A Game for Inquiring Minds

Do you remember when Rosa Parks was arrested? When the Beatles were on “The Ed Sullivan Show”? Or when pet rocks were hip? Cleverly playing off some of the more memorable news stories of the last 40 years, Davidson’s “Headline Harry and the Great Paper Race” is a learning and adventure game that entertains while teaching U.S. history and geography.

It’s sort of Carmen San Diego Meets the Front Page.

The U.S. Daily Star and the Diabolical Daily are engaged in a cutthroat circulation war. Players go to work for the Star (the good guys) and try to beat the sleazy, sensation-seeking reporters from the Daily. If the bad guys get the story first, a garbled version of the story is printed in the Daily. If the good guys get the story, an honest account of the facts is published in the Star.

Each story assignment takes place in a defined region of the country. Working under a killer deadline, you travel by plane and taxi to an assortment of places and talk with a variety of sources. The game plays well with mouse or keyboard. Just point at the appropriate icon, and people will tell all.

Like a real reporter, you work three stories at once and try to keep them all straight in your notebook. In a flight of pure fancy, however, the game’s notebook is well-organized, legible and easy to use.

The game makers say “Headline Harry” is for ages 10 to adult. That’s a stretch. Our 9-going-on-10-year-old consultant had no trouble mastering the mechanics of the game, but the news events were far out of his league.

Definitely a learning experience.

Headline Harry

Rating: ***

IBM & compatibles, Tandy; hard disk required; no copy protection; two graphics versions available; List Price: 16-color $49.95, Full-Spectrum 256-color $59.95

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