The Point of Utter Stymie

One of the dirty secrets of multimedia criticism is that nine-tenths of the reviews you read, particularly those in trade magazines with long lead times, are based on quickie demos. Someone from the company -- someone who already knows their way around the CD-ROM -- sits down and shows a reviewer the highlights. Reviewer is suitably impressed. Some companies even give out "reviewer's guides" -- cheat sheets revealing every secret trick.

The consumer, obviously, is in a different boat, facing the hassles of installation (which can be significant, particularly if you're using DOS or Windows), the delay involved in mastering whatever controls the designers have decided to use, and the real frustration of spending $40 or more on a product and finding that you can only access a fragment of it. The folks doing the demos can walk right through to the cool stuff; on your own, you can't figure out how to leave the island, open the door, escape the crazed assailant. You hit a dead-end in the game-play -- a wall.

With Total Distortion, I received a helpful demo from Maura Sparks, the CD's producer. According to her, the typical full-length game takes a player about 40 to 50 hours. I have to report that, left to my own wits, after maybe 15 hours, I reached the point of utter stymie.

What's nice about Total Distortion is that, even if you do get stuck, you can always head back to your "Media Tower" and make more videos.

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