Psychonauts

Originally posted at GameBoomers:

What is it?

We've had to wait seven years for Tim Schafer to create a new game, and this one went via Microsoft for a while, so no wondering about the delay then. (Can anybody see a release date for Longhorn yet?) But now, Majesco have released Double Fine Production's new opus.

Well, it's a biggy! It's been hyped by some, especially those who remember the early Monkey Island games, Grim Fandango (one of my personal favourites) and Tim Schafer's other games. It's new; it's flashy; it's weird; it's manic; it's Psychonauts! For the hard of hearing, please oblige me by imagining big flashy graphics around the name.

This game is a little off the beaten track for 'Boomers, I think. It's an adventure, in that there's a lot of plot, plenty of puzzles and loads of exploring. However, there's lots of action – running, jumping, punching, blasting and flying. Not to mention the RPG element of character development. This is what an action-adventure hybrid should be like, in my (not very, I guess) humble opinion.

Is there a plot?

Yes, in contrast to many action games I've come across, there most certainly is. Razputin has run away from his family, who're Circus acrobats, to the Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp with one aim in mind; to become a Psychonaut. A full-blown psychic warrior and secret agent, just like his heroes, Sasha Nein and Milla Vodello, who just happen to be trainers at the Summer Camp.

Raz has to learn all the psychic skills on offer, venture into some of the strangest minds in the psycho-verse, do battle with everything from confusing rats, through catfish, lungfish and censors, all the way up to mad butchers and evil, fire-juggling, acrobats. All the while learning new skills to over come some of the strangest puzzles I've ever come across. For example, how on earth do you persuade painting dogs to overcome their fear of a raging bull to advertise the next fight of a completely self-centred matador? Look out for the wrestlers – they bite!

I liked the story in Psychonauts – somehow it manages to stay quite logical and 'together', despite the twists and turns of the game play, and the non-linear way in which you can visit the different places in the game. Some of the plot elements were predictable, but, like all good short stories (let's not pretend this is War and Peace, now shall we), there's a decent twist at the end.
How do you play?

Obviously, this is not a game that's suited to a point-n-click user interface. Okay, so we've alienated a large chunk of the 'Boomers audience, but wait, there's more. This game is has a mere 13 button controls, not to mention that the camera is controlled by the mouse – no wonder Majesco/Double Fine recommend a game-pad. The default controls have you using your left hand for movement and two selectable powers, plus jumping, 'psi-floating', and other controls for interacting with objects and people. Then your right hand is on the mouse controlling the camera (to which Raz's movement is relative – 'forward' is in the direction the camera is pointing, 'left' towards screen left, and so on) and punching and the third selectable power, on the right mouse-button.

The inventory and skills list are accessed via the '[' and ']' keys, but within those areas, individual items are selected using the direction keys, or a pair of direction keys in a compass-like fashion. Not the most immediately obvious inventory system, but it works.

With there being 8 different powers and only three buttons to activate them (by default, 'Q', 'E' and 'right click'), some of the puzzles require you to think carefully about which powers you want available to you on short notice.

Notable Features

There's lots of psi-powers, lots of items to find (including a scavenger hunt sub-plot), brains to recover (and people to re-brain), psi-cards and markers to achieve – some hidden in some remarkably obscure places, and in all the minds there are figments – translucent icons representing themes from the character of the mind you're in, mental baggage and safes. Finding figments and psi-cards is essential to the development of Raz's powers, whereas finding baggage and safes just fill in back-story on the various characters and add to the overall experience.

The worlds are weird, wild, wacky and very colourful. They're detailed and fun places to play in. When you're not dodging axe-wielding butchers, fiery spiked juggling clubs, beefy censors and Dr Loboto that is!

Added to this mix of graphical excellence is a sound track of enormous extent. This game comes on 5 CDs and installs to take 3.6GB – the sound effect archives take up amost 1GB of that. And I'm not including the cutscene files in that either, because they take another 1.5GB on their own! You might expect, with such a massive amount of data that there's been some mix up, and a lot of duplication, but no, as far as I can tell (in the several weeks it has taken me to play this game), there is very little duplication of resources. This game is huge! Not only that, but it has a remarkable level of replayability – well there's another point in it's favour over almost any other adventure game!

Any other novelties?

I think this entire game review should really be in this section! It is clear that Double Fine & Majesco have put a great deal of imagination and creative effort into this game, and it is replete with ideas and challenges. Even the platforming elements of the game don't seem like something from the 80s (when platform games started), but then, perhaps that's down to the perspective warps and gravity games that they've played. Ah, the benefits of playing a game in a world as warped as Tim Schafer's mind!

