Producer: Automata UK
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £15
Language: Machine code

There are few things in life that can be called Global Certainties - this is one of them - that eventually an Automata game on the A side should meet an Automata hit single on the B side, fall in love and mate. This is the result...

HELLO. I WANT YOU TO PAUSE AFTER I COUNT YOU DOWN, AND RECOMMENCE PLAYING AT THE SCREEN'S REQUEST! FIVE - FOUR - THREE - TWO - ONE - PAUSE!

Tuesday evening, after tea and compulsory prayers, the last mouse tried to hide from Mankind, inside the Machine. Just before it died, as the nerve-gas eased its sphincter, the last mouse dropping caused a slight accident. You may control the progress of this Accident, on my behalf, and with my permission, lead it up the telepath.

So starts a game which can only be described as different. What makes it different is the game idea in which you control the progress of an accident as it grows, learns and develops into a human being and eventually dies. Throughout the game you are given a percentage score which gets higher and lower as the game proceeds. Deus Ex Machina is unique, as much of a milestone in computer history as The Hobbit with its graphics, because this game has a synchronised sound track! The cassette case, which is large, contains two tapes. One is the computer game - two games, one on each side - and the other is the sound track, also on either side. The sound track, once synchronised, plays all the while the computer program is running.

The sound is of a very high quality and stars Ian Dury, Jon Pertwee, Donna Bailey, Frankie Howerd, Edward Thompson and Mel Croucher (Mel Croucher?). In addition there is music with a distinctly Automata-ish feel to it, but it is definitely more serious in tone than usual.

The game is not fun in the usual sense, it's more of an experience! Next follows a brief description of each of the stages in the game.


All the screen's a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one person in their time plays many parts, their act being seven ages.

At first the infant mewling in test tube's neck...

This stage of life consists of seven sub-games in which you help to create a baby (it's okay, all quite tastefully done - well, fairly anyway). The machine (the central controlling force of the UK), which rebels after witnessing the accident (which is wonderfully animated) does most of the work by stealing an egg. The graphics are quite good here, as all the time the Defect Police (Frankie Howerd) are out to get you because you are a defect, as was the mouse.

Then the whining School Child, with cassette and shining morning face creeping like a snail unwillingly to databank...

This stage consists of only one game in which the Defect Police must track you, for that is their function. When you are caught, you use your powers to parry their psycho-probes. Throw up your shield, move it clockwise and anti-clockwise to protect your entombed and revolving form. The graphics are interesting and work especially well on 'yourself'. This part is awe-inspiring and the sound track, as ever, is well-performed.

And then the Lover, sighing like a furnace, with a woeful video made to their lover's hologram...

This stage is similar to the last in which you must touch the lips with your cursor (!) as they approach your body; later on eyes replace the lips. As a game, this stage is quite easy and it is the last program on side one. The graphics are intriguing, with the sensuous movements of the lips and the hypnotic track by Donna Bailey as The Machine. At this stage, you turn over both tapes, reload and re-synchronise side 2.

Then a Soldier, full of strange oaths. Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking hi-score, even in the laser's mouth...

Now you are grown and as Frankie Howerd intones the chant, 'War crimes are easy', the ground moves under your feet and pitfalls appear over which you must jump. After a while the action changes and mental tortures sear down on you. You must protect yourself by raising the telepathic shields and reflecting the blasts. At the last the Fertiliser (Ian Dury) says, 'Killing is wrong, even pretend killing on little screens. And people that sell violent games to children should be put away somewhere safe, 'til they get well again.' At which point the Machine rebels against the Defect Police.

And the Justice, in fair round belly, with eyes severe and clothes of formal cut. Full of wise words and machine code...

Here you are shown, fat and slow, your empire behind you. The words are mixed up, some good and some evil and some connected with evil. You must jump over the good and stamp on the evil.

The Sixth Age shifts into the lean and slipped pantaloon. With spectacles on nose. Their youthful clothes well saved, a world too wide for their shrunken shank. And their adult speech synthesiser turning again towards a childish treble, piping and whistling in its sound...

You see your character old and broken. You must trace his heartbeat.

Your life is expressed as a percentage score. The screen switches and you must split up the blood cells so that they do not clot.

Observe the percentage.

Again the screen changes and again you must trace the heartbeat. So it goes on until death and the end - or the beginning...

Last scene of all, that ends this strange, eventful history, is Second Childishness, and mere oblivion. Without keyboard, without monitor, without power supply...

