I know they just re-mastered this again, and I'm about to play that incarnation. But I have to say this one is extremely fun as well. As we're fans of good, yet "old" games, I'm sure you too understand the importance of good story writing, and it's endurance through the years in spite of having "outdated" graphics (which, incidentally, I don't mind at all). If you like true Adventure games, please give this (and frankly all of the Frogwares Sherlock Holmes games) a try.
I'm admittedly not that into the Vampire lore thing, but even still this game is fantastic. Great puzzles, great story. Great Game.
I must say, there's something about this game that is unbelievably fun. It may be old, it may have extremely dated graphics, but the devs really knew what they were doing with the game structure. I can't explain it, but it's just... perfect. I've played a decent number of sims in my life, and I just keep coming back to this one. I had owned it a few times in the past before it before it popped up on GOG, and on just the GOG installation I've logged well over 100 hours of gameplay. If you follow the timeline, the game does a fantastic job of easing you into the management tasks, starting with almost primitive villages in the pre-Dynastic period and continuing on with the evolution of cities and civilization through history, adding things like more advanced entertainment, education and municipal services in a way that's easy to get the hang of. Otherwise, if you prefer you can sort of "free play" and pick specific missions at specific time periods. Apparently you can even edit missions, but honestly I never tried. The music is great. The history lessons are great, and don't feel like a stuffy, boring history class. It's just info you pick up as you play. If you get it, take a minute to read the manual (PDF in the install folder) to get some really great guidance, keyboard controls, etc. Simulation at its finest.
I have played all of the Sherlock Holmes games from Frogwares, save for the Devil's Daughter (up next). This one absolutely proved to be my favorite so far, as well as now being one of my all time, top Adventure games. This has massive replay value, and I intend to do so regularly. For those of you who have played any of the other Homes games, you will find a lot of changes in mechanics and setup - which at first I found very alarming and made me quite skeptical, but I quickly not only adapted but have now grown to favor this approach over the previous games. The gameplay is far more intuitive and user friendly this way. Thankfully the unwritten Adventure Game rule holds fast where you can't *really* make any mistakes or "die" or lose 3 hours of progress from one faulty step. The most substantial change is the fact that in this game, you get to work multiple cases as opposed to the one huge epic quest line approach - which I did like in the previous games, but this collection of cases makes the overall experience feel much more robust and engaging. The graphics are quite nice, and I must give a special nod to the sound team for creating exceptionally good atmosphere with their fully immersive and quite convincing surround sound. There was actually one night where I had to keep taking off my headphones because I thought there was sounds in the room, which really says something. My only minor critiques are that there was not more Toby (I won't say who that is lest I spoil things). Frogwares, I would absolutely adore a game that was centered solely around the partnership of Toby & Holmes. Seriously. Being Toby is truly fun and delightful. I did kind of miss being able to walk around the few blocks of the Baker Street neighborhood, but it's hardly a deal breaker. Overall, this has very good graphics, excellent atmosphere, great stories, and is absolutely worth every penny. Thank you Frogwares! Please keep doing this series.
As others have pointed out, Dracula 3 - Path of the Dragon is a positively fantastic adventure game. I would fully rate that 4.5 if not maybe 5 stars; but since this package is the whole trilogy, I had to go with 4 stars. I actually started with Dracula 3 as it was on sale many years ago at a games & books shop. I am a huge adventure game fan, but not super in to the whole vampire lore thing... but something about Path of the Dragon really caught my attention and I said "what the heck, why not," and I'm glad I did. With that being said, the other two games are certainly not bad by any means, but for me were only played to get the whole story. I played through titles 1 & 2 once each. Path of the Dragon, on the other hand, is so brilliant that I replay it almost annually. The music, the characters, and the story are all fantastic with nice graphics that may not be cutting edge, but do an excellent job of setting the eerie atmosphere. The puzzles in the trilogy are quite good, but especially so in 3 - just challenging enough to keep you interested and moderately stymied, but not so frustrating that you want to chuck the whole game. There is also a lot of history referenced in 3 about the events leading up to World War II and some of the societal causes and contributing factors. For a player like me, a good dash of history makes any game all the better. Get this. As my fellow adventure game fans and even just fans of these great old games can attest, what makes a game good is the story and gameplay. The rest is just the icing on the cake: nice, but not the true substance.
This game is incredibly addictive. No, it doesn't matter that it's "old" - the devs at Bullfrog got the algorithms for simulations down cold. I first played this about 15 years ago (so I guess it was already kind of old at that point!), was completely obsessed with it, and then life went on and honestly it got filed away in my distant memories. As soon as I saw GOG had it, I bought it immediately. I didn't even have to think about. And it turns out, it's still just as much fun to play and just as addictive. Just be careful - before you know it, 6 hours have gone by. I would love to see it remastered though. A quick synopsis: you are running a hospital in an administrative / director role. You decide what rooms you should have (GP, Diagnosis, Clinics, Ward, etc.), the blueprints, whether you want extra items for atmosphere, staffing, and more. For the most part, the staff are pretty independent - you just have to have enough, which is very nice b/c in some ways your hospital runs itself. The only drawback: view angle is completely fixed, so you really want to plan rooms for certain orientations to maximize efficiency - but the learning curve is pretty gentle. TIPS: -Adjust your game speed *immediately*. The "normal" speed is too fast until you are totally built, staffed, and running properly. Bring mouse to the top of the screen and the menu bar will pop up. You may have to hold your mouse button down while you make your way to your selection. - Try to plan very carefully. Rooms can be edited, but have to be vacated before you can edit. Your hospital will get busy quickly. - Put max windows in rooms - no charge. -When building, you *can* sell back items. Pick up the item and go back into the purchase screen, then adjust quantities. - Always put bins in each room or your hospital will be a trash dump. - You only need one receptionist. They're basically robots. -Watch those handymen! You can adjust their priorities (Trash, Maintenance, Plants). Happy simulating!
