The Koshan Conspiracy

The Koshan Conspiracy is a sequel to UBI Soft's B.A.T. You play a B.A.T. (Bureau of Astral Troubleshooters) agent trying to prevent the Koshan Trust from getting a monopoly of Echi-atone, a valuable mineral. You must find and acquire deeds to a very valuable asteroid that gives Koshan Inc. much of its economic wealth. The Koshan Conspiracy's game play consists of scenes shown from the first-player perspective. Most of the interaction is with a mouse; you move the mouse cursor around the scene and, when you can perform certain actions, the mouse cursor changes. For example, when you can talk to someone on the screen the cursor changes to talking lips. The cursor changes to an arrow to indicate the direction that a player can go to move to another location. The directional arrows do not relate to the arrows of a compass, however, so the player must rely on the pictures to figure out where the agent is in a city.

During a game, the player must search through the city streets for clues to the whereabouts of the deeds. There are several methods of moving about the city: An agent can walk, take the Via Express (a motorway) or fly. The flight simulator runs smoothly but is difficult to control. Instead of landing on an object, a player must fly the craft over the landing zone and hover. If the player is over the right spot, the craft will land, otherwise the player must ease the craft to a new position. In space, navigation becomes a problem, the craft sets itself on course automatically. The craft responds to small mouse movements and it is easy to get off course.

An interesting feature of the game is the BOB implant. This implant monitors the agent's general condition, including personal characteristics, health, hungriness, thirstiness and sleepiness. In addition, the agent can use the BOB to activate implants that allow the agent to heal, go without sleep, improve his vision (so he can see at night) and hearing, create a disguise and be warned of danger. The most interesting feature of BOB's is that it can be programmed using a simple icon-based language. The programs can regulate functions such as the agent's dexterity in combat or his heart rate, plus they can translate alien languages, analyze characters in the game, etc.

One of the biggest problems with BOB occurs whenever the agent is hungry or thirsty. The level of food and water that an agent must have in his body is shown in a small graph in the corner of one of the BOB screens. To successfully manage an agent, a player must keep the level of food and water approximately in the center of the graph. In order to check to see if an agent is satisfied, a player must go between the inventory screen to eat and the BOB screen to see the effect--a tedious process.

The sound is well done in this game but is a little too repetitive. When you enter an area near an electronics shop, you can hear the music from the stereos being played. The sound then gets louder when you enter the shop to make a purchase.

The Koshan Conspiracy is not intuitive in its play. The flight simulators are a little sloppy, with functions mentioned in the manual not usable in the real game. The Koshan Conspiracy is an adventure game with bold ideas... that fall a little short.