Another novelty for me is to find that, without exception, the voice acting is exceptional! And there are some little gems of performances by Armin Shimerman (Quark, from Star Trek Deep Space 9) and Dwight Shultz (Murdock, from the A-Team). See if you can spot who they're voicing.

Oddities

There were a few occasions when the game crashed to the desktop, despite me having installed the second patch available from psychonauts.com, but because of the frequent auto-saves the game makes (every time a 'loading' screen appears), I lost very little progress.

The most confusing thing for me was realising when Raz was in the 'real' world, and when he was in the mental world of someone's mind. Sometimes the 'real' world is sufficiently odd as to be confused with the truly weird places in some of the character's minds. Just wait until you see the world of the Milkman Conspiracy!! That's got to be the most warped and wonderfully conceived game worlds I've ever seen.

The other oddity, for me, is the 'Teen' rating the game has been give. Perhaps the game ratings people think it's not appropriate for under 13's to consider the insides of their own minds? On the other hand, some of the story ideas are quite nightmare-ish. Including the giant bunny-chasing butcher with a pair of bloody cleavers. Okay, so maybe I was wrong... 'Teen' is the appropriate rating, though in reality some under 13's will be fine with this game, and neither of my girls has had any Psychonauts-induced nightmares despite watching me play much of the game, and playing the early parts of the game themselves.

Conclusions

I have to admit it, Psychonauts is a pretty amazing game. It has big worlds, fun game play, a story that beats many traditional adventure games, very good pacing, great graphics, sound, voice acting, and almost flawless performance. Best of all, it has kept me occupied for hours, not just battling with frustration over my inability to perform some combination of obtuse moves, but with enjoying the challenges, and wanting to find out what happens to Razputin and his friends.

If you've ever wanted to blast things, set things on fire, throw things, levitate, see through other people's eyes, be invisible, confuse your enemies, and deflect energy attacks, then this game is for you.

Well, Tim, it seems that adventure games ain't dead, you just helped them move to another level!

Grade: A

What do you need to play it?

Minimum Requirements

• Windows 98 SE/2000/XP.
• 1.0 GHz Pentium(R) III and AMD Athlon(tm)
• 256 MB of RAM
• 64 MB GeForce (tm) 3 or higher or ATI(R) Radeon 8500 or higher (except GeForce 4 MX)
• DirectX9.0c or higher (included on game disc)
• DirectX(R) 9.0c or higher compatible sound card
• Hard Drive Space: 3.75 GB minimum hard drive space
• CD-ROM: 16X or better
• Controls: Windows-compatible keyboard and mouse

Recommended Requirements

• Windows 2000/XP.
• 2.0 GHz Pentium(R) III and AMD Athlon(tm)
• 512 MB of RAM
• 128 MB GeForce FX 5600 or higher or ATI(R) Radeon 9600 or higher
• DirectX(R) 9.0c or higher and EAX(R) 2.0 or higher compatible sound card
• Controls: Game Pad (optional)

(I used Win XP, AMD XP 2400+, 512 MB RAM, and ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128 AGP)

Myst IV Revelation

Originally posted at GameBoomers:

What is it?
The sequel to the sequel (Exile) to the sequel (Riven) of Myst! Just like Exile, this is a point-n-click adventure, in full screen, 360 degree bubbles. Chronologically, this game comes after Exile; Yeesha, the baby at the beginning of Exile, is now a bright, engaging 10-year old, and Atrus (played, once again, by Rand Miller, CEO of Cyan Worlds) is starting to show some age, with a distinguished display of greying hair and beard.

Okay, I have to come clean, right from the start. I've been a fan of the Myst games since 1993. So, you can imagine the sense of excitement and anticipation I felt when a certain package arrived on my doormat! I've been really good this time. I've not looked at the preview screen shots, I've assiduously avoided any Myst-related threads on adventure forums; I know next to nothing about Myst IV Revelation. Until now....

Where does it come from?
Again, like Exile, this game was not written, nor developed by Cyan (the originators of the Myst story) however the first "ident" movie is the wonderful Cyan one that sends shivers down my spine!

This game was developed for UbiSoft by Team Revelation, under license (and with artistic and plot oversight) from Cyan. Development of the project started well before Exile was complete, and you can tell from the quality of the game that it has taken all this time to produce. There's just so much in it. It comes with two whole DVDs of resources -- giving an 8GB (yes, eight gigabytes) full install. Even the minimum install is a whopping 3.5GB!

Is there a plot?
Of course... it's a Myst game! Atrus introduces the story by telling us that his sons, Sirrus and Achenar, weren't killed at the end of Myst (as some people had supposed) but remained trapped. Now we find out how Atrus and his family -- Catherine, his wife, and Yeesha, their lively (roughly) 10 year old daughter -- have dealt with the situation. You're invited to help out.

