I'm tempted not to review Countdown as a game, as its box, and manual, product claim it as an Interactive Movie of intrigue, espionage, and suspense. But, here's the thing: it's not really an interactive movie, despite it has some cutscenes and it is a relatively story-driven game for its time. Countdown is, first and foremost, an adventure game done with a terrible adventure game engine, perhaps one of the worst adventure engines of the era it was made.
Countdown is a game Access developed in between the first and second Tex Murphy games, both of which were built on this same clunky, cracking engine. So if you have played either, especially Martian Memorandum, you already know how technically terrible the engine the game uses. It's a far cry from the fluency of what Sierra and Lucasfilm had going on in their respective engines at the time.
But it's not only the engine that makes Countdown a chore to play, it's the game design as well. See, the game is designed around a real-time clock, you can see the time ticking away on the top corner of the game screen. Some events in the story are tied on a clock, especially the big middle finger is the possibility of failing to get to the final phase of the game if you've taken too long on the journey. Besides, despite trying to claim to be an interactive movie, Countdown is filled with terrible, illogical puzzles, many of which don't really make sense as puzzles or with the core idea of an interactive movie. So yes, Countdown isn't an interactive movie, it's a poorly designed adventure game, with most of the bad adventure tropes of the time: dying without warnings, moonlogic puzzles, and dead ends. You name a flaw, Countdown has it.
The game can be controlled with a mouse or keyboard. As a mouse-driven game, it's something of a clunky point-and-click game. With a keyboard, it's a clunkier point-and-click game but with arrow key controls for the character. Actually, generally, it's better to control the game by using both. mouse and keyboard, as it just makes some of the puzzles easier, as you can navigate with the keys, while you have an inventory item ready to be used on your mouse. This is actually the only traditional point-and-click game I can think of that benefits from using dual controls at the same time.
This multicontrol system comes in handy especially when you are in a timed situation and need to move and interact with the scene quickly. That doesn't make the game easy though. Especially at the beginning of the game, you are forced to save and restore the game constantly while plotting the escape from the mental asylum. You get a top-down view of hallways but can see only a small area at a time. The only way you can tell if there's a guard outside of your view is to step forward. If there's a guard there, you'll die, so save and restore are your friends here. If you die, restore, wait for a couple of seconds, and move forward again.
Also, some scenes are just easier to navigate with the keyboard, as the pathfinding with the mouse is nonexistent. Generally, though, that matters little, as you can interact in many scenes while staying put. Then again, in some scenes, you have to, for some reason, move close to the items you want to use or take. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for this, except for the game developers deciding that way from time to time. You know, just to shuffle the deck for the hell of it.
By all counts, Countdown is a terribly designed game. It's flawed to the core and the gameplay is more often annoying than it's entertaining. I can't recommend it to anyone, really. There's not even a historical reason for playing it, as it doesn't do anything extraordinary you should personally experience. If you do want to give it a spin, I do recommend a walkthrough. That said, it does have something of an interesting story, revolving around amnesia and a CIA operative trying to stop a threat he only has small glimpses of in his memories. In many ways, Countdown could be a solid target for a remake, with an expanded story and more focus on the actual interactive movie idea Access was trying to sell the game as.
Mason Powers wakes up in a dirty room of a Turkish asylum, which he soon learns is called the Sanctuary, a place, where the CIA sends their operatives who have become a liability. Powers also finds out he is scheduled for a lobotomy. After getting out of his cell, he learns that he was sent there for the murder of his colleague, McBain. This triggers memories of an assassin wearing a mask shooting McBain while Powers jumped through a window to escape, only to end up getting hit by a car. After that, he was transferred to Sanctuary.
The trail takes Powers all over Europe until he finally finds out what is going on. There's going to be a terrorist attack against the president of the USA when he attends a summit in Paris. An assassin called Scorpio is planning to detonate a bomb in the area, taking the president and whoever is unlucky enough to live near the area.
As far as spy thriller stories go, Countdown has a pretty decent premise going on. It's just that the execution of the game is terribly lacking. As I said, it could serve as a solid base for a remake that would be a more proper interactive movie. Or even a better-designed adventure game for the matter.
If you for some reason want to play Countdown yourself, it's still sold in GOG. But I'd really recommend checking out a full playthrough of it from YouTube, it's less hassle that way.
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