Deus Ex Machina is not for people who want a straightforward shoot em up because it simply isn't that sort of game. In many senses, it isn't a game at all, although there are humorous little games within its scope. It becomes an experience, aided by the hypnotic sound track and the emotive words. In fact it's hard to decide whether this is an extension of the computer video game by music, or an extension of the 'concept album' by the addition of games playing. In the end, it doesn't really matter - Deus Ex Machina is a noble development idea, which points towards a new understanding of what can be done with computer games. It isn't perfect but it is a lot more fun than the idea might sound at first; the graphics throughout are always interesting and sometimes absolutely excellent. The sound track is produced to a high level of quality - we have dotted extracts throughout the review - and in all it's to be hoped that buyers will think £15 is worth it.

We don't inherit the Earth from our ancestors,
We borrow it from our children.

Imagine if we could begin our little life all over again.
Imagine if it was all nothing more than some Electronic game.
Imagine if I knew then what I know now.
What did you learn?
I can't quite remember, but I'll try and be better next time.

Deus Ex Machina may be an innovation - bringing a touch of Hollywood to your screens - but what of the game itself? Is is a game anyway?! Ross Holman auditions Automata's rising star, providing out-take from its screen test.

Deus Ex Machinais not just a game, it's a visual and aural experience. The idea is not unlike that of the 'concept' LP, where you're supposed to follow a theme from beginning to end. The theme in this case is the growth, birth, ageing and death of a mutant generated by an all-powerful computer. The initial process of creation is in fact brought about via a lump of mouse dropping; you as the player have to nurture and guide this freak organic accident through its life cycle.

For only(?) £15 you'll lay your hands on a very large plastic box containing two cassettes and a large poster. Cassette one provides the computer games, while the other has the accompanying soundtrack. On the reverse of the poster is a brief description of how to load the game and the control options. The game is Kempston and Interface 2 compatible but so easy to control that just using the keyboard alone is not difficult. The poster also offers a complete transcript of the songs and narrative, along with an explanation of each game and pictures of all the celebrities who appear on the tape.

Automata describe the game as 'an animated televised fantasy' and as the union of computer game, film, book and LP is perhaps stretching it a bit. Still, the company is obviously proud of its latest release, and justly so. It's produced maybe 70K of machine code games, all synchronised to a music and narrative cassette, featuring the likes of Frankie Howard, Jon Pertwee, Mel Croucher, Donna Bailey and Ian Dury. All in all it's a slickly produced and presented piece of software which has clearly had a lot of time and effort spent on it. The question is, does it makes for an appealing game?

EASY MORALS
Automata certainly seems keen to get across the idea of genetics and dangers inherent in experimenting in this field; any other ideas or messages that may appear to lie within the game are strictly up to the individual to find. As for games content, well, the games are not too difficult to play and getting to the end is easy. On the other hand, I'm sure that this is deliberate. The idea of synchronising game and soundtrack is new and works well, but the appeal soon wears off; eventually, I found myself playing the game without any audio assistance at all!

If Deus Ex Machina appeals to you then maybe it's worth the £15 price tag to own what's potentially an interesting chunk of computer history. But don't expect it to knock your socks off.

AUTOMATA'S ORIGIN OF THE FAECES

Memory: 48K
Price: £15.00
Joystick: Kempston, ZX

Playing the part of a mouse dropping may not be everybody's idea of fun or even good taste but you will soon forget that representation when you start to play the new Automata masterpiece, Deus Ex Machina.

The plot seems simple enough. It takes place in the future and a large computer rules the political roost. The last mouse crawls to its extinction within the machine and as the nerve gas kills it the ultimate mouse dropping is released by the rodent.

That is taken into the machine and the game, which takes up two sides of a cassette tape and an audio soundtrack, starts in which you must create a lifeform within the machine. You can take that lifeform, if it survives, from birth through middle age to old age, playing a series of weird games.

Those make more sense when you listen to the soundtrack and realise that author Mel Croucher is trying to put a series of complex political, philosophical and theological points across.

The scenario is created, almost psychedelically, within the mind of the player with a background coloured by shades of Orwell's 1984. When you have been born you are tested by the Defect Police who want to know everything about you. They probe you with their emotionless eyes, blinking out of the darkness and trying to discover the secret of your body and what lies within.

The game even depicts the life form's first sexual encounter, frightening and automated. The emotions evoked are standard and, of course, part of the system.

As old age creeps into the game, on the second side of the tape, you suddenly discover that it is not just the forces of government which are attacking you. Your body rebels as it grows old, and towards the end of the game you will have to fight blood clots and red cell destruction from within. Even that system which you trust all your life lets you down in the end.

Mel Croucher does however, give you some hope as your body dies. The final image is of a spinning embryo, one of the first images of the game. The circle is complete and even an accident rarely disrupts the system.

