Enlisted

>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction

The more games I review, the more importance I place on one particular rule from Graham Nelson's legendary "Players' Bill Of Rights": "Not to have to do boring things for the sake of it." The EVA suit stuff from Enlisted felt quite realistic -- probably, traveling in a space suit via a backpack thruster and positioning system would be just as fiddly and drudging as the game makes it seem. However, reproducing this process does not make for enjoyable interactive fiction... Instead, we have a few minutes of excitement and then long stretches of painful and tricky mucking about. If I wanted that, I'd have joined the real Army.