CD-Rom -- ''Total Distortion''

"Total Distortion" Pop Rocket Inc. (800) 448-8822 Windows, Macintosh $59

"Total Distortion" is a total disappointment.

This new CD-ROM adventure game, aimed at teenagers with a taste for heavy-metal rock music, is overly complicated, dull and marred by numerous flaws.

Clever sound effects and elaborate computer-generated graphics don't compensate for audio that's out of sync with the lip movements of marionette-like characters or confusing keyboard controls that change from one section of the game to another.

If I'm right, and "Total Distortion" proves to be a monumental dud, it would mark a sad end to one of the biggest stories of multimedia hype in CD-ROM software.

The game marks the long-delayed debut of a San Francisco company called Pop Rocket Inc., formed by musician and software developer Joe Sparks. Sparks is one of two creators behind what was probably the first hit CD-ROM game, "Spaceship Warlock," released four years ago.

I loved "Spaceship Warlock," which boasted elegant graphics, clever dialogue, an interesting story line and clever puzzles. So I expected great things after Sparks decided to go off on his own.

Instead, Sparks became the CD-ROM industry's leading purveyor of "vaporware" - software that is promised, but never shipped. "Total Distortion," he first said, would arrive in late 1992. Then the date kept slipping, a few months at a time.

Perhaps "Total Distortion" should have stayed in the realm of vapor even longer.

The game opens with an unnecessarily convoluted premise, something about how mysterious aliens have deposited strange objects on Earth that allow people to visit other dimensions. These dimensions are created by the dreams of children and are, therefore, populated with rock musicians. You are put in the role of a music video producer who must travel to these dimensions, prepare videos from the material you find and sell them to producers on earth.

At the center of "Total Distortion" is a video-editing console; you assemble snippets of scenery, video images of rock musicians and music samples to create the videos. But you can work only with the canned material included on the CD-ROM.

The songs are crippled by banal lyrics, and the game itself is equally unoriginal. Despite the attempt to inject rock 'n' roll glitter with the video-editing machine, "Total Distortion" is basically a standard adventure game where you have to accumulate an inventory of objects and use them to overcome obstacles. To quote a favorite adolescent expression, "Been there. Done that."