Gold Rush!

Thoughts by Mr Creosote (04 Mar 2009) – Amiga (OCS)

Jerrod Wilson, a journalist living in 1848 Brooklyn, apparantely never got over ‘losing’ his brother Jake who was forced to leave town ten years ago. Now the protagonist receives a letter from this lost relative. Jake has found gold in California and he urges Jerrod to join him there. And it would be much of a game if Jerrod didn’t go along with this…

Gold Rush has some interesting things in it. For example, in the first episode (Brooklyn), the game tries its best to make the city look alive. Carts are driving along the roads, people are walking around carrying on their business. The game’s highlight is the travel episode. There are three alternate routes you can choose from and each plays differently. Much appreciated!

Unfortunately, Gold Rush is also cram-full of the typical Sierra sins. It all starts with those carts which will mercilessly run you over if you don’t jump off the road quickly enough. Similarly, many puzzles deal with ludicrous lethal situations in which you have a few seconds to decide something to escape or you’re dead. Of course, there is no option to retry – better have many saved games ready.

Another problem with the puzzles is that almost all of them are completely backwards. I.e. you have to use trial & error, fail and retry. Everything. For example, on each way to travel, you’ll need an item in order to avoid being killed. However, you’ll only know what to get back in Brooklyn after you’ve died on the way once. Many scenes even involve time limitations. For example, take the first episode once again: After about 15 minutes of real time, the Gold Rush will increase the prices by so many times that you won’t be able to buy anything anymore – game over. Arriving in California, you might find the stage coach which is supposed to take you further has already left – game over again. And so on. Nothing you can do to avoid this really. It may be realistic, but it’s no fun.

As usual with Sierra, the parser is quite problematic (dumb), objects which can’t be seen have to be searched manually all over the screen, the player’s sprite is painfully slow even in ‘fast’ mode and the graphics are quite ugly. Ever seen a city which has rivers of blood instead of streets? Here you are! To make things even better, the same colour is used for people’s skin.

In spite of those certain qualities mentioned earlier in the review, Gold Rush is once again an almost unplayable game from the worst Adventure-making company ever. Pity.

Thoughts by beranmuden (08 Jul 2015) – PC (DOS)

One of the first Sierra games I’ve played, and despite its flaws, I enjoyed it greatly. Bear in mind, that at moment of writing, the game is 27 years old, so it’s hard to say whether the game withstood the test of time without losing my personal view on the game.

The story is centered around Jerrod Wilson who one day receives a letter from his brother, concerning the discovery of a possible goldmine in California. As the player, your task is to move to California and strike luck with finding your brother and the promised gold. Animations and movement is detailed (for that time) and the city of Brooklyn where the player starts is filled with interaction and characters.

You can take several routes towards California and taking those journeys behold some of the games biggest flaws. Deaths seem to be often and sometimes even random during the journeys, leaving you with nothing else but to restore a previous saved game.

During your travels for example, you might catch cholera or you can get overrun by indians, if you haven’t bought the right type of ox for your travels. Also the timer which triggers events can cause trouble on nowadays computers. Certain actions, like saving your stagecoach can get tricky at normal speed with the current type of hardware available. Basically it’s important (in most, if not all Sierra games) to make sure you save often.

The game is very mercilessly in a lot of ways. If you don’t find yourself a gold coin in the beginning of the game, you’re not able to purchase tools later on and inevitably leaving you to restart or restore. Also getting all points is a hassle, especially near the end when trying to locate all the gold spots to mine (the cave part).

In conclusion: Gold Rush will always have a special place in my heart. I remember playing the game without a crack, trying to figure out the correct copy-protection answers before being led to the hanging. It probably won’t be a thing for the less patient person, but the game is still very playable with Dosbox and provided with the proper documentation a must-play for Sierra fans.