Please login to submit a screenshot

In 1848, men from all over the world headed for California in the hope of making a fortune. As Jerrod Wilson, you are one such man. Jerrod lives a humdrum life as a newspaper reporter in Brooklyn Heights, New York. But when he hears rumours of gold, he's determined to get in on the excitement and the money. His brother Jake, disappeared some years ago and every day Jerrod visits the post office in the hope of a letter from his long lost brother.
This seems like any other ordinary day, people going about their usual business, but maybe if Jerrod takes a look inside that post office, he'll have a surprise. Brother Jake is not dead as feared but instead is in California. The letter he sends to Jerrod reveals (in not very subtle code) that he has discovered gold and wishes Jerrod to join him in the Golden State.

If you can get to California, you could get rich, but it's 2500 miles away and Concorde hasn't yet been invented. There are three main travelling options: by ship - either going round the infamous Cape Horn, or by landing in Panama and travelling through the jungle (the canal hasn't been built yet) to another ship. The third option is to take the stagecoach to Independence, Missouri, where you join a mining company travelling westward in wagons.
Before you embark on any of the dangerous journeys, you must get enough money for the ticket: Selling your house is the way to make big money, but if you wait too long the rumours of Californian gold will cause property prices to drop and ticket prices to rise. The estate agent doesn't have an office, but comes round to buy your house when you've stuck a "For Sale" sign in the front garden (achieved by typing SELL HOUSE).

A joystick, mouse or cursor keys may be used to make Jerrod walk around the 3-D landscape of Brooklyn. Talking to other characters is achieved by 'TALK TO' person, and interaction is limited to listening to their messages. Shops can be entered in order to buy useful equipment and food. Strangely, you can't pay shopkeepers any money (you decide to 'save it for a rainy day') but they will allow you to have three items on your account What you choose depends on which way you plan to reach California. For example, if you're going by ship some citrus fruit will prevent you getting scurvy.

As with most Sierra adventures, Gold Rush hardly makes use of the Amiga's graphics and sound capabilities. Some of the scenery is well drawn but the characters, although realistically animated, are blocky and have bright red faces (perhaps they're embarrassed by their appearance!). Even so, Brooklyn Heights bustles with animated people and horse-drawn carriages. The only problem is that when three or four characters are on-screen simultaneously their movement is slowed down to a snail's pace. Sound is limited to the sort of 'beepy' tunes associated with the Spectrum (Shock! Horror!). But after a while the simple presentation goes unnoticed as you get caught up in the excitement of 'gold fever'. The game manages to capture the authentic atmosphere of the time, helped by the fact it is geographically and historically correct.

After setting off for California, frequent saving of the game position is a necessity as there are many ways to die ranging from cholera and starvation to sinking (on the ship of course!). Dying frequently can become irritating (as my zombie uncle Trevor keeps telling me), but somehow the lure of all that gold makes you persevere. And if you get totally stuck, you can read the fascinating 96-page historical guide (included in the packaging) to see how the real 49ers managed. (They won the Superbowl, didn't they?! - Ed). Ultimately, how much enjoyment you get out of Gold Rush depends on whether you love or loathe the Sierra 3-D adventure style - if you're a fan, you shouldn't be disappointed.

Zzap! Issue 51, July 1989, p.49


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ATMOSPHERE 78%
PUZZLE FACTOR 66%
INTERACTION 49%
LASTABILITY 68%
OVERALL 68%

DOES the idea of getting money for nothing appeal to you? Of literally picking your living off the ground? To the population of North America in 1848-49 it did. And it began one of the largest mass migrations in history.
Gold Rush from Sierra On-Line is one of the latest offereings in the 3D Animated Adventure series. These take the form of a sort of film in which you play the leading role, moving your character around a 3D landscape and interacting with other animated characters and objects.
Movement is via keyboard, joystick or mouse. The mouse control si good because all you have to do is position the pointer where you want to go, hold down the right button, and Jerrod will walk towards it. It can be a little difficult getting in and out of doors this way, a joystick is better there.

The game opens with a well animated and quite humorous title sequence which can give you a few useful hints if you watch closely. The sequence leaves you, Jerrod Wilson, on a bridge in Brooklyn circa 1848. The rest is up to you.
Everyone you meet seems to be talking about the gold strike in California and of all the people heading out that way. You must make preparations for your departure and stock up on things you think you might need for your trek.
And decide how to get there, because – without giving too much away – there are three ways to get to the gold country, two by ship and one overland. This is an adventure with a multiple-route solution. It would be nice to see more.

One of the first problems you may face is being desperately short of cash, although your credit is still good in a few stores. Perhaps your bank manager would be sympathetic, or you could try to sell your house before the market collapses again.

Points are gained for making correct decisions. Some are given just for being a nice guy, like if you put flowers on your parents’ grave. This means you always have something to aim for. Even if you successfully complete the first stage of the adventure, you may have missed something that would have given you a perfect score.

The animation is fairly smooth but in a rather slow resolution, which shows its PC ancestry. There is generally quite a lot going on in each scene. Some of the animations are entertaining, although they can be slow.
One annoying problem is that on an unexpanded Amiga most screens have to be loaded in from disc each time and although a 1 meg machine will cache several screens, there is still a second or two delay between them because they have to be decompressed.
The sound effects are terrible. Despite a few nice musical jokes it is imperative for your sanity that you turn the sound off.

