The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1984 Video Game) User Reviews

The Best Text Adventure(?)

[kbailey-6 · 30 April 2005]

Having played quite a few text adventures, H2G2 stood out as the most user friendly.

Its understanding of language was the best I have encountered. There were some little problems: 'Lay down/Lie down' produced different results. Other reviewers claim that progress is only made when 'exact' phrases are used. This is nonsense. The program is well written and allows much variation.

The puzzles are great. Douglas Adams has said that this was the version of H2G2 that turned out most closely as intended. When I played the game in the late 80s, I didn't know where to get help with the puzzles. I had no choice - I had to use my brain. With the help of friends, the game was completed after a few months. It had been a great experience. Sadly I never got on with the other Douglas Adams' adventure 'Bureaucracy'. And the graphic adventure, 'Starship Titanic' is beautiful to look at and awful to play! H2G2 was written for many platforms. Some had graphics. Some had extended description.

The game is still available to play online. It can also be downloaded and played using an emulator. A fun way to treat text adventures today is to try using a speech recognition program such as Via Voice &c. There could be a future for text adventures using a speak/reply device – no keyboard, no screen. H2G2 would be the perfect game.

A Weak Text-Based Adventure

[RestlessRust · 15 April 2005]

A twenty-year old computer game--what's the point of this review? Probably none, but with the new movie coming out, there's a chance some fans will be interested in tracking down a copy of this game. So here goes: The Zork games set the standard for text-based adventure games (I can't bring myself to call them "video" games), and there were plenty of other notable entries in the genre, such as "The Leather Goddesses of Phobos". Unfortunately "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was notable for entirely the wrong reasons.

First, it followed too closely to the book, meaning that if you had read the book you weren't in for many surprises. You play Arthur Dent, who wakes up to see a bulldozer outside his bedroom window. Just like the book, you lie down in front of the bulldozer, join your friend Ford Prefect at the pub, catch a ride on a Vogon ship, grab a Babel fish, then hop on board the Heart of Gold. That sequence of events should sound strikingly familiar to anyone who has read the novel. At least this time they got to read it on a computer screen, I guess.

Secondly, some parts were insanely difficult. There is a point at the very beginning where you have to specifically type, "Ford, what about my home?" in order to advance. I can't help but wonder if ANYBODY figured that out without referring to the hints.

I'm sure fans will be interested--especially since Douglas Adams co-wrote it and it does contain healthy doses of his humor--but it just isn't much fun as a game. It's as if they expected only die-hard fans of the book to even play the game...and then failed to give them a reason to want to.