Those sons of his seem to have been the bane of Atrus's existence, providing the plot and motivation for three out of the five Myst games so far.

This is also the second Myst game to have its plot written by Mary DeMarle. She also wrote the story for Exile, to such good effect, and this one is similarly excellent, fitting the canon of Myst-lore well.

How do you play?
Starting in Tomahna (Atrus's family's home), you solve puzzles, fix machinery, go on wild rides, decode texts & sounds, etc, in four Ages. The Ages are spectacular, but I don't want to spoil any surprises for anyone. So I'll just say that the Ages are bigger, more elaborate and more fully realized than anything in Exile. Riven only rivals this by dint of it being set almost entirely in one Age, rather than four. On a personal note, I have to say that Tomahna is my favourite Age in this game; I could live there myself.

Navigation is simple, being entirely mouse driven. The customisable hand cursor is used throughout, making smoothly animated transitions between idle, pointing, grasping and touching forms. You can change the colour, transparency, and handedness of the cursor in the Options menu. A nice touch, enabling you to control how visible your cursor is.

Hotspots are rarely difficult to find - there's no pixel hunting here. Controls on machinery are clear in their location, if not their function. But then the game wouldn't be true to the Myst genre if Atrus's mechanical wonders were obvious in their layout.

The Puzzles don't interrupt game play and plot...they're essential to progressing the story. They're not just in the style of "here's a fancy puzzle-lock, you don't get to see the Treasure Chamber until you can figure out this sliding tiles game". There are some very novel puzzles right from the get-go. And the final puzzle is a complete doozy!

Just so you know, there are no mazes, nor sliding blocks, but there are sound puzzles and a timed sequence.

Notable Features
The live acting is excellent. Rand Miller is the *only* person who can play Atrus, much as he'd like to escape the role! Yeesha (Juliette Gosselin) is lovely. Sirrus and Achenar were played by Rand and Robin Miller in Myst, and are now played by Brian Wench, (a US TV actor) and Guy Sprung (a Canadian TV actor). Both are excellent, bringing back to life those two apparent psychopaths from the first game with great flair and enjoyable characterisation.

Technically, the live action sequences are integrated very, very well with the pre-rendered elements, animated environment, and real-time effects. Characters interact with objects, pass through doorways accurately, and show up as distant glimpses through intervening structures very smoothly. There's a great sense of the characters being real within this world.

Inevitably, I have to gush glowing praise for the graphics in Myst IV. Every time we have a new Myst game, I am astounded by the leaps forward made by the development teams, be they Cyan themselves, Presto (Exile) or Team Revelation. The Ages are stylish, intricate, beautiful (in their own ways), and fantastically brought to life by the optional immersive features. Even without the optional material, there is life in the environment, with moving water, animated insects, lightning, wind and wildlife. However, if you turn on the optional effects, the overall picture is stunning. To take Tomahna for example, the trees move in the wind, the waterfall is shrouded in mist (not myst, sic!), smoke rises from the kitchen, birds and insects flutter around the vegetation and scattered leaves blow in the breeze.

This game really is a tour de force in world realisation and photo-realistic environments!

As with Exile, the music for Myst IV was composed by Jack Wall. I've always found his material beautiful, haunting, dramatic, and brilliantly applied. He has linked this game stylistically and thematically to the earlier games, without just re-using Robyn Miller's material. There's also a song by Peter Gabriel (who also composed music for Uru: Ages of Myst), which fits in very well where it comes. No spoiler intended.

Any other novelties?
ALIVE technology - most objects and surfaces within range of your hand can be touched to find out what they sound like - walls, books, glass windows, plants, equipment; all sorts of things. Some objects can be used without appearing to have any true part in the game -- lovely extra colour, to bring you deeper into the game. This addresses one of the longest held gripes of many point-n-click adventurers; the fact that the game environments almost always include many objects about which the user is curious, but can never actually explore (for example, in Syberia, all those 1st floor doors in the hotel in Valadilene that went nowhere).

The game also allows you to have objects take on a degree of soft focus based upon their distance from the user. I must say that I really didn't like this feature, and turned it off as soon as I discovered it was optional. I like my world to be as clear as possible; I can get all the blurred images I could possibly ever wish for, if I take my glasses off.

There's the built-in hint system, using hints from Prima (publishers of the Strategy Guide for Myst IV, amongst many other guides). Level I, II, and III hints provide gentle nudges, pointed clues, and complete instructions for the various puzzles. There is a warning every time the hint system is about to reveal more information (almost every click whilst using the hints). This gets annoying very quickly. Yes, I know using this hint may "affect my gaming experience". Enough already!

