Billed as the world's first live-action graphic novel, Reflux CD-ROM gets off-the-scale points for the most innovative use of postage-stamp-sized video. Fortunately, it's more than that. Reflux puts a funny martial-arts twist on the cyberhacker genre with an overly complicated but captivating narrative.
Set in 2013, Reflux unravels the tale of software pirate Frank Lux (Flux), who's been framed for the murder of his best friend and has a corporate headhunter out to procure his services in a decidedly aggressive way. Reflux assumes a fairly high degree of cyber literacy - witnessed by Flux's frequent jumps between different avatar personae. To facilitate a complete understanding of Flux's world and plight, an information folder on each new screen delivers crucial plot tips and fleshes out important details of the action.
As you click through the story, stunning graphics and optional voice-overs jump off each page. But the piece de resistance is the several panels per page that morph a comic image into a live-action, over-the-top martial-arts clip straight out of a Chinese action-cinema warehouse.
There's a big bang for your buck with explosive napalm flameouts peppering the story line and easily the most talented female martial artists anywhere. They throw wicked karate chops and employ an impressive flip-kick that requires the fighter, known as a GUMBI (Generic Uniform Military Brain Interrupter), to tense her foot near her head and then release it in a deadly fast-action assault.
Viewed from the alternating perspectives of Flux, the headhunter Roark Davis, and a computer, Reflux is all the more interesting for its extremely reasonable price of US$19.95. Designed to be the first in a series, Reflux .01, a k a The Becoming, ends with a semi-cliffhanger that'll keep you around for .02.
Reflux: US$19.95. Spectrum HoloByte: (800) 867 6236, fax +1 (619) 530 2225, via the Web at www.microprose.com.
STREET CRED
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