Reviwes - Hugo

Well, the weather outside is frightfull, with just about a foot and a half of snow in an hour, and no sign of stopping. With nothing to do, and essentially imprisoned in my home, this has lead to many hours of contemplation, going all the way back to my beginnings.

Beginnings of what, you may ask? My beginnings as a gamer.


I grew up with our family owning a Pentium i386 Computer, with just under 500 Mb of disk space and Dos 7.0. Man, those were the days. Navigating command prompt, back and forth, trying to remember where you installed the bloody files to. Yeah, those were the days.

My first expirience with gaming was a game called Hugo. It was an early entry into what would become the lucas arts and sierra dominated world of adventure gaming. Using a keyboard controlls for the character and a interpreter that was not at all intelligent(or kind to a four year old), it was a very decently made game of the time. The game was produced by a Mr. David P. Grey and Assoc., and would become a series that would haunt the nightmares of some kids for years to come.(Untill they made Nightmare 3D, that is.)

This was during the years of the shareware revolution, where individuals would put out small games on floppies and sell them at discount at electronic stores, usually for 5$ each. This meant that it was far cheaper to get these games and a computer rather then the Nintendo and it's counterparts.

The game was simple in it's execution, but difficult if you had no idea what to do. It took me forever to find out how to break the pumpkin on the front doorstep to get the key, unlock the door, and so on. The puzzles were feindishly complex, and it took me almost 4 years to beat the game, despite it's simplicity.

The game is picky, but the writing is sound. It's an omage to old horror movies, and the premise is simple enough to not get you completely bogged down in story, but enough to have you wanting more. Some of the last wriddles were dastardly, especially to a child who had never read the hobbit.

If you get a chane, though, look it up. It's a good game, and if I remember correctly, Mr Grey still has a site online which sells the old games, updated to newer operating system standards.