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Not a "computer game" per se but more of an "interactive comic book," this
is one of the earliest releases of its kind prior to the rise of CD-ROMs. Other than
Infocom's short-lived Infocomics series released in late 1980s, no developer has
revisited the niche genre until this release from ICE Inc, a now-defunct comic
magazine company that wanted to explore the PC as a new medium for their artists'
work. The first and last release in a planned series, Pangea plays like your typical
Choose Your Own Adventure interactive book: you are given choices during each
narrative scene, each of which leads you down a different plot branch. You can replay
any 'page' you have read before, or jump to different sections of the story. The
mouse-driven interface is easy to learn and use, and the presentation is good: save
for the interactive buttons at the bottom, the entire screen is filled with graphics
and description text. The story itself is quite interesting, although by no means
original or exciting. The writing is mostly good, and the background graphics, while
static, are well-designed and fit well with the narrative. Overall, Pangea is a solid
effort in the short-lived genre that was reborn only shortly in mid-1990s with several
interactive comic book on CD-ROMs. The story in Pangea is not one-tenth as profound as
Portal, but as far as science fiction goes, it's not bad and the writing is decent. |