Part way into the game, you obtain an amulet of memories that is used to give plot and character developing colour, especially by allowing the player to hear the characters read out the contents of their various journals. This makes absorbing the information in the journals a much more enjoyable aspect of the game than it has been in previous Myst games.

A camera may not be a novelty to adventure gamers anymore. There was one in Timelapse and many other games since. But the Myst IV camera is one of the most useful ever. We all know how difficult it is to take good graphical notes for Myst games; the clues can be so subtle. Well, the camera and viewer (with its note taking function too) make taking notes so much easier, it's almost simple to use Atrus's crystal viewer. Not too simple of course, because the clues are hand drawn, but still, much easier than puzzling out clues copied down late at night by someone who's own drawing skills leave much to be desired!

Problems
I'm sorry to say that my playing of Myst IV was marred by a number of bugs.

First of all, there's a compatibility issue with ATI Radeon cards (7000, 7500 and in my experience 9000 too) where the 3D environment is masked out by sandy squares. However, UbiSoft have a fix for this on their support site; a modification to a configuration file.

Secondly, the game has periodic crashes to the desktop. The game never crashed my PC, but did quit suddenly at a number of places, and never reproducibly, making it very hard to diagnose the cause. Therefore, save often; but this leads to the third problem I suffered.

As you accumulate save games, the menus get slower and slower. So either limit yourself to, say, ten save slots, or find the save directory and move save files out of the way, or periodically delete old saves from within the Load Game menu.

Conclusions
In a nutshell: magnificent! This is my favourite Myst game yet. There are the awesome Ages, with perilous heights, stunning scenery, fantastical creatures. We get plenty of lifts, cable car rides, amazing machines, intriguing and challenging puzzles.

Flies in the ointment: blurry focus (can be turned off), massive full install, virtual CD/DVD check, and graphical problems that weren't completely solved until I'd finished the game. It's a shame that after three years of development, there are still issues in the game. These issues, including the save game slow-down and repeated crashes to desktop, contribute to a slight tarnish on the overall product. I'll be betraying my fan-dom of the Myst games by saying that I was willing to work around the issues, and have been able, I feel, to see the gold underneath.

Grade: A-

A patch solving the issues mentioned above would convert this into an A+.

What do you need to play it?
Minimum Requirements
• 700 MHz Pentium(r) III or AMD Athlon(tm) or better
• 32 MB DirectX(r) 9-compliant video card (800x600 display)
• 128 MB RAM (256 MB required for XP)
• 3.5 GB free hard disk space
• 4x DVD or faster
• DirectX 9.0-compliant sound card
• Windows(r) 98SE/2000/ME/XP with DirectX 9.0c (included on DVD)

Recommended Requirements
• Pentium(r) IV or AMD Athlon(tm)
• 64Mb or more DirectX(r) 9-compliant video card (800x600 display)
• 256 MB RAM
• 8.0 GB free hard disk space

(I used Win XP, AMD XP 2400, 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128 AGP)

The Moment of Silence

Originally posted at GameBoomers:

What is it?

The Moment of Silence (TMOS) is the newest adventure game from the House of Tales, the German outfit that brought us The Mystery of the Druids. Right away, I have to admit that I really didn't like The Mystery of the Druids, but I stopped comparing the two games pretty quickly. TMOS contains none of the graphical bugs and immersion-breaking missteps of The Mystery of the Druids, so this is the last time I'll mention it.

Okay, so now we've dealt with some of my prejudices, let's get on with the game at hand. The game arrived in a standard DVD-style box and this was the first surprise - it comes on DVD. I had thought that the DVD format was limited to the really big-budget guys like the Myst franchise and Half-Life 2. But, obviously, I was wrong, as it seems to be taking over further down the market. This is a Good ThingTM, because it means developers can offer games that can honestly claim "spectacular set pieces and dramatic action sequences", "over 75 rendered and animated locations", "more than 500 interactive screens". All of which, I must say, TMOS does indeed deliver.

Is there a plot?

Oh yes! Most definitely - this game is completely plot driven. The main character is Peter Wright. He's a communications designer - an ad-man, so to speak - working on the government's latest political campaign for anti-cryptography legislation. His world, as is so often the case in such games, is turned upside down by the sudden arrival of a S.W.A.T. team at his neighbour's apartment. Peter's neighbour is dragged away by armed police, leaving his family stunned in the doorway. At this point, Peter makes what might be considered in the real world to be a critically bad move... he goes round to his neighbour's place to see if he can help. But, I hear you saying, there wouldn't be much of a game here if he didn't! And you're absolutely right. Anyway, the story leads from here in Brooklyn to locations in various parts of New York City -- including Peter's office and Greenwich Village -- and then beyond to the tropics, the Arctic and even off-world for a time. Along the way, some of Peter's recent history is revealed, which makes his reactions to some of the story elements more than a little surprising.

