Days Have Passed...

Posted on 2010-06-16 19:37:18 by rob.liefeld:

...and this is still the very first review of this game on GOG.
To be honest, I didn't even realized, I played this game, until I cycled through the screenshots.
So here's the first impression: not very memorable.
Unfortunately, this game falls short on expectations at almost every aspect,
thus becomes mediocre, and forgettable, despite it's potential.
Plot:
Yes, it is basedread more on Verne's famous story. It has spawned several adaptations,
including a movie, and tv series also. Too bad, they always keep changing the enjoyable bits
into very generic elements. Plus, the lack of proper storytelling is just painful.
The whole game starts off with a copter-crash (so to say), and we start as... Who? Why?
What are we doing here? The story develops way too slowly, and while it gets
more and more interesting towards the end, you often find yourself running around doing obscure tasks, for no apparent reason.
Graphics:
Very badly dated by todays standards. Back in 2003, I guess it seemed a little more acceptable.
It's the same thing as "Syberia", or "The Longest Journey" (blocky, 3d figurine movin through prerendered environments), only it came out a bit later. It worths mentioning, that even today, there are games with very similar engines behind them, so that alone wouldn't be a bad thing. The problem is, that there IS Syberia and The Longest Journey out there, and they look far more detailed, imaginative, and exotic. It doesn" look bad, just uninteresting. Thankfully, the scenery is very varied, so while it's never that interesting, it never gets that boring either.
Sound:
It works fine, I guess. the voices are typical, but good, and I was quite fond of the music as well.
Gameplay:
Just your typical Point'n'Click adventure. Only with too much pixel-hunting...
You run into obstacle. Protagonist cannot go around it. You remove obstacle, with simple inventory puzzle. Now she doesn't want to go through. You go around the map several times, than finally she says something totally irrelevant about where she is, and NOW you can go through. Many-many times, you'll find yourself clicking furiously all around the screen, searching for THAT one magical spot, maybe, that'll help you get through.
Really, I cannot say anything more specific about it, this game's just not that interesting.
All in all, a very obscure game, only adventure completists should play. And even they should be prepared for
getting stuck again and again, and not necessarily because of the puzzles.
This game is one of the weaker adventures on this site, so if you haven't played Sanitarium, Longest Journey, Syberia, or even Amerzone,
You should try those first.