Much more enjoyable than Amazon : Guardians of Eden, even though it predates it by a couple of years. All fairly playable, although I did use a walkthrough to keep it moving along, and it has a couple of awful pixel-punching puzzles which were par for the time. I would have given it 4 or 5 stars if it were not for the fact that you can run out of time playing the overall game (game over) and also you can run out of cash (also game over). Whoever thought this type of mechanic was a good idea needs sending to the Sanctuary and giving a good thrashing. I haven't finished the game because I ran out of cash. I think it was because I gave too large a bribe very early on, so I'm not going all the way back there. To not provide some recourse to get more cash (and I wouldn't mind, say, having to wait a day to build up some cash) is just unforgivable, even by the standards of the day.
Oh dear. I am a massive Tex Murphy fan and just thought I'd give this a whirl out of nostalgia for Access Software. It has some charm and fun, but my God, it's hard work. I can forgive a lot, given that it was in the formative years of PC gaming, when no-one really knew what they were doing in terms of gameplay. Obviously, to their credit, they were trailblazing and learned very quickly from the mistakes made in this game. What broke it for me is the same problem that Martian Memorandum has (although I played through the latter the first time without issue). That is, if you fail to collect something (cigarettes in the case of Amazon), there is NO WAY to progress when you need to use it. The only recourse is to return to a saved game, which would be fine if you only had to go back and replay a fairly short sequence. In this case, you have to go back to Chapter 4 (assuming you have a saved game) from Chapter 8. adventuregamers.com have a very well balanced review of the game, so check that out as well.
Ok this isn't Half Life. You run around shooting demons to a thumping heavy metal track. There is arguably less plot than Doom. But I played it through, and I enjoyed it enough to buy Painkiller 2 (which IS worth avoiding). So for a shot of brainless mayhem, at this price it's got to be worth a punt of anybody's money.
I feel I have to put some balance against the overwhelmingly positive reviews this game has received. Many of them seem to be based on playing the original game when youngsters, so understandably there is an element of rose-tinted spectacles about them. This game is well put together, and the dialogue choices and situations are entertaining enough. I have to say I gave up on the game after the outer circle of Atlantis (maybe 90% of the way through), for the following reasons: 1) Some of the puzzles are illogical, for which there is no excuse. Towards the end I found myself playing the game in parallel with having the UHS hint system open in order to make reasonable progress. 2) Items that are no longer required or useful are left in the inventory. This would not be a problem if there were logical actions to take (see 1), but they just serve to confuse. 3) Visual cues are very poor. When you're trying to steer the sub into the entrance to Atlantis (which is quite tricky using the sub. controls, but perfectly do-able), there is no indication at all where the actual entrance is, so you could be wasting hours trying to drive the thing into the wrong place. 4) There are at least 2 situations where, when you leave a scene, Indy automatically picks up the sun/moon/world stones which are required later in the game. This gives you a very strong cue that you will not be allowed to leave them behind if you need them (a positive aspect of the game design). However, after you get off the submarine and use them to open the door, you have to manually pick them up. I didn't, and ended up at the Canal in Atlantis without the stones, and I needed them to progress. This is just very poor game design. It wouldn't have been so bad if you knew you had to pick them up every time, rather than them previously being picked up for you. By this point I was done with the game. So this is definitely worth a whirl, but don't be misled by the overly-glowing reviews.
I bought this for the old N64 and my abiding memory is of motion sickness - needless to say, I didn't get very far with it.
I really can't understand the glowing reviews (both here and elsewhere) of this game. It has many memorable qualities such as the artwork and some good ideas, but they are stretched way too thinly with the result that the game is simply boring. I really did try to push on with it but after several returns to it I decided to stop banging my head against the wall. It just isn't worth the investment in time. Like some Swedish films - terribly worthy but would you really spend your time watching it. Just not enjoyable, sorry (and I am an adventure game fan).
