When the movie "The Lawnmower Man" was released in theaters, everybody started talking about the fact that it had nothing to do with the Stephen King short story it was named after.  SK himself even filed a lawsuit against the filmmakers for using his name to promote a movie that had absolutely no similarity to his story, minor bird bath reference aside.  It was only after this mild controversy died down that people began to notice that "The Lawnmower Man" was a hell of a fun ride on its own.  The story told the tale of Dr. Angelo, a brilliant scientist trying to increase human intelligence and learning potential through a mix of "smart" drugs and virtual reality experience.  His funding, however comes from The Shop, a sinister government organization which would rather use Angelo's techniques to produce soldiers able to fight in battle conditions too harsh for humans.  Distraught by The Shop's interference, Angelo begins experimenting on his own time, using as a test subject Jobe, a retarded man who cuts lawns for a living.  Jobe reacts quickly and positively to the treatments, showing rapid increases in intelligence, and eventually surpasses Angelo's own intellect.  Jobe also begins showing evidence of telekinetic powers the human mind has somehow forgotten about in the course of evolution.  When The Shop hears of Jobe's progress, they decide to replace Angelo's serum with their own drug mixture designed to increase aggression.  The change in serum causes Jobe to undergo a psychotic break, turning him into a powerful and violent being obsessed with seeking revenge on the people who took advantage of him when he was simple.  At the end of the film, the deranged Jobe transforms himself into pure information and enters the world computer network, becoming Cyberjobe, the violent child god of a new virtual domain.  Cyberspace is real, and virtual reality is the doorway to a whole new universe.

	Not since "Tron" has a movie been so ripe for video game spin-offs.  With so much of the game taking place in the visually stunning virtual reality world, all us home cyber-freaks knew it was only a matter of time.  Sure enough, Sales Curve Interactive has released The Lawnmower Man for IBM CD-ROM.  Super Nintendo and Genesis conversions are planned, but for IBM this game is CD only.

	I've been eagerly anticipating this game since I first saw the movie.  A virtual reality experience that harnesses the power of the CD-ROM.  The press sheets that arrived at the office a few months ago did what they were supposed to; they made the game look great, and I believed them.  They lied.

	Installation was quick and easy; it was the best thing about this game.  During installation the program asks you if you would like to install any of the game to your hard drive to increase speed and performance.  You can set the size of the installation yourself, an option I appreciated a good deal.  I let the program install 20MB to my hard drive, although I believe it can install up to 50.  I figured that with 20MB on the hard drive it ought to run pretty smoothly.  I never tried it with a lower setting, but after my experience with that setup I would think that a low-space install would positively nightmarish to play.

	The game manual divides the game into 12 different sections with totally different goals and methods of play, which it said would repeat with different variations.  I started hoping that the game wouldn't try to be several things at once, since these cross-genre games usually end up falling short on all sides of the fence.  My instincts turned out to be unerring, damn them.

	The premise of The Lawnmower Man the game is that Cyberjobe has sucked Dr. Angelo into cyberspace, along with Jobe's young friend Peter and Peter's mother Carla.  Cyberjobe's diseased mind believes the three have betrayed him, and in the virtual domain he will have his revenge.  The player's job as Dr. Angelo is to rescue Peter and Carla and escape cyberspace.  This sounded like a decent premise to me, so I started up the game and prepared for a venture into virtual reality.

	As the opening sequence played I sat in front of my monitor stunned, not by how great the graphics were, but by how awful they were.  Big blocky pixels filled the screen, making it painfully obvious that LM was running in low-res 320X200 VGA mode, a video resolution I personally hope goes the way of CGA.  (Some games can run in this mode and look very good; The Lawnmower Man isn't one of them.)  The animation seemed to move at a decent rate, but the graphics were clumsy-looking and just plain ugly.  It was only after the "GAME OVER" banner came up that I realized that the program had lapsed into gameplay at some point.  I gave the manual a quick glance again and started a new game.

	In the first scene, Angelo is on some sort of walkway and is being chased by Big Red, Cyberjobe's lawnmower.  The computer immediately took charge of my character and forced it to run away from the rampaging machine.  Once in motion, several objects appeared that I had to either jump over or slide under as I ran across the walkway.  At this point, the computer spoke up and told me exactly when to jump and when to duck.  I simply responded, and got through the level.  My heart sank.  The first sequence in the game, and already it was exhibiting the low level of interactivity that other CD games like Critical Path have taken so much heat over.  I have gotten into the habit of calling this effect Dragon's Lair Syndrome.  (There are thousands of people out there who love Dragon's Lair; I'm not one of them.)  Later I replayed the sequence (far too many times, but more on that later) to see how much control I had over when my character's actions would be carried out, and found that I had very little.  It's impossible to trigger a jump or slide too early; the computer simply waits for the appropriate moment, and if the correct key is pressed it carries out the action.  That's not a game; that's a keyboard diagnostic check.