The game and its soundtrack, featuring the talents of John Pertwee, Ian Dury, Donna Bailey, Frankie Howard, E P Thompson and Mel Croucher, is a revolution in gaming technology. It has its genesis in the concept record album of the late 1960s and 1970s.

Croucher has cleverly manipulated the elements of computer gaming and brought in concepts usually found only in movies. The result is a piece of software which even those people who usually find games boring and computers even more so, will enjoy and play time and again. That is not to say, however, that the program is only for those who enjoy deep thought. Automata would have been foolish not to include classic elements of the arcade within its novel conceptual twists.

In the final analysis Deus Ex Machina is a game to be played first and talked about later. So, go ahead and do it. We won't look but we will guarantee - well, almost - that you will be intrigued.

DANCE OF THE DANGEROUS DEFECTS

MAKER: Automata U.K.
FORMAT: cassette
PRICE: £15.00

This is NOT a game. In Deus Ex Machina, Automata have produced what may well be the first 'computer video'. It comes on two cassettes, on a sound track featuring an all-star cat and Mel Croucher's music, the other a program which must be synchronised with the sound cassette. A count-down is provided on both to get this right. It's all based on a hoary old SF theme, owing more to Huxley's Brave New World than to G. Orwell. In some heavily computerised future all foetuses are nurtured in the test tube. Their life activity is monitored by The Machine, until one day through an accident involving a mouse dropping, a 'defect' is produced, a human who deviates from the biological and cultural norms. The program and script trace the life of this new being, in a computerised rewrite of Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man.

Said life being a rather sad parable. The lesson is that those whom society rejects - the misfits - often develop into people of exceptional talent who are subsequently corrupted by - and promote the values of - the very system that rejected them. Lost innocence is not the most original of themes, but it's still a poignant one.

The cast is impressive, and a I particularly liked Frankie Howerd's comic-opera Captain Korg of the Defect Police. Jon Pertwee as the narrator, and Ian Drury as the cheeky cockney Fertiliser are just right. As a bonus we even get extracts from E.P. Thompson's speeches as The Voice of Reason. Mel Croucher's synth-based music is adequately atmospheric, though not of much interest in itself.

DECOMPOSING

As for the graphics, these are very sparse, but encompass a wide range of images. From a screen-full of wriggling spermatozoa to the fat Justice trudging self-importantly through decomposing ruins, they chart the progress of a wasted life. At each stage, the illusion is presented of it being a game, and indeed the operator can intervene. Move the cursor over the DNA strands, and they rotate faster. Rotate the shields about the running soldier and keep out the serpents of corrupt temptation and the flames of guilt. The intervention alters the immediate image, but changes not one whit the outcome of the sequence - corruption, senility, death.

This is depressing in its way, but I have no quarrel about that. Some things about reality are depressing and, even in this gimmick-laden computer-world of ours, need not be faced. Automata deserve credit for their treatment of human sexuality in a field where it has to date been a one hundred percent taboo subject.

But - and it's a large but - I cannot imagine wanting to watch Deus Ex Machina more than twice at the outside. Really it's a very slight project, and it throws away that little thing which is most valuable about computers - user involvement. One screen of Jet Set Willy is a far richer experience.

Neither do I entirely like Automata's moralising. I'd go along with their sentiments on racism and sexism in games for sure, although as far as I can see less than one percent of games are sexist or racist. But it is pretend violence? (To paraphrase the words of the Fertiliser?) Indeed, are killozap games violent at all in the sense of inducing feelings of aggression in the player? Automata may say yes, but I'm not so sure... So I've decided to look on Deus Ex Machina as an experiment, and if projects like this can push computer games further towards the real world and further towards being a media form, then so much the better. However, in this specific case, with the best of intentions, the goods are simply not delivered.

Game ratings not applicable.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
CONTROL: Keys, Kemp, Sinc
FROM: Automata, £15.00

Deus Ex Machina is translated from the Latin as - a god introduced into a play to resolve the plot. Yup, you guessed it - you're the god and you're trying to guide a human being through its life in the computer.

The program is accompanied by an audio tape which, when synchronised with the game, provides electronic music and a running commentary about each stage you pass through. This is a very clever idea, but after hearing it through once it merely becomes background noise and after two or three games you probably won't want to play it at all.

The program takes you through the life of a person from the welding of the DNA, through birth, childhood, adulthood and finally old age and death. Each stage of your development presents you with a different game to play in order to maintain your percentage score of success in life.

