 zeitgenössischen Musikstücke waren schon immer für eine Extraportion Atmosphäre gut.

Jetzt tönt Matt noch in Sprachausgabe aus dem Lautsprecher, wobei allerdings "nur" die wichtigsten Unterhaltungen und Mr. Stuvysunts gelegentliche Monologe vertont wuden - aber allein schon der leicht österreichische Akzent ist hier ein Clou für sich.

Maus und Pad arbeiten gleichermaßen klaglos, und so können wir erneut die goldene Karte zücken: Diese Scheibe ist ein Hit! (jn)



The Clue CD32 logo CD32

Neo/£26
AP43 60%

So how do you turn a mouse-based point-and-click game into a joypad-based one? Well, actually you take just out all the mouse movements and replace them with the pad movements, which seems to work okay in the case of The Clue. Oh, and because the game's now on CD you can't save your progress as you go. You can have up to four games stored, but as soon as you turn off the CD32 you lose them. Bizarrely. Still, every time you complete a burglary you get a password which will allow you to continue from where you left off.

The CD version gives us the usual continuous music and the occasional bit of speech, although this seems to occur at random, with most dialogue simply being printed on the screen. The rest of the game remains the same, however - wander around a bit, talk to people, suss out the action and then commit a crime.

And as Johan said in his review (issue 43), it's nice to see something original, and the burglary-planning sections work surprisingly well, but the pseudo-point-and-click-adventure sections in between are tiresome to plough through.



The Clue CD32 logo CD32

Price: £29.99 Publisher: Neo 01438 840 004

Fed up having to work hard for a living? Well, The Clue could be just the game for you. It teaches you how to plan and pull off robberies ranging from little jobs such as your Aunty Emma's corner shop to the Tower of London.

You play the part of a young criminal who sets off to seek/rob his fortune in the bright lights of London. You begin in Victoria station with no money and nowhere to go. But as luck would have it, you jump into a taxi and are told that you have won a year's free supply of taxi rides - just the job for any budding criminal.

Give a false name at the Ugly Dog Hotel and you get a room from where you can plan all your blags. Plotting a coup involves staking out and investigating all the locations on the screen, talking to everyone to find out who might be useful and what percentage of the takings they want.

Once you've gleaned enough information it's back to the hotel room where you sit down and plan your crime. First though you've got to get one or more accomplices. The hotel phone is just the job as it links you directly to any contacts you've made earlier.

Once you've got one or more accomplice you can set about drawing up blueprints for the job. You can then start the robbery, but if you get caught you'll end up in a monastery(!?) for the rest of your days. If the job is successful, however, you can listen to the police reports as they investigate the robbery and find out any mistakes they might have made.

There is not much difference between this and the Amiga Version. Some speech has been added, but it's only in the form of a monologue/narrative from the main character, which is a shame as it could have added more atmosphere to the game if the other shady characters had been given voices.



Fette Beute für Langfinger

Der Clou... ...Profidiskette logo

Wer sich mit Matt Stuvysant bereits die Kronjuwelen unter dem Nagel gerissen hat, darf nun zu neuen Beutezügen aufbrechen: Neo und Komplizen haben eine Datadisk zum beliebten Ganovenstrategical "Clou!" verbrochen!

Genaugenommen sind es sogar Zwei Disks, die hier zu installieren sind - darauf befinden sich sowohl die AGA- als auch die Normalversion. Sollen die neue Brüche von Diskette vonstatten gehen, ist unbedingt mit Sicherheitskopien des Originals zu arbeiten, da der Inhalt teilweise überschrieben wird.

Neben den altbekannten Objekten der Begierde warten damit nun acht weitere Gebäude darauf, ausgeräumt zu werden. Dazu gehört u.a. das Haus in der Baker Street 221B, wo Sherlock Holmes' Opiumpfeifchen abzustauben ist; aber auch beim Premierminister, in Madame Tussauds Wachsfigurenkabinett und dem Buckingham Palace gibt's einiges einzusacken.

Und wer nun meint, daß er nach einem geglückten Postraub à la Biggs frei aller finanziellen Sorgen sei, der irrt - am Ende wartet wie im Hauptprogramm eine ultimative Herausforderung auf Profi-Panzerknacker.

Dazu findet man auf dem Parkplatz des Autohändlers jetzt einige noch nicht gekannte Fluchtfahrzeuge, darunter das legendäre Modell T von Ford, die Tin Lizzy. Wagenlenker und andere Spezialisten werden wie gehabt aus einem umfangreicheren Fundus an Unterweltlern rekrutiert, und die überarbeitete Grafik sticht besonders beim Anblick der deutlich schöneren Planungsphase ins Auge.

Das Gameplay wurde da und dort ein wenig glattgebügelt und erweitert, bloß darf man leider seine alten Spielstände nicht übernehmen. Okay, klauen wir eben noch mal alles von vorne, schließlich bereitet auch und gerade der aufgebohrte "Clou!" ein diebisches Vergnügen.

Eine erneute Bewertung haben wir uns aus naheliegenden Gründen zwar erspart, aber wenn Ihr 60 Mäuse gespart habt, steht den neuen Fischzügen eigentlich nichts mehr im Wege. (st)