	The following sequence was no better.  After getting to the other side of the walkway, and seeing a poor quality video clip from the movie for no particular reason, Angelo transforms into a half-man half-glider to fly down a winding tunnel.  Navigating is handled exactly the same as dodging was on the walkway.  Twice during this flight Angelo has to shoot a mouth-like gate to keep it from crushing him.  Again, there is no timing involved; just hold the space bar down until the program says it's the right time to fire.  After this segment is finished you are treated to another clip from the movie, this one showing Jobe and Peter playing a virtual reality racing game with the same glider you just finished using.  This clip seems to be stuck here to tease the player with brief view of a game that looks much more fun than the one being played.  Pure sadism.  Feel like going on to the next scenario?  Well quit your whining 'cause we're going to anyway.

	The third phase in the game is a break from the arcade non-action; instead it lets you try your hand at some easy puzzle solving.  Very easy.  As you walk down a corridor a door will spring up in front of you.  To pass you must solve the puzzle on the door's face.  You will see four columns of four symbols each.  In each column there is one symbol that doesn't belong, and you must figure out which one it is in each column to open the door.  For example, one column may be made up of the letters A, I, Y, and O, and you have to deduce that the Y doesn't belong because it's the only consonant.  Does this feel like a hot new CD-ROM game yet?  Not to me anyway.

	When I reached this point I noticed one other thing that aggravated me a great deal:  there's no way to save your progress in this game.  No save game file, no end of level passwords, no nothing.  You can continue twice should you die, but after that it's back to square one.  By paying attention to the progress percentage the game reports on when I died, I estimated that there are about 25 levels in the game, and no way to save.  Is that anti-social programming I sense here?

	The next stage is another "puzzle" with all the warmth and play value of a copy protection code.  You find yourself standing in front of a terminal made up of various colored panels.  The computer then plays a four note tune on this device, with each panel lighting up when it is sounded.  You then have to play the tune back.  Remember that hand-held game called Simon that you used to play as a kid?  This is the exact same principle, except that Simon eventually came up with longer and harder tunes to memorize.  LM just stays with the basic four tone sequence that anyone not in diapers should have no problem with.  If I wanted to play Simon I would own one of those games; I knew there was a reason I never had one as a child.

	I could go on to describe the few other levels I visited in detail, but I think you've had almost enough pain, hate, and suffering heaped upon you for one article, dedicated reader.  I would like to briefly describe one more level, though.  After suffering through a few more stages the gamer eventually has to do another "run and dodge" scenario just like the one the game started out with, but this time the computer doesn't tell you what to do when.  This sounds like the answer to my objections, and at first I thought it was.  However, I quickly learned that without the computer's coaching such a task is nearly impossible.  The graphics are of such poor quality that it's hard to see when something is coming at you.  The occasional hole in the floor you have to vault over is almost completely undetectable.  Also, in this second incarnation of the first level the camera angle changes every time you make a successful move.  This would be okay, if these cameras were intelligently placed.  Instead, they tend to make you blind to what's coming toward you until it's too late.  I would have liked to play the game to the finish to see what some of the levels described in the manual were like, but my sense of curiosity was quickly overwhelmed by my frustration.  I don't mind repeating things, but not when they weren't any fun in the first place.

	It's very hard for me to find any redeeming qualities in this game, so I won't strain myself now trying to find a good word to put in.  The Lawnmower Man is a terrible game, as uninteresting to play as it is to view.  A little quote from a review on the CD's jewel case has one writer describing LM as "the best CD-ROM game ever," and saying that it is "the nearest thing anyone's seen to an interactive movie."  I wonder how much this guy was paid to write that?  Movies tend to have plots, and this game doesn't try.  It's a series of bad arcade sequences and uninteresting puzzles strung together by low-quality video footage.  It's sad, because the situations established in the movie could have been used for some wonderful games, games that really show off the potential of the CD-ROM.  Sadly, The Lawnmower Man is everything a CD-ROM game shouldn't be:  slow and only semi-interactive.  This games goes for about $50 in the stores, but I doubt many gamers will stick with it long enough to get their money's worth.  If you're anxious to get a new game for your CD-ROM, do yourself a favor and save your money.  If there aren't any good-looking games out there right now that you don't already have, be patient.  A flood of CD games is on the horizon, and I think it's a safe bet that the vast majority of them are better than this.  If there is a hell just for game reviewers, I'm sure The Lawnmower Man waits for me there, but in this life, I'll stick to watching the movie and dreaming of soaring the cyberskies.