The Action’s in the Universe

Before playing Paragon Software’s terrific “MegaTraveller2: Quest for the Ancients,” clear your desk, get out plenty of sharp pencils and paper. Then, read the manual--several times.

Take lots of notes. And then maybe, just maybe, you will be prepared for this re-creation of the classic “Traveller” series of boxed “Dungeons-and-Dragons”-style role-playing games.

The goal of “Quest for the Ancients” is, you guessed it, to save the world . That’s done with a crew of characters, whom you create with the game’s elaborate character-generation feature. You give each traveller his or her own set of valuable skills and set them off to search the Universe for clues and objects.

The main action of the game takes place on a map. The characters are represented by colored dots. Movement and communication are easy with a mouse and icon menus.

Find the people, find the objects, find the worlds with the people and the objects. Sounds simple. But noooo . You have to study interstellar trade and combat, learn the location of more than 100 planets and become an expert in personnel management. A photographic memory helps. Like we said, take notes.

And remember who’s who. We can’t say enough about the character-making part of this game. The capacity to create scores, maybe hundreds, of different characters raises “MegaTraveller2” well above your average adventure. The program can be used to write roles for players of the box version of the game. And, at the computer, you can get so involved with making travellers that you can easily forget about the rest of the action.

But don’t. “MegaTraveller2” is one great adventure. It’s well worth the price of the ticket.

MegaTraveller

Rating:

IBM & compatibles, Tandy 1000; 640K RAM required; List: $59.95.

Computer games are rated on a five-star system, from one star for poor to five for excellent.