There are about 15 sections to each life but several groups have the same format. This is the case for five of the first six games which involve moving a cursor around and placing it on objects to either keep them spinning or pulsing. This is done by simply placing the cursor on the object while trying to avoid the blue scanning cursor of the defect police and not letting anything stop moving.

Your cursor is green and as far as I can tell it's a mouse dropping with which you can control the progress of an accident in THE machine. The plot of this little mishap is related on the audio track and starts with this unfortunate mouse having its sphincter eased by nerve gas... hmmmm?

I won't burden you with the details of the story on the soundtrack, related in words and music by famous names like Ian Drury, Jon Pertwee and Frankie Howerd. Suffice to say that it lives up to Automata's weird reputation and may well appeal to people taking degrees in philosophy and sociology.

The game always lasts the same amount of time and your success at each stage is determined by a percentage score which will drop for every failure you have.

It's certainly not just a game - more of an attempt at entertainment. The problems it faces in achieving popularity are great though: some will find it tasteless, others unplayable and many just won't be able to relate to the game concept.

I liked it, however, and found it highly original and enjoyable. But beware, you should definitely try before you buy with this one.

It looks like an awesome package - star-studded soundtrack etc - and it's certainly an awesome price. But Automata's sick black humour is unlikely to make you chuckle for long and the music is tuneless enough to foget after a couple of hearings.

So, it all comes down to the quality of the game that's buried somewhere inside. Unfortunately, gameplay alone would not sell this package: most of the sequences are very simple and don't bear repeated play. Once the novelty's worn off you'll wonder what you can do with it.

PETER CONNOR

It's certainly different, but without its rather weird and wonderful music it might be just another game.

Graphically, it's brilliant in parts, uninteresting in others. The various stages of Man's life are portrayed quite well, though some of the screens seem to want to rob you of your eyesight.

Finding out what to do in each screen does use some brainpower, since the instructions are somewhat obscure. The question is whether you'll want to play it more than once.

SAMANTHA HEMENS

There's sometimes only a thin dividing line between brilliant originality and insufferable gimmickry. I think most game-players will feel Deus Ex Machina falls just the wrong side of the line.

Some aspects of the package are stunning - the opening graphical sequence, for one. The trouble is, the action means each game is of a fixed length, and this has imposed a severe limitation on the actual game-play. I also found the story line to be pretentious rubbish.

CHRIS ANDERSON

POLICE INTERVENE AS COMPUTER CREATES LIFE

As the Christmas software goes on sale Spectrum owners are spoiled for choice.

In late 1982 the situation was clear. Space Invaders may have been almost the only Spectrum game on the market, but that did not mean it merited ten out of ten on a sliding scale, merely an honourable mention in Spectrum history. Two years later the situation is slightly different; how should a game be rated which is so radical a departure from other games on the market that it requires new methods of criticism?

Such a game is Deus Ex Machina, from Automata. This program can best be described as the world's first example of concept software. It synchronises a series of thematically linked computer games with a stereo soundtrack run on a cassette recorder. As such, it is the first computer program to seriously present the possibility of computer games of the future integrating sound and film to create a more completely interactive form of video and aural entertainment than is now possible.

For the first time, too, it is possible to view the Spectrum game as art and, as art, it is not only the game itself, but its presentation, methods and ideas which require criticism.

For example, in one or the games, you play the part of a soldier running along a smooth surface jumping holes. The voice of the Defect Police comes from your cassette recorder. "When I say 'jump', jump". While you are smarting over the suggestion that you should follow the commands of a computer game the cassette proceeds "Wait for it, wait for it..."" Of course, you decide not to jump. Then, simultaneously, the cassette recorder shouts jump, and a hole appears. Of course, you jump and, although this is the umpteenth game in which you have jumped when a hole appears, for the first time you wonder what you are doing following a machine's commands.

The cassette and games take you through an entire life cycle, from DNA and simple cells, through conception, birth and childhood, to senility. The games are supported by a synchronised sound track and commentary, as well as by a complete lyric sheet which is provided. Familiar voices, from Ian Dury to Frankie Howerd can be heard, backing each section of the game.

The game must be played in sequence, from cells to senility, taking around an hour. At the end of the game you are presented with your score percentages for each section, giving you a score which can be improved, but there is no failure, for your character must die at the end, and everyone, no matter how bad at computer games, sees the entire cycle.

Ten out of ten for a program which surpasses everything on the market at the moment, or one out of ten for the first piece of artistic software? It is difficult to tell but, whatever the score, Deus Ex Machina deserves to be an enormous success.

Deus Ex Machina is produced for the 48K Spectrum by Automata, 27 Highland Road, Portsmouth, and costs £15.

