A.D. 2044 (+Sołtys i Skaut Kwatermaster)

A.D. 2044 is one of those collect-a-thon, pixel-hunting, brute force puzzle solving games, and that about says it all. You can't freely roam across the levels, instead you move from screen to screen. And in order to solve a puzzle you'll need to search each room for that one screen you missed - the one that you can only reach by clicking a hotspot a few pixels big. And once you reach those hidden areas in a level, you'll find hidden items - items you couldn't see were there in any other screen. And don't expect items to be located in a logical way - they're just thrown around. And don't expect using items to be easy - early on it's obvious what you need to do, but you'll have a hard time finding out how to do it. This game turns something as simple as lighting a cigarette into a drawn out process. Maybe if the puzzles were logical, it'd be bearable - after all, this game has a decent enough interface and an interesting look to it, but puzzles jump between logical, illogical, stupid, and ones you'd need a Phd to solve. At times you need to use the exact key to open a drawer, and another time you use brute force. It becomes even more annoying seeing as you never discard items - items you used to solve a puzzle remain in your inventory, making the game even more confusing. Funnily enough, it seems like the game's creators knew that, so from time to time when you enter a new room the main character tells you exactly what to do. He doesn't even let you try to solve it for yourselves - "I'll need a gas mask", "dismantle this", "don't forget to look under the closet", etc. But what really threw me off about this game is its weird sexuality & juvenile humor. It seems you're surrounded by scantily clad female robots, which you can forcefully kiss. At first you do it to solve a puzzle, and later on just because it worked the first time around. It seems your kiss can make female robots collapse. I tried my best, failed, used a walkthrough and eventually gave up. It's bad.

... guilty pleasure, and I must say that A.D. 2044 is not so bad. I mean, if you don't actually enjoy trying even the most ridiculous ways to solve puzzles, wasting your time on "pixel hunting", and getting annoyed everytime you your action is different than intended because of bad controls, then you should avoid A.D. 2044 at all cost. The game aged really bad, the humour is very dull, and I feel like the older amiga version of the game, without fancy and futuristic 3D visuals, is actually more fun to play. Anyway, if you managed to secure your copy of game for free, and you enjoy these kind of weird, illogical, but also atmospheric click & point games, give it a try. Otherwise you might want to wait for a sale, because paying the full price for it would be silly.

Well... The game is based on one of the greatest Polish comedy movies but the humor in this movie was very specific. So, if you're not a Pole and you've never seen this movie ("Seksmisja") then you won't understand the game and the story.

There are genuine cool ideas in this game and since it's from '96 the full 3D rotation and stuff were kind of newish and awesome at the time. So all is great, right? No. In fact nothing is great with this game. So much wasted potential that I don't even want to write a list or create a proper review for this game as it doesn't deserve it. Nor the purchase (sorry!). So I will tell about the terrible voice acting (which is nice digitalized but terribly, truly terribly spoken by probably one of the devs) and the extreme pixel hunting gameplay where you have to literally sweep every single square millimeter in order to find stuff illogically hidden. The "puzzles" are also terrible. Not "Brain Busting Puzzles" but annoying, illogical obstacles that you have no idea how to resolve at first. The list could go on but I just don't want to.

Tak bardzo pragnąłem zagrać w tą grę ponownie. Dzięki GOG za umożliwienie mi tego ;-)