The environments in this game are somewhat reminiscent of Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner'. However, this game has none of the empty spaces, ultra-busy streets, dark drama, or the rain of that film, though it does rain during some of the sections. We're talking 2044 here, 40 years hence; the world is governed by a democratic super-state with Big Brother-like tendencies. Technology has moved on in a surprisingly understated manner - people carry messengers (hand-held video phones), desktop computers look pretty much like the current advanced models with some nice enhancements (like no tower to get in the way), and the Internet has been renamed GlobalNet. Of course, GlobalNet is still used primarily for chatting, email and publicity, very much like today. Public transport has advanced - the maglev train is the subway of the future, and Peter mostly uses automatic cabs to get around locations in New York. Other transport media are used too - aeroplane, zeppelin, space elevator, skidoo and rocket. But most of the time, Peter is on foot.

How do you play?

The third person user interface of TMOS is mainly mouse-driven, with a couple of keyboard controls to summon help (displaying the exits from the scene) and Peter's Messenger, when it is available. Left clicking moves Peter around the world and performs actions (picking up objects, starting conversations, pressing buttons and applying inventory objects to people, the environment or other inventory objects), and right clicking gets descriptions of things from Peter's point of view, or de-selects a held object. As this is a third person game, navigating Peter around the environment is done using the mouse. This has one major drawback. It can be difficult to navigate in confined spaces and there is a particular problem with controlling Peter within his own apartment. This is really rather distracting when the start of the game requires you to spend some time in said apartment finding things.
The Escape key brings up the standard game menu for saving and loading games and setting options. There aren't many configurable options - just the voice, music and sound effects volumes and subtitles. What more do you really need?

Puzzles in this game are varied. There are inventory-based puzzles, including object-combining ones, and as we've come to expect, not all of the solutions are obvious applications of the particular objects. There are conversation trees - some of which are quite deep. Other puzzles include combination locks and dentistry, of all things.

Regarding the conversation trees, it would be nice if someone could finally sort out conversation trees so that you don't get comments from characters before the main character should know the information. Using the multiple choices in an order other than that displayed on the page gave rise to out-of-order information. If there are dependencies between conversation branches, then the dependent branches should simply not show up until the leading branches have been traversed, even if this leads to fewer options appearing at a time. Sadly, TMOS falls foul of this sufficiently often that I gave up trying conversation options in the order that seemed interesting and stuck to the order in which they're listed on the screen.

Notable Features

TMOS comes on DVD. This is important and the DVD-style game box makes this clear in five places, and just so you don't miss it, that's the same number of times as in this review. I repeat, this game comes on DVD - got it? ;-)

To those people who have an issue with StarForce protected games, be warned, this is another one of them. However, the only problem this caused was that the DVD sometimes was detected improperly by the StarForce disk checker if the DVD had been in the drive for a long time before starting the game, so I had to try to start it again.

This is also a big game - 3.4GB full install. It is somewhat unusual in that you install it normally, and then you use an extra button on the AutoLauncher to convert the normal installation into a full install.

The developer has already patched the game; however it is a small download when compared to many others currently available. The AutoLauncher has a "Check for updates" option that simplifies the patching of the game quite considerably. I didn't try the optional GameShadow program that comes with TMOS, as I'm not a fan of programs that scan the contents of my hard disk looking for games to upgrade - even if it is under my control.

Any other novelties?

I'm not sure if this next comment really counts as a novelty; in an ideal world, it certainly shouldn't. The voice acting in TMOS is almost universally excellent. The box claims "over 35 professionally voiced... characters," and indeed there are a goodly number of characters, though I didn't count them all, and they are all well acted.

The one exception, and this may be the reason I had some trouble getting excited by this game, was the voice of Peter Wright himself. Now, given his circumstances, I can understand why he's somewhat unhappy at times, but I feel the game suffers for his downhearted presentation - he needs to show more anger and outrage, and less numb melancholy.

Oddities

TMOS offers two levels of anti-aliasing in the hardware settings section of the AutoLauncher. However these caused the game to crash to desktop when starting, so I gave up on them. Apart from this, the game was remarkably stable - I can't, in fact, recall any other crashes or hang ups whilst playing it.

I rather liked the developers' idea of how the mobile phone will change over the next 40 years - into the mobile video phone. The device seems useful and usable; with a simple menu and "start call" and "end call" buttons. However, the phone is used very little within the game, compared to how it could have been used. It is interesting that the phone acts as a metaphor for Peter's identity. When he is without his phone, he is a non-person; when he has it, he is a functioning member of society.

