Dallas Quest

When a game is faithful to the poor writing and wildly implausible plot
conventions of a soap opera, does that make it a bad game or an effective
adaptation of its source material? In any case, this game situates you as a
private investigator hired by Sue Ellen to find a map to hidden oil fields, in
hopes to accumulate enough wealth to escape the sinister influence of J.R. Sue
Ellen offers you a reward of $2 million for the map. You snoop around the
grounds of the South Fork Ranch, superficially interacting with much-loved
characters from the TV show and an assortment of extras from the animal
kingdom. You must avoid J.R. who would like to put a stop to Sue Ellen’s
plans. So far, so good.

Your travels ultimately lead you to the jungles around Playa Peligro, in South
America, where you overcome a series of obstacles by using various techniques,
but mostly by doping a friendly monkey with tobacco — a firm reminder that
we’re descending beneath even soap opera plot conflicts and sitting squarely
in an early-’80s text adventure game, with all of the internal logic-twisting
that entails.