The Ring

Cryo
PC

Wagner's Ring cycle - an opera in which it is more than 30 stupefying hours until the fat lady sings - is an unlikely setting for a computer game.

The opera is based on the legend of the Eddas, the founding mythology of the Germanic people. Wagner wrote his gargantuan work shortly after the Prussian warlord Bismarck had forged a united Germany from a group of separate states.

The new nation needed a new identity and Wagner's heroes, such as the half-man half-wolf Siegmund, the Valkyrie Brunnhilde, the fire god Loge and the dwarf king Alberich, fitted the bill.

They inspired several generations to wear leather shorts, slap their thighs and drink lots of beer in between a couple of ill-advised attempts to conquer the world.

So how does all this fit into a game? The Ring is a series of journeys between the past and the present into the world of German mythology in search of the Ring of the Nibelungen.

Which is not such a bad plot - heroes, magic rings and myths are key ingredients of computer fantasy adventures.

But The Ring is different. If the opera is a huge and labrynthine work, so is the game. It comes in a six-CD pack and comprises four adventures.

And it's hard. This review is written after four hours' play which has earned a meagre 6 per cent progress rating in the easiest adventure - Alberich's quest to steal magic gold from the Rhine maidens.

It's not a fast game. Clues are hard to come by and the puzzles are tough, but a soundtrack featuring excerpts from the opera played by the Vienna Philharmonic directed by Sir Georg Solti helps to while away those slow patches.

The sound quality is superb, as are the graphics, and it adds up to a rich and immersive experience from this French company which released the excellent Atlantis: The Lost Tales last year.

The only real flaw is the fact that it comes on six CDs. Having to swap them around when starting new games is a pain, and increases the risk of crashes.

Required: Pentium 133, 8x CD ROM drive, 16Mb RAM, Win 95.

-- Peter Eley, 7DAYS, 19/11/98