What went missing -- beyond the essential excitement that a game of this quality should engender -- were certain sound effects. With such a richly rendered environment, including objects that Peter can comment on but which turn out to never be used (something we adventurers regularly ask for), it seems odd that the House of Tales didn't take the opportunity to include footstep sound effects. There are times when Peter walks on pavement, carpet, vinyl, metal plating, concrete, and puddled surfaces, plus varied indoor spaces where you'd expect some of the sounds to reverberate around the room.

Conclusions

The Moment of Silence is a very professionally made, tightly plotted, well-acted (in the main), good-looking game that would justify all but the highest of price tags. Just one problem -- it lacks the sparkle and excitement I need to really recommend this game. It is a good example of the conspiracy theory genre, and certainly didn't fall into the trap of predictability. I'm usually a pretty good plot-spotter in mysteries and movies, and I didn't predict this ending before I got there, although I did have some of the elements quite early on.

Okay, I lied; one more mention of Mystery of the Druids: TMOS is much, much better than Mystery of the Druids. Finally, this game comes on DVD, so make sure you have a DVD drive before you buy.

Grade: B

What do you need to play it?

Minimum Requirements

• Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP.
• Pentium II 450 or equivalent
• 64MB RAM
• 32MB 3D graphics card
• DirectX9 - oddly, DirectX 8 comes on the DVD
• DirectX9 compatible sound card
• 2x speed DVD ROM drive.

(I used Win XP, AMD XP 2400+, 512 MB RAM, and ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128 AGP)

P.S. Dekker was a replicant, so there!

Fairy Tale

Originally posted at GameBoomers:

What is it?
"Fairy Tale", or "Fairy Tale About Father Frost, Ivan and Nastya" to give it its complete title, is another point and click adventure from Eastern Europe. The developers, Bohemia Interactive Studio, are a Czech outfit, based in Prague. The eponymous Tale is inspired by Russian folklore, and focuses on the story of a young girl, Nastienka (Nastya), and a hero, Ivan.
The game is described by the publisher, Cenega, as being suitable for 'Any child able to switch on a computer' with parental assistance, but 'ideal for children aged 6 years'. This seems to be reasonably accurate. The game is not difficult to operate, nor overly complex in it's puzzles, but I'd be very impressed by a child of 6 who can play the entire game.
Because this game is aimed at people so much younger than me, I'll once more be asking Purple Bear (my 10-year old daughter) for some comments, in an effort to overcome the old fogey effect. Her comments are in bold italic text.

Is there a plot?
Yes. The Fairy Tale is the stories of Nastienka and Ivan. Nastienka is a young girl who has a new stepmother and stepsister to use and abuse her in classic fairy story ways. Ivan is a young hero, leaving home in search of a bride, learning humility along the way.
The two story threads are nicely interleaved; we begin with Nastya before switching to Ivan. They eventually meet, before diverging again to continue their stories. The player must help Nastya to overcome her overbearing stepmother, weak father, and annoying stepsister, and help Ivan learn some degree of humility - he's a particularly obnoxious character to begin with. I don't want to give away any more of the plot because it is about the only element in the game that is surprising. I will say, though, that Father Frost doesn't appear until very late in the game - in retrospect, his inclusion in the title is rather surprising!
I found the game fairly easy. The story was interesting and different from other games I've played. The game was not scary at all, and I think the story turned out right in the end.

How do you play?
When you start the game, you're dropped straight into the beginning of the story; a grandmother is telling a bedtime story to her grandchildren - this element returns from time to time in the game as a break between the four acts. Even to load an existing game, you have to hit the Escape key to get to the menus. The menus are simple - New, save and load, options, credits and exit - what need is there for more? Options are limited to subtitles, colour depth, special effects and sound volumes.
As I've already said, we're dealing with a point-n-click adventure. It is played in a full screen playing area, from the third person perspective, with the mouse only. There is an extensive inventory of objects to use to solve the puzzles in the game. Inventory items are changed by activities; some puzzles require the combination of items. Puzzles vary from knitting socks to extracting bears from fallen tree stumps, from defeating robbers to escaping a fiery dragon. The majority of puzzles are inventory based, but not exclusively.
The inventory is shown on a pop-down, translucent bar across the top of the screen. Most of the time, the inventory doesn't get in the way, but there were times it popped down when I didn't want to see it.
It was fun to play two different people at different times in the game.
I like the bits where Squeaky the Bat was talking and the words were upside down. The names of the characters were very unusual. But my favourite parts were Baba Yaga's dancing, and the .
Human Misery was my favourite character because she was so different from the other characters.

