Babylon 5 Entertainment Utility

Got a hankering for B5? Press any key...

• Babylon 5 Entertainment Utility
• Sound Source Interactive
• Windows CD-ROM
• $29.95

inally there's a way to bring Babylon 5 to a PC computer. The Babylon 5 Entertainment Utility includes a screen saver module to provide relief from work, a set of 30 wallpaper images to dress up the desktop, and a utility that links sounds from the show to various Windows functions. Once installed, it turns PCs into a fountain of Babylon 5 action.

The wallpaper images are stills from the episodes and include various shots of the B5 station itself, its interior, other spacecraft and planets. Most of the sounds are beeps and buzzes from various B5 machines, such as the beep of the hand communicators. There are also samples of music by Christopher Franke -- B5's resident composer -- and some laser blasts. A control panel allows users to decide what sound is played when, or to exclude particular applications from making noises. Users can also program up to five different keystrokes to fire off a sound just for the heck of it.

While the above features are mainly Windows dressing, the screen saver is what makes the computer come to life. It contains more than 100 images in four categories: Personnel, Ships, Battles and Galactic Data. The first category is simply pictures of the show's central characters along with "vital" statistics like eye and skin color. The other three often include 5- to 10-second movies of even more space ships flying around and shooting each other.

Overall the program is easy to use, although installing it proved to be a bit troublesome, and the screen saver had to be coaxed into finding its files. Once that was done, though, everything behaved well. Users are given plenty of control over the software, which is nicely customizable. For instance, any of the screen saver categories can be excluded, so that only certain types of pictures or movies will show.

And what great pictures and movies. B5 lovers will revel in the ability to watch some of the best footage from the show, such as the StarFury launch sequence, over and over, soaking up details that often whiz by on television. Having a Vorlon transport as wallpaper also allows painstaking scrutiny. Best of all, the movies can be tied to a keystroke as well, so that when mid-week B5 withdrawal is at its height, the touch of a button brings up all the action and drama.

Disappointingly, there is no B5 Desktop theme included for Windows 95 users. Dragging old files to a little jump gate icon, complete with the appropriate sound, would be a lot of fun. -- Brooks

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