Webmaster

Despite its title and game concept, Webmaster is not a multiuser Internet game. Instead, it combines the conceits of a first-person role-playing interface (think Myst) with the concept of Web browsing. This means that players can send themselves, in the guise of data packets, out onto the Dream Wide Web. They can also bookmark locales they have visited, saving themselves the tedium of moving--step by slow step--back to a previously visited site. This click-and-move process is broken up, however, by sequences of arcade-style action. The arcade games give you a chance to win cards that hold the key to decoding the Hacker's firewalls--not to mention the viruses he unleashes in hopes of stopping you.

Webmaster aims at players over the age of 10 by presenting them with wholly inventive and thoroughly entertaining puzzles. Each stop on the simulated Internet is loaded with games and activities. Some are deceptively simple--such as a beach where you throw pebbles at a small toy plane--but the animations and sound for these sequences are so elegantly presented that even jaded gamers will find them a delight. The subterranean message boards, where the former Dream Wide Web users offer up game clues, are similarly quirky.

Webmaster is not perfectly user-friendly. Navigating its interface takes a few minutes of experimentation, as does absorbing the mechanics of gameplay. Players who prefer to skip tutorial sequences may find Webmaster rough going, at least at first. Computer-savvy parents may also balk at the blanket use of hacker as a negative term, rather than a value-neutral word for computer programmer. These few caveats will not diminish player enjoyment in the long term, however. Webmaster offers wholesome, varied, and challenging fun, to children and adults alike. --Alyx Dellamonica