Starship Titanic is a science-fiction adventure set aboard a colossal spaceship (which is named after a fairly well-known cruise ship from the planet Earth). It seems that something has gone horribly wrong aboard the Starship Titanic--a fact that becomes evident as the vessel slams into the cozy confines of your living room. Now, at the request of the ship's robotic crew, you must go aboard, figure out what went wrong, and fix it.

The game uses impressively rendered graphics to depict Starship Titanic's opulent interior. For the most part, you can make your way through the ship and the game using the mouse as you would in Myst. For conversations with the robot attendants, you use the keyboard and the game's text parser. This combination of contemporary adventure-game graphics and classic-style text conversations works well.

As with any adventure game, this one has a lot of puzzles for you to solve. And like everything else Douglas Adams comes up with, the puzzles in this game are complex, challenging, and often downright silly. You'll have to disarm a bomb, for example, that has a 20-digit "combination" and that constantly taunts you. (Monty Python's John Cleese plays the voice of the bomb.) You'll also have to deal with an annoying, chicken-eating parrot (played by Terry Jones, another Python veteran and author of the Starship Titanic novel).One thing to keep in mind as you play Starship Titanic is that the puzzles will leave you frustrated at times. That's OK--in fact, that's probably what Adams had in mind from the start--because most of the solutions to these puzzles are incredibly bizarre and unusual. If you get really stuck, the DoorBot and BellBot can usually be of some assistance.

Even with a little help from these automated assistants, however, Starship Titanic will have you puzzling for hours and hours. --Michael Ryan


From School Library Journal
YAAJones, of Monty Python fame, has successfully translated Adams's vision into a manic interstellar romp that is a welcome companion to the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. Starship was launched into the public's consciousness as a brief sentence in Life, the Universe and Everything (Pocket, 1990) and, after experiencing Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure, has resurfaced as a well-received CD-ROM game and as this amusing novel. With not much more plot than a Seinfeld episode, Starship follows the efforts of a cast of daft characters who must earn a free upgrade on the most extravagant and technologically advanced ship ever created. Their mission is to bring the ship's lobotomized computer brain back online while distracting a single-minded bomb and battling an army of hostile shipbuilders who do more good than harm. Absurdities pile on oddities, leaving oxygen-starved readers gasping between giggles. This collaborative effort between Jones and Adams sparkles with the inane humor and fondness for the ridiculous that has earned them a cult following. It will be popular with their many fans and the release of the CD-ROM in April will create new converts among the few who have thus far missed the boat.ARobin Deffendall, Prince William Public Library System, VACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Conceived by Adams, author of the cult classic Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and executed by Sheckley (The Draconian New York, Forge, 1996), this story concerns the most technologically advanced starship ever designed and the very human tensions that arise among the Architect, the Manager, and the Accountant when the ship is finished.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Best known for his work with Monty Python's Flying Circus, Terry Jones lends his signature voice and style to Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic. The wacky tale of scientific genius Leovinus's ill-fated starship is brought to life by Jones's vocal acrobatics. Nearly every member of this stupefyingly odd cast of characters seems to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown or death by sheer boredom-- and the variety works splendidly. Jones fleshes out the circus of activity with comedic aplomb, bringing the absolutely right feel to the audio presentation. Starship Titanic is more fun than you can shake a fish paste sandwich at. R.A.P. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Kirkus Reviews
Adams (the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, etc.) contributed the idea, such as it is, while Monty Python's Jones wrote the book. Planet Blerontin's greatest architect, Leovinus, has designed and built Starship Titanic, the biggest, most sumptuous, most advanced spaceship ever. On the eve of the ship's launch, he finds that, what with huge cost overruns, the ship isn't even half complete and its robot brain, Titania, has been unplugged; worse, the manager, Brobostigon, and the accountant, Scraliontis, are plotting to scuttle the ship and collect the insurance money. Off thunders the ship with only Leovinus and The Journalist aboard; it undergoes Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure and ends up on Earth, where it acquires three passengers- -Lucy, Nettie, and Dan, who must contend with supercilious robots, lascivious aliens, talking bombs, mad parrots, and a Captain's Bridge that consists entirely of video-game consoles. Both Jones and Adams possess impressive comic credentials, so there are some amusing moments--but otherwise it's pretty thin and familiar fare. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

At the heart of a galaxy of which we know nothing, the greatest,
most advanced starship ever known has been built -- the Starship
Titanic. It is fabulous, beautiful and technologically
miraculous. On its maiden voyage it crashes into hyperspace and
vanishes.

The first you know of it is when you are sitting at home having a
quiet evening in front of the TV and the most fabulous starship
in the galaxy crashes into your home. You find your way on board
(or not, if you just want to play the two minute version of the
game) and are confronted with an interior which resembles a
mixture of the Ritz, the Chrysler Building, Tutankhamen's tomb,
and Venice.

The ship is inhabited by traumatized robots, a lobotomized
cyberintelligence, a frankly unhinged parrot and, as the ship
takes off, taking you deep into unknown interstellar space, you
realize that life on board as a third class passenger is going to
be tough going. You find yourself in the grip of one of the most
powerful forces known to modern man -- the desire for a free
upgrade.

Your task is to discover what has happened here, to reveal the
deep conspiracy that lies behind this catastrophic failure, to
repair the ship's intelligence and guide the ship back home. To
do this you will have to gain the trust of the robots, which you
do the same way you would with anybody else -- by talking to
them. State-of-the-art language technology lets you do this.

Strange characters, stunning environments, wild satire, and a
series of puzzles of escalating weirdness all add up to...
Starship Titanic -- The Ship That Cannot Possibly Go Wrong.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

Windows 95
100MHz Pentium-class processor required, 133MHz or greater recommended
16 MB RAM
160 MB available hard disk space
Video card capable of displaying High Color (16 bit) at 640x480 pixels resolution
4X speed CD-ROM drive or faster
Video and sound cards 100% compatible with DirectX 5.0

FROM THE CRITICS

AudioFile - Rachel Astarte Piccione