A K IS K K N T F.R TAINMKNT sur i n AKt, Playing Games— Wiln a Difference A new generation of entertainment software You slowly awaken to find yourself in a grimy toilet stall You have no idea how you got there, or even what your name i»-~all you know is that your arm stings because someone i who? you? who onr you?> drugged you with a hypodermic But. more impor tant. there's a dead guy upstairs bleeding all over his desk, and if you don’t move quickly—wait, there’s the wail of sirens— you’ll be arrested for murder It’s only a game, but whut a game Ray mond Chandler himself might have ad mired Deja Vu: A Nightmare Comes True! in which you must solve the murder to save your skin. Deja Vu (SUndacape. Inc. 949.96) is part of a new generation of entertain ment software that combines running com mentary with strikingly rich pictures— from grisly murder scenes to airy man sions—and vivid sound effects, like scream ing sirens or the smack of fist against jaw And. best of all, you don’t have to be a computer wizard to play—operating these games is so easy that the computer seems to disappear. From the moment you load a disc into the drive, the best of today ’a games ■re ready to do your bidding, whether tapped on a keyboard or clicked with a "mouse." That is, until you make a mistake that ends your guming session with a sum mary •“YOU HAVE DIED***. Many believe that, as programming be con i-s more sophisticated and prices drop, sol' are will challenge VCR's for home ent - rtain ment ti me." A VCR is a great one medium," says Mindscape, Inc., presi de n und CEO Roger Buoy. But many p< pie want to participate, he adds. "They di t want a one-way, kind of comatose way ol eing entertuined or educated.” ntertainment software began with ar c r games like Pong, which captured a g iTation of glussy-eyed gamesters. But as ! idless thrills wore thin, gamersdemand 1 more advanced fare to play on their own uputera. They moved on to the broad i, which puts the player in contact with an un known computer a la the movie "War Games." The time is now; the setting a multinational's futuristic computer; the player must figure out how to hack his way in to save the world from Machiavellian Silicon stoutMng: Two views of Deja Vu captains of industry who seem willing to wreck the planet in order to contol it. Then there is Alter Ego (Activision, Inc. $50-$60) which dares you to describe it. In some ways it resembles fantasy role-play ing games like Wizardry, in which the play er constructs a character from a list of attributes and then goes off to seek dun geon-and-dragonish thrills. But in Alter Ego that character in the making is plain Microchip*. macro tun: Programs that please without being one way’or comatose’