Interphase (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
58Interphase is a futuristic cyber-punk real-time 3D adventure game, developed by The Assembly Line, and released by Mirrorsoft in 1990. It has some nice graphics, which flow smoothly with an 020+. I thought it was about time that Lemon investigated what this game is all about.
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Production Notes:
Captured: 25-26 February 2023
Narrated: 11th May 2023
Completed: 10th August 2023, V2
Interphase has been on the list almost from the start, or at least going back as far as I remember. But I tried to load and play this game at least three times, and never got anywhere. A hint on the Lemon database suggested a page from Amiga Format. But the page was missing on AMR, and I'm not sure if I managed to find the whole magazine somewhere? At any rate, I finally found the page they were talking about, read it, and it made no sense to me. I then forgot where it was by the next time I tried to learn the game, and started from scratch. I cant remember what unlocked this for me in the end; perhaps it was the help sheet on Lemon?, or a review in a magazine gave me the hints? - I don't think it was from an online video? Anyway, as soon as I figured out the level access and the target lock-on function, all the rest seemed to fall into place.
Of all the games this series, this one was the biggest surprise by far. If this had a tutorial, and perhaps a 3D camera showing the runners' view in the real world, this could have become a lot more well known.
Danscore: (in the style of Clive James)
If you used a computer back in 1990, perhaps you were lucky enough to own an under appreciated bespoke home mainframe known as the Amiga - complete with flashing lights, and all kinds of modern whizz-bang technical gizmos under the hood. But if you thought that all a computer was made for was to make spreadsheets that really zing, and sounds which go ping, then be prepared for the future. Open World 3D is now where it's at, when two D's frankly aren't enough anymore. This offering from Robert Maxwell's premier flagship newspaper spin-off company, Mirrorsoft, seems to have gotten what it takes. Or at least enough of it, to have taken a barefaced sample from The Fine Young Cannibals, and splashed it all over the title screen like cheap men's cologne. The game itself is a bewildering hodgepodge of wire framey items, all presented in a way that the player has no clue what they are, or what they are supposed to do with them. Amiga Format came with a page of instructions and tips; which were more-or-less useless; because most Amiga users came with a zero tolerance policy towards reading instructions in the first place.
Once it becomes understood that most of the random paraphernalia laying around is just for show, the game comes down to shooting green squares, and bumping into blue diamonds. Sounds easy?, until you realise everything must be done to the tune with a ticking clock. Play that tune out of sequence and it's curtains - big heavy black ones - from which there is no alternative but to die and become resurrected again; that is, as long as you remembered to save. The saving function is as limp as a Barracuda riding a bicycle, in that it doesn't even appear unless you make it appear, by pressing the space bar in the tunnel sections. The layout of the buttons and the controls are also counter-intuitive, to the point where the player must make a lunge for the keyboard instead of trying to instigate the buttons, due to the time limit. Completing tasks is less of a feeling of delight and utter relief, and more like a feeling of getting deeper into trouble. Like running through quicksand whist attempting to win a 100m dash competition, wearing nothing but a dressing gown and a pair of last years Christmas slippers. All while old father time hangs over you like an old man clutching at his pace-maker whilst trying to do the business in the bedroom department.
The feeling of horror could have been saved with some introductory text, a mission brief, and the option to save the game being thrust more into the players faces. So this could have been a masterpiece. Yet to most players, Interphase feels more like trying to break into fort Knox whilst being electrified, and slowly being roasted over an open fire. Those masochistic enough to enjoy the torture will no doubt stagger away from this with a healthy respect for it, and would probably give it 8 out of 10. For the rest of us, I can only compare it to having a four-poster bed being suspended on a lowering rope over a crocodile pit. It may look inviting, but it can (and probably will) rip you to pieces.