I was enjoying this game on easy setting, but there was a bug that made it impossible for me to finish a quest necessary to advance the plot. So this made me feel unhappy about the game. If you do play, please play on easy setting. That way the game is fun and not frustrating. I enjoyed reading the extensive dialogue and hunting down heretics. It was fun to get promoted within the Inquisition. The story was very interesting, centering on heretics trying to bring about the end of the world and the main character is the only one who can stop them. One of the most annoying bugs was that the character would freeze sometimes for 3 or 4 seconds. It doesn't sound like much, but the enemies can do a lot of damage if they catch up to you and hit you a bunch in that time. This game was worth the $4 I paid for it on sale, but would not recommend it at full price due to the bugs.
Gemini Rue is a point-and-click adventure game. The style is very classic and reminds me of some of the great adventure games from the 90s. You move through environments, interact with hotspots, talk with characters, pick up inventory items, and so on. There is a little bit of searching a computer database, which I found very fun and interesting. The premise of one-half of the story is that you play a former assassin who is on a mission to find his missing brother. The premise of the other half of the story is that you play a prisoner in a very futuristic prison. I should mention that the backdrop for the story is an extraterrestrial planetary system sometime in the future. The focus of the story switches back and forth regularly between these halves. There is a certain portion of the story where you may freely choose which half to work on. This is helpful in case you get stuck or bored in one half. The graphics are poor but very functional. It will no longer matter to you after the very beginning. The story is superb, probably one of the best stories I've ever played in a point-and-click. The puzzles are pretty easy, although there are a few stumpers. The worst part of the game is the action sequences involving gunfire. You have to use the keyboard to time gunshots and to avoid your opponent's gunshots. Even on easy difficulty, I found these segments far too difficult. I died over and over and over again and it was a very frustrating experience!! I don't believe this sort of thing belongs in a point-and-click adventure game, which should test your mind, not your reflexes. One last piece of advice... You will at one point gain access to a storage cupboard. Do not close it again, as you will not be able to reopen it thus creating an unwinnable situation. That was the only unwinnable situation I encountered in this game though, which is pretty good on comparison with the Sierra adventures, for example.
This is a sci-fi point-and-click adventure game. The atmosphere created by the storytelling and especially the Oracle computer where you can look up basically everything is really well done. The sci-fi dystopic world of the Omnibrain is immersive and obviously a lot of effort went into perfecting it. Also the graphics are very good, even though this game was created a long time ago. The colors are beautiful and functional. There are several cutscenes with better graphics as well. I would say the interface is a little obnoxious, but not as bad as other reviewers mentioned. Right-clicking will instantly list all of the saves or all of the encyclopedia entries. Double-clicking (left and right) skips cutscenes. It is hard to get past the item interface. It takes an awful long time, and I guess this was meant to discourage trial and error. I would say the difficulty and puzzles are obnoxious. This was meant to sell copies of the walkthrough which were originally probably a moneymaker for this company. You are lucky gog provides the walkthrough with the game. I also like using UHS hints. Many of the puzzles are very long and have a complex series of components to the solution. I could get some of the pieces together, but could rarely come up with the whole solution without hints. Overall the game had a strong sense of frustration rather than fun.
The Longest Journey is probably the epitome of the classic point-and-click adventure game. Everything seems to go well and in just the right way. The puzzles are mostly fair and doable. The graphics are very good. The story is that of April Ryan who is an art student in the future. She discovers the ability to travel between dimensions and must do so to fulfill her adventure and her destiny. There is a great mythology within one of the dimensions that adds a lot of depth to that part of the story. This game has elements of science fiction as well as fantasy. Probably one of my favourite parts of the game is breaking into and exploring a castle that is hovering in mid-air.