The game comes on two discs and you certainly get your money’s worth with all the booklets, maps and expensively printed instruction cards.
One of the books is a short history – more than 80 pages – of the gold rush era. This is also used as a novel way of security (pun intended). Instead of asking you for a specific word from the book it asks you a question from the text. It gives you a hint as to which page to look on.
One last point: Gold Rush multitasks, so if you have the inclination, the memory and a multi-tasking brain you can run other programs at the same time. Or even play two games of Gold Rush at once. Or three. Or four. Or…
Green
Amiga Computing, Volume 2, Number 4, September 1989, p.24
Gold Rush
£24.99
Sierra On-Line

SOUND 1

GRAPHICS 3

GAMEPLAY 4

VALUE 3

Overall - 61%

GOLD RUSH!

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when men were men,
mules were mules, and women were occasional graphic representations; where a
man's fortune could be drawn from the merest flakes of yellow metal. Do you have
the grit, determination and luck to strike it rich?

GOLD RUSH! is an unusual change of pace from the KING'S and SPACE and LEISURE
SUIT quests for which Sierra is rightly famous. (This review is based on the
IBM-PC version.) Instead of being set in some fantastical realm, or the far
reaches of the universe, it's set in the bedrock of history. In fact, there are
few games (and few programs overall) that have a firmer foundation in documented
historical fact. Instead of dealing with the Magic Door or the Strange Raygun,
you are faced with life-and-death decisions involving such seemingly mundane
items as fruit, family albums, and horseshoe magnets. According to Sierra, the
game was born out of a lifelong fascination with this epoch in American history
on the part of game designers Doug and Ken MacNeill. The depth of their
research, and the accuracy of their portrayal of life in the halcyon days of
1848, is apparent.

As in all Sierra graphic adventures, you wend your way through the landscape
and manipulate your environment with the aid of an onscreen persona. In this
case, you're Jerrod Wilson, a mild-mannered reporter from Brooklyn Heights, New
York, who dreams of travelling west to the fabled land of California in search
of wealth, adventure and your long lost brother. Only through astute use of the
everyday objects you find around you, and with a shrewd insight into the devious
ways of the programmers, can you find your heart's desire -- that is, assuming
you can make it out of Brooklyn Heights.

The first part of the adventure requires that you book passage to California,
and here time is definitely of the essence. Once the official word is given that
there is, indeed, gold in them thar hills, property values will plummet and
transportation costs will be out of reach. There's a lot of ground to cover in
Brooklyn, and barely enough time.

The second part of the adventure is up to you, because there are three possible
routes to California: overland by stage and covered wagon; by boat around the
southern tip of South America; and by boat to Panama, then across the jungle to
catch another boat on the Pacific side. Each trip has its own unique pitfalls,
and none is totally safe. But all of them, if you're smart and lucky, will
eventually get you to your destination: Sutter's Fort, California and the Great
Gold Rush.

The game box is chock full of goodies, including a map showing the various
routes to the west coast, an 80-plus page history of the Gold Rush called
"California Gold: Story of the Rush to Riches" (which doubles as the game's
document-based copy protection), and both 3-1/2" and 5-1/4" disk formats. The
game supports a wide variety of graphic cards (including EGA, CGA, MCGA, VGA and
Hercules), has a joystick option (but is perfectly easy to use without it), and
can be installed easily on a hard drive. In fact, I can't imagine anyone wanting
to play the game using only the five 5-1/4" floppies, because of the
interminable disk switching that must be involved. This is a _big_ game with
quite a bit of breadth and depth. The graphics are very well done (though not as
good as those Sierra has demonstrated in their newest products, such as KING'S
QUEST IV), and they take full advantage of whichever color card you have. The
sound, however, is rather primitive on the IBM, and can be shut off if desired.

In terms of game play, there is little in the way of traditional puzzle
solving; this is real life, after all, not a movie. But you will be presented
with some challenging problems, such as a hotel whose secrets you must discover.
A large part of the middle game has to do with survival: The road to California
involved disease, starvation, bad weather, bad neighbors, and unfriendly fauna
and terrain. Unless you make the right choices, you will never see the sun set
over the ocean. The middle game also exposes you to a good deal of historical
information as you traverse land and sea in your search for the gold.

There are shortcomings in GOLD RUSH!, some of which arise out of its laudable
quest for, and devotion to, historical accuracy. The actual travel sections move
too slowly, provide little for the user to do except read and look at the
pictures, and at times give too much history and not enough game. Some
occurrences seem too arbitrary: You can die in this game just by being in the
wrong place at the right time, and later, repeat the same actions but survive.

For example, round the Cape of Horn, I ran into a storm and the boat sank. I
restored, went through the same storm, and made it. (I did, however, enjoy
watching the entire screen shudder and pitch!) This has been explained to me as
"Game Imitating Life"; that's fine from an educational standpoint, but from a
gaming standpoint, it seems too random for my tastes. On the other hand, I've
experienced random events in other games that had no greater justification and
less basis in historical fact. So, I suppose the solution -- as always -- is to
save often.

There are also activities that earn you points, but that don't really move you
any closer to your goal. And the parser is very limited in comparison to other
systems' adventure offerings. There are some necessary actions that will lea you
floundering for the right combination of words. Finally, the game's sheer size
can be daunting at times.

But these are minor gripes. GOLD RUSH! offers a unique perspective and an
involving storyline. It's fun to play, and educational to watch. That makes it a
valuable commodity, in my estimation.

GOLD RUSH! is published and distributed by Sierra On-Line.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253