Trouble is afoot in the once peaceful land of Turnvale. Skori warriors (vicious mercenaries under the control of the mysterious Temptress) have arrived. But who is the Temptress, and more importantly, where is she?
From the creators of the Broken Sword series, Revolution Software, comes the first i...
Trouble is afoot in the once peaceful land of Turnvale. Skori warriors (vicious mercenaries under the control of the mysterious Temptress) have arrived. But who is the Temptress, and more importantly, where is she?
From the creators of the Broken Sword series, Revolution Software, comes the first in a series of 'Virtual Theater' adventure game.
Non-playable characters will walk around and perform different actions regardless of your interaction with them. There is a variety of options and commands, including the possibility of interaction with a supporting character, whom you can give orders in order to solve some of the game's puzzles.
Lure of the Temptress has an intuitive point and click system. Everything you need to do (movie, talk, search and fight) is controlled via the mouse and its two buttons. It's all you need to explore a large and complex game world with over 60 screens to explore... more than 25 intriguing characters to interact with... and of course, Selena - the Temptress.
A captivating story set in grim, medieval times
The old-school feel of a classic adventure game
Many interesting characters that move about freely and live out their own lives, thanks to the Virtual Theatre system
I remember having this years ago on my atari st it was good then and i enjoyed it a lot. Although as some have said the game engine in it was a little frustrating at times, when people bump into you all the time and the story narrative gets interrupted quite a bit sometimes, but otherwise this is a great adventure game. The developers who made this are revolution who also done the highly acclaimed broken sword series so this is were they started. Great.
Life is good for Diermot. Everything is at peace and while the king visited his village he even ends up making some cash helping out. News soon arrives of a woman called Selena who has rallied a horde of Skorl, inhuman monsters, to do her bidding and has taken over the town of Turnvale. While everyone rushes off to help Diermot is caught up in the excitement and ends up riding with them. Things turn out for the worse though and after being knocked unconscious he wakes up trapped in the Turnvale dungeon. Now Diermot must save his own arse and try to beat the forces of evil as well.
Since this is Revolution’s first foray in the Point & Click genre I was actually surprised by how much they actually got right. Graphics are detailed and show some imagination. Unfortunately you are mostly confined to the town and a few surrounding areas so there isn’t that much variety. You’ll also soon tire of the place since you spend most of the game just wandering around looking for the people so you can ask them something. Having the characters in the game move around certainly enhances the realism but chasing down people soon becomes tedious and is a poor substitute for having real puzzles. The game has a few animated scenes to further the story and these although not very long are nicely done and look really good. The audio doesn’t fare very well and apart from some uninspiring tunes and barely existent sound effects you’ll hardly notice it.
Gameplay is pretty straightforward point & click fare but this time there’s no lists of verbs to choose from at the bottom of your screen. Instead left clicking on something will examine it while a right click will bring up a list of available actions. A new feature is the addition of a sidekick that tags along and can help you out in certain situations. This feature is quite underused though and for the most part you can ignore your companion. Puzzles are pretty straightforward and like I said the game mostly involves a lot of walking around and talking to people. The game also has a few buggy areas and I experienced at least one fatal crash. I had to restart at one point after a vital item just disappeared. Woe to those who doesn’t notice this and keep on struggling on.
In the end Lure Of The Temptress was a interesting game to play through once but didn’t really grab my attention. The storyline is pretty straightforward and there’s no real plot twists to keep you guessing. If you take away all the wandering around parts the game isn’t that long either and with some patience you’ll finish it in no time. It’s not bad for a first attempt and well worth checking out. The fact that it is available for free on GOG makes it a no brainer.
We all know who the big names in the adventure games history are. First we have Ron ‘Monkey Island’ Gilbert and his mischievously hilarious and legendary pirate saga, and Roberta Williams’ majestic King’s Bounty series. Then come all the other Lucas Arts’ classics apart from Monkey Island, games like Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, all being highly influential, enormously popular titles, part of the genre’s finest.
But there are always those, destined to stay behind the shadow of the Great Ones. Games like Revolution’s Broken Sword series, not lacking anything in quality compared to the competition, but still not getting the same mainstream success.
And then there are the hidden gems. Like Lure of the Temptress.
Revolution’s first game plays an important part in the shaping of the adventure games genre mostly because of one of its aspects – its innovative way of treating NPCs(non-player characters) for the time it was released(1992). The computer controlled characters, unlike in all the previously released point-and-click quests, act as if they are actually living their lives, walking around and talking to each other. Sounds good on paper, but the truth is it actually doesn’t work as good in game.
You will find yourself spending minutes just walking around the streets of the fictional village of Turnvale, looking for a blacksmith that has gone who-knows-where. It adds to the authentic experience of the game with the different characters not waiting for you in one place just to talk to them, but seemingly being alive, but in the same time it doesn’t really add much to the gameplay. Pointless clicking from screen to screen looking for someone isn’t exactly entertainment.
The other issue with the system is not as annoying, but can prove to be very distracting. Example: you are making a meaningful conversation with a drunk about the fate of a girl that has disappeared from the village, and your rich dialogue gets constantly interrupted by your under-aged companion’s attempts to get a beer from the inn keeper. Nevertheless, the whole thing has its good sides. On a number of occasions you will find yourself just standing in one place and observing the hilarious conversations made between the NPCs. Or the way some of the puzzles are meant to be solved – by giving orders to other characters.
Apart from the interesting integrated NPCs system, there isn’t much about the game. The quests are fairly typical and not very challenging to solve, there is little to no music accompanying you throughout the game, and the plot is more or less entertaining.
Lure of the Temptress probably won’t be as thrilling for first-timers in the genre as a Monkey Island game would be, but still it has its pluses: it’s short, it has all the quest basics in it, and most importantly, it’s free.
I remember playing this game when it was first released and how innovative it was for it's time. Other games have built on it's foundations, which may be why some aspects of it don't resonante with everyone.
It's a good puzzle game - progression is logical even if difficult from a modern perspective.
I'm not sure what people expect from a game that was made to fit on few 1.44MB floppy disks. I'd love to see a remake of the game to flesh out the world and story, but it still has a lot to show within the confines of the technology at the time it was made.
What comes to your mind when you hear the title? Mystery, fatal attraction... all that stuff. Well, you'll be glad to know that there is NONE of that here.
This is what happens when you start off with a good idea and realize that you have no clue how to implement it. All this game has to offer is a bunch of mini fetch quests with characters who act as stumbling blocks rather than any type of help. While the fact that you can have expanded dialogue options like offering a bribe to people for information or gaining their trust through a third party is interesting, this aspect is used exactly once in the entire game. Why have a major option like that if you are going to use it ONCE?
The pathfinding is BAD.
There is no general sense of direction other than "Selena bad. Kill Selena." This is not helped by the fact that important characters run around like rodents all over the map in semipredictable patterns and occasionally get stuck between screens, thereby becoming inaccessible. This can become frustrating when you are looking for someone to hand in a quest item or whatever. In that sense, fetchquests have SUB-fetchquests. SOUNDS GREAT HUH?
The dialogue system between NPCs is HORRENDOUS.
The game's story does not go anywhere, really. When it ends, it just halts. Just stops, like that. You get introduced to a conspiracy late in the game, but really, it's just because the game makers had no idea how to step up a final showdown. You get dropped off at the bad guy's place and fool around for few minutes or so then BAM. Game ends. No bad guy speech. No close encounter. Nothing, You get a screen of text chronicling the end of the story. THE END.
Really, this looks like a college level game design project. Even under lenient circumstances such as that, I would give a B-.
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