Electronic Arts has thrown it's hat into the CD³² arena with it's first
Amiga CD-ROM game.  Although the game will work with the CD³², it is not
a CD³² specific release.  It will also work on the Commodore CDTV as well
as any Amiga with a CD-ROM drive and at least 1 megabyte of chip memory.

As a result of this cross platform compatibility, the game does not use
the CD³²'s AGA chipset.  However, this does not stop it from being the 
best looking CD³² game on the market right now.

How is that possible?  LABYRINTH OF TIME uses interlaced HAM mode to 
display fully rendered 3D objects.  HAM is capable of displaying pictures
in 4,096 colors at the same time.  HAM is available on ALL Amiga models.
(It's also known as HAM6 now that the AGA machines such as the Amiga 1200
and Amiga 4000 have what is known as HAM8, which can display 262,000 
simultaneous colors.)

The object of the game is to manuever your way through the Labyrinth to
break the evil grip of a wizard over the Earth and the world of the 
mortals...or something like that.  Along the way, you will have to 
piece together puzzles and navigate through a dreamlike world full of
all sorts of interesting things: like an old movie theatre, a mirror maze,
and an old hotel.  Everything looks fantastic.

Your movements are controlled via a panel at the bottom of the screen.
It features arrows to control your direction, a hand icon to pick things
up and use them, a look icon to examine objects more closely and an
inventory list (with an automatic mapper so you can't get lost too
easily.)

All that aside, the gameplay is slow.  Moving from one scene to the next 
is time consuming as each screen needs to be read from the CD and then
displayed.  There is also no way to turn completely around in one move,
one must turn twice to the right or left to reverse direction.  Also, 
the CD³²'s controller moves the pointer very slowly.  Plugging an Amiga
mouse into the second port provides much speedier control.

Some of the objects are out of perspective from one scene to the next,
which can possibly cause confusion.  It's possible to think something was
hidden behind another object and is suddenly visible because you moved.
When in fact, it's the same object drawn out of perspective.  This leads
to unnecessary confusion for the player who is given enough to explore 
without looking at the same item and wondering if it's new or not.

The music that accompanies the game is wonderfully atmospheric, but 
don't expect it to give you clues or encouragement that you're going
in the right direction.  It's the best sounding music on any Amiga game
ever.  It just doesn't seem appropriate sometimes.  

Overall, the game is wonderful to look at and listen to, but not as fun
to play.  I desperately wanted to say that this is THE CD³² game to get
right now, but it's not.  It's too slow and clunky on the user interface
side of things to be fun.  It's interesting to explore, but not something
that will keep you coming back again and again.  It does allow you to save
games in the CD³²'s memory and the auto-mapping feature is a definite plus.
But, it just doesn't have the UMPH in the gameplay department.

 Ratings:
	Graphics: 95%			Manufacturer:
	Sound:    90%			Electronic Arts
	Gameplay: 60%			1450 Fashion Island Road
	Control:  70%			San Mateo, CA  94404

 OVERALL RATING:  79%			Video Mode: NTSC