Notable Features
Unusually, in my experience, the manual for Fairy Tale is surprisingly informative! It is a slim affair - a mere 6 pages of information, plus credits and space for notes. However, once the author gets past the installation instructions and the detailed description of the user interface, there is a useful set of hints on adventure game playing strategy, for example, "Think 'game-like.' Improvise. You don't necessarily use all the items you find for their primary purpose. For example, a horseshoe can be used in various ways, such as throwing."
Now the game doesn't actually require you to throw a horseshoe, but if granny just gave an 8-year old child this game (it is suitable for 6 year olds, remember), and the parents have no adventure game experience, consider how useful strategy hints are going to be for all concerned! The same goes for the detailed description of the user interface.
Okay, I've covered some of the nicer features... now the downsides. The graphics and the voice acting.
I know we all say in those polls on the game factors, that the story is king, well that may well be the case, but why are we still dealing with animated games with characters that could have been drawn by a high-school student, rather than a professional artist - and if they weren't drawn by a professional artist, but by a programmer in his spare time, why didn't the developers hire a professional artist?
Now the worst factor: the voice acting. This was a real area of weakness. Most of the characters sounded like they'd been instructed to impart the opposite emotion into the lines than what was needed - or at best that any old reading of the lines would do! I only hope that the characters come over better in the original Czech. That's a do-over, guys - especially Nastya's stepmother.
There is also a key that Ivan has to retrieve early in his story, but there seemed to be bug around this as a couple of times through the game, we couldn't find the key, despite solving the relevant puzzle.
I think that the menus were quite simple to use. The key bug was the only really annoying bit.
The pictures were all quite flat, and even though they were quite colourful the game looked boring. If I could change anything, I'd change the graphics from 2D to 3D. .
I didn't need much help to play the game, except with the missing key problem and when I couldn't find the pub in the town.

Any other novelties?
The biggest novelty in this game is the use of Russian folklore as inspiration. How many times have we been to Atlantis, Egypt, a medieval land of fantasy, or Outer Space? Too many to count. But how often have we seen a game set in rural Eastern Europe? It doesn't sound an exciting prospect, but in the context of this story, it works well.
Conclusions
This game shows some promise. It has a novel (apart from the troublesome stepmother) story, given the current state of the art of adventure game writing. The interface is reasonably solid - though it did hang a few times. But, and this is a big but in my opinion, the game is severely let down by the voice acting. I feel it is especially important to get this right with games aimed at children because of the story telling aspect of the game.
The worst offence against gaming, however, was the dire execution of the voice acting. I know an evil stepmother is supposed to sound bad, but this one sounded like she'd had a stroke.
This is not really a keeper, for me. I would never replay it.
I'd say that some of most of the girls in my class would like the game, but not the boys. Even though I finished the game, I think it was a bit boring. I don't want to play it again.

Grade: C+

What do you need to play it?
Minimum Requirements
• Pentium(r) III 733 MHz or Athlon(tm) 733 MHz
• 32MB nVidia GeForce2 / ATI Radeon video card
• 256 MB RAM
• 400 MB Hard Drive
• CD-ROM or CD/DVD-ROM drive 8x
• Mouse
• DirectX certified sound card
• Windows 98/2000/XP with DirectX 8.1
Recommended Requirements
• Pentium(r) IV 1.5 GHz or Athlon(tm) 1.5 GHz
• 64 MB nVidia GeForce 4 / ATI Radeon 9600 PRO video card
• 512 MB RAM
• Sound card with 3D sound support
• Windows XP
(We used Win XP, AMD XP 2400+, 512 MB RAM, and ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128 AGP)

Nancy Drew, Curse Of Blackmoor Manor

Originally posted at GameBoomers:

What is it?
This is another instalment in the well-known Nancy Drew series. In fact, this is number eleven. Think about that for a moment. Eleven games based on a dramatic character. That's not IV, that's not IX, that's XI. That's even more than the Final Fantasy series. I think that counts as a successful series. Okay, so we're in multiple, multiple sequels territory here, and if the developer and publisher haven't completely nailed this one, there is something seriously wrong with the world... or at least their QA procedures.
The Nancy Drew games are marketed with a particular market segment in mind; the 10+ female gamer. So, as I am lucky enough to know one such young lady quite well, I thought I'd bring her along and let you hear from her too. She's known as Purple Bear (her choice!), she's my 10-year-old daughter, and I'll be dropping her comments in from time to time.

