Berlin 1948

Time Warp's second game that is more of a role-playing game than traditional adventure, Berlin 1948 is still an immensely interesting game set in Cold War Berlin. Your job: scour the city in order to recover a missing nuclear weapon (perhaps inspired by earlier Amiga game Sum of All Fears).

Gameplay is reminiscent of Accolade's The Third Courier in that you must navigate a large city map, looking for informants, suspects, or other clues. There are also some action elements here that are well integrated into the game, such as car chase sequences that are good enough to warrant a separate game.

The adventuring portions, however, are not as well thought-out. The inventory interface is clumsy, and dialogues are poorly written. You'll spend a lot of time wandering around Berlin without a clue of what you should be doing it. To add insult to injury, there is a time limit in this game, so saving often is necessary.

Overall, a good effort that can't measure up to other spy adventures. Even Infocom's all-text Border Zone is a more exciting spy adventure than this game. Play it only if you've played every other spy adventures you can think of :)

Review By HOTUD