[jandrese]

This article was fairly glowing, but the game is extremely difficult. Not only do the puzzles range from hard to "who would ever figure that out?!?" but the interpreter is the old Infocom one that only understands the one wording for any action.

For example, there are 10 objects scattered in the game that you have to collect for a puzzle at the end. They are never mentioned when you look around the room. At the end of the game Marvin will ask you for one of those objects. You might be thinking "ok, so if I miss one I still have a 90% chance of completing the game right.", but the game checks and if you're missing one he will always ask for that one object. You have to collect them all.

There's a bit in the article where the author talks about the clues for the Babel fish puzzle, but even he has to admit that the last part is basically just completely random based on what you happen to have in the inventory. Also, he doesn't mention that the puzzle is timed. If you don't complete it in a set number of moves you die. It is a game that is relentlessly unfair to the player.

I know this is a lot of words about an old game, but the Hitchhikers Guide series was one of my favorite books growing up and I was so excited when my parents bought this for the Commodore 64. I played it many many times, had the Babel Fish puzzle and others down pat, but still only made it maybe 1/3 of the way through the game before getting completely stuck.