"Cinemaware's masterpiece; Everyone should play this"

[NOTE: From what I've read of the Turbo CD version, it's a completely different game which has nothing to do with this]

Ahh, Cinemaware... The main reason why anyone would want an Amiga (or an emulator) even today; no acceptable versions of any of their games exist for any other system. Because of this they have been criminall ignored in some places (= America).

Cinemaware, as the name suggests, is probably one of the few game companies that had a concept behind it. Nearly all of their games resemble some classic movie genre. 'King of Chicago' = gangster drama; 'Defender of the Crown' = Robin Hood or Ivanhoe; 'Rocket Ranger' = Rocketeer etc. pulp heroes; & so on...

The gameplay naturally was quite different between the different releases, but one of Cinemaware games' strongest points was that they were NON-LINEAR, but made sense. -> There are a lot of different ways to complete all of them, and you REALLY can choose what you want to do, and not just have an illusion of that you do... Unlike say, in Hideo Kojima's 'Snatcher'; otherwise a brilliant game, but it always goes the same way. Cinemaware's games do not.

And Cinemaware games are some of the best ever; 'It Came from the Desert' is based on '50s monster movies, mostly on 'Them'.

Mystery is abound in the little town of Lizard Breath and you, as a scientist examining a recently fallen comet, are the one who's to solve it...

GRAPHICS - For the time, the graphics were amazing, and I wouldn't say anything bad about them even today. Everything is hand-drawn in a nice style.

GAMEPLAY - GREAT. It's nearly impossible to place ICftD into any category; mainly it's a kind of a non-linear multiple-choice adventure, but the minigames you'll get into include shooting, throwing grenades, planning strategy, flying, knife fighting, etc... A big minus, if you're playing on a real Amiga, is having to swap the disks to load everything... So that's where the consoles win ;)..

SOUND - The game's intro was unreal back then... It's a completely digitized speech that pretty much takes the whole first disk. Today this is nothing exciting, though, and most other sounds are pretty basic. The moody background music is nice, but it doesn't really vary much / at all.

OVERALL - I 100% recommend everyone to try this game; in fact EVEN MORE so if you never owned an Amiga and haven't played it before. You will be surprised... Then find the rest of Cinemaware's back catalogue...

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/18/04