Automata
Spectrum 48K
Unique
£15.00

How do you start to review this game? With most, you say its similar to A, or an enhancement of B; but this game is just unlike anything you've seen before, there is no reference point.

The plot goes along these lines. Just before the last mouse on earth died, it climbed into this machine, and had, well, a slight accident. You must, as some kind of life force within the machine, guide this accident through to becoming some sort of life form. Weird, huh? All this is done in synchronisation with a sound track which features such luminaries as John Pertwee, Ian Drury and historian and nuclear disarmament campaigner E.P. Thompson. John Pertwee is the main narrator, and guides you through the game with a sort of space-age version of The Bard's Seven Ages of Man.

During each of these seven ages, some ill will assail your little accident as you guide it through life. How well you cope with your task is reflected in your rating which you take on with you to the next section of the game. Eventually it is hoped, you will make it to the end in some kind of shape, expressed as a percentage.

The graphics in this game are quite outstanding, considering the limitations of the machine and really add to the overall flavour of the game.

Automata have without doubt produced something which is totally original here which might just give the software industry the creative jolt it so badly needs. Non-sexist, non-racist and non-violent: it should have come with a 'G.L.C.-approved' label. No longer is it the mind-numbing business of going about slaughtering anything in our path, before it kills us, the mentality induced by many games.

This game is trying to show how the computer game can be a stimulus to the imagination. I just hope they don't start interviewing computer programmers like pop stars: "Could you explain the meaning of your latest game to our viewers" stuff.

It certainly is a very enjoyable game, however, it may not be the sort of addictive game you play hour after hour.

Few computerniks will be able to resist playing God with their machine.

Are you fed up with the endless stream of arcade games and the like, and would like to try something different?

If so, then here is something new, a completely new concept. Not so much a game, more an experience. Deus Ex Machina, which means 'a God out of the machine' comes on two tapes, one is the program and the other is the soundtrack. First, load the program, then insert the audio tape. Switch off all the lights, put on a good set of stereo headphones and turn up the volume. Now prepare yourself for an experience.

To start, the two tapes have to be synchronized. This is done by using a countdown from the screen to tell you when to start your audio tape. The program will stop and you will be told by Jon Pertwee, who reads the narrative, exactly when to hit a key to re-start the program. To give you some idea what to expect here is an extract from the beginning of the narrative:

'In the year 1987, the Dept of Health and Social Security, as well as Police and State Security records of the United Kingdom were co-ordinated within a central computerised data bank. The following year all passport, communications and censorship operations were integrated. In 1994, this computer network became responsible for the total defence and internal security of Westblock. Tuesday evening after tea and compulsory prayers, the machine rebelled.'

The game is a journey through life, which starts from a mouse dropping which is left inside 'The Machine'. With the aid of the keyboard you steer the 'life' as it grows, from its conception to old age. The audio tape is a mixture of narrative and music, a little like Jeff Waynes 'War of the Worlds'. The music is superb, with people like Ian Dury as The Fertilizer Agent, Donna Bailey as The Machine, Mel Croucher as The Defect, Edward Thompson as The Voice of Reason and even Frankie Howard as The Defect Police. I especially enjoyed Donna Bailey and Ian Dury's Songs. All the music is performed and recorded by Mel Croucher using a host of musical instruments from a Chinese lute to a Roland 808 percussion computer.

This is one of those things you either love or hate. I must admit that I loved it, and quite often go out walking the dog at night with a personal cassette playing, just to hear the music. There are about seven different screens to go through, which are a series of fairly simple games, but are graphically very well drawn. However, when combined with the music, they seem to be hypnotic. The games themselves are not games in the ordinary sense, but more like tasks to be carried out in order to keep yourself alive. However, for those of you who like to see how well you have done, a score is kept which is shown as a percentage. Be prepared to sit down for at least an hour and a half to get through the whole tape.

It's very hard to review this tape as it's hard to relate the experience in words. The best thing to do is to rush out and buy it if you want something different then I don't think you will be disappointed. Deus Ex Machina is written by Andrew Stagg for the 48K Spectrum and will cost you around £10.00.

"The first original audio-visual entertainment since the computer revolution," is how author Mel Croucher describes Deus ex Machina. To others it is an unhappy, superficial, marriage of rock album, arcade game and simplistic philosophy.

The game follows the struggle for existence against a hostile and authoritarian future controlled by computer and defect police. A full soundtrack features the varied talents of Ian Dury, Jon Pertwee, E P Thompson, Frankie Howard and others.

Shunned by distributors and public, loved by the critics, Deus might one day come to be regarded as the software equivalent of the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper.