Post Description

Countdown is a point-and-click adventure game released by Access Software for MS-DOS in 1990. The player plays as Mason Powers, a CIA agent who wakes up in a Turkish mental hospital, suffering from partial amnesia and accused of murdering his supervisor. Powers must escape the hospital, find out who framed him, piece together his memory, prevent terrorists from blowing up a peace conference, and prove that you are innocent.

The game is a typical adventure game. You combine both the keyboard and the mouse to move Mason around. The interface may seem challenging at first, but you will be totally familiar with it after you have escaped your cell. (You can also use Hotkeys for the commands. F1 is Look and so on). To save the game you have to press the F(ile) key. This is something you should do often, as you do not get a second chance in the game. If you are discovered or caught, you are killed, and the game ends. Some might think of Sierra and the endless deaths in their games, but Countdown is different. There is always a very good reason for you to die. The graphic is not the best I have seen, in fact it looks like one of the characters from Jones in the Fast Lane have got a new job and a new name. However the game makes up for it with extremely good gameplay and story!

As you progress through the game, your memory will crawl back up on you... making the story more complex every time. Soon you will not only have to clear your name, but also stop a global disaster. Of course you will also have to find the man who is behind it all.

As the name of the game states, there is a timelimit. You must finish the game within 96 hours. So stop reading the review, time is a-wasting. The world needs you, Mason Powers.