Where does it come from?
The character of Nancy Drew was originated by Edward Stratemeyer, alongside the Hardy Boys and many others. Since then, she has solved around 350 mysteries, written by many different authors. A number of the stories have been made into a long running TV series. Then in 1997, Her Interactive decided to specialise in adventure games aimed at the female pre-teen and teen market, and chose Nancy Drew to lead their campaign.
Seven years, and eleven games later, they're still going strong. However, this is the first one to involve international travel; it is set in England - more on this later.

Is there a plot?
This is a detective mystery; what kind of detective mystery would it be if it didn't have a plot?
Nancy has been invited to England to visit with Linda, daughter of her neighbour, Mrs. Petrov. Linda has recently married an English diplomat, Hugh Penvellyn, gaining a stepdaughter in the process. But Linda is no longer seeing visitors, and has taken to hiding behind a curtain in her bedroom. Now this would not be much of a mystery if it weren't for the location. Linda now lives in Blackmoor Manor on the misty moors of Essex, in a 14th century manor house. There are rumours of family treasure, and of course, there's the Beast that haunts the moors to add a little spice to the mix.
Purple Bear would like to add, "The story fits together well. Some bits were surprising, but nothing was really scary. I did feel concerned about what was happening to the characters. I think LouLou is my favourite character, because I like the way she talks and acts. Finishing the dragon puzzle made me feel good."
Being British, I can see there are some nasty holes in this plot. For one thing, Essex does not have moors. Fens (wet-lands), yes; moors, no. Therefore, the house should be Blackfen Manor. Worse, Penvellyn is not an Essex name - especially not one that would have survived from the 14th century. This story belongs in Devon or Cornwall - on Exmoor or Dartmoor! Where they have moors, dark manors, rumours of beasts, and ancient families with names like Penvellyn! Perhaps somebody at Her Interactive thinks that Exmoor is in Essex?
Having said all that, inaccuracies aside, I agree with Purple Bear - the story does fit together nicely, and drives the game throughout.

How do you play?
In common with the other two Nancy Drew games I have seen -- "Message in a Haunted Mansion" and "The Final Scene" -- Curse of Blackmoor Manor is a first person, point-n-click adventure game. The user interface is clean and clear. The older games have a slightly more cluttered main game screen, so this is an improvement. The menus are structured the same as the earlier games -- with the usual buttons you'd expect to see on any game. However, a notable feature of the Nancy Drew games is the 'Second Chance' button. Essentially, just before critical moments in the game (moments when you can die, or the game ends prematurely), there is an auto-save which means you can immediately return to the point before the mistaken decision.
Purple Bear says, "I like playing in the first person; it feels better to be in control. It was easy to use things in the game, and it was quite good that the tool bar covers the talking. The main part of the screen is much bigger than in Nancy Drew, The Final Scene."
Game play is all about talking to the people in the house and on the telephone, collecting clues from written and pictorial materials, and solving puzzles. The game contains a nice selection of puzzle types, but there is a sliding tiles puzzle, a maze, and a couple of timed sequences. There are two levels of difficulty to the game; 'Junior Detective' and 'Senior Detective'. Junior Detective gives more help and hints, and is more generous with the timed features. Since Purple Bear and I are both new to Nancy Drew games, we started with Junior Detective, but on replay, I'd certainly go for Senior.

Other Notable Features
Neither Purple Bear nor I had to make much use of the Second Chance button. In fact, I deliberately tried a few things just to see if I'd need the Second Chance as a result. There are some nice "game over" moments to see if you do, and of course, they don't affect your overall progress.
Purple Bear points out that, "LouLou [the hint system] is a good source of information if you use her right. The main characters were easier to get information from than LouLou, but less fun. But sometimes LouLou could be annoying, like my little sister."
I must comment on two particularly annoying features. Firstly, the cursor; although it is clearly drawn, and indicates what actions are available (moving, magnifying, acting, doing nothing, and speaking), the active spot of the cursor is somewhere in the centre of the image, rather than at the top left point, where most arrow-like cursors are active! I found this particularly annoying in Nancy's phone / web-browser device.
The second annoying feature was the accents of the characters. Several of the British accents are weak, and the American origin of the actors comes through to spoil the experience from time to time. Once again, Nancy is played by Lani Minella, and several of the other actors have played roles in previous Nancy Drew games, but there is little evidence of British acting talent being used to voice British characters. Jonah von Spreecken's "Cockney" accent brought tears to my eyes. Let's put it this way; Dick van Dyke did a better Cockney accent in Mary Poppins!
Puzzle and game clues and hints come from all sources in the house; people, pictures, objects, books, maps, diagrams and Nancy's mobile phone / web browser. Of particular note is LouLou, the parrot. At turns annoying, as only a parrot can be, and endearingly amusing, LouLou adds significantly to the humour and fun in the game.

Are there any other novelties?
Not really. I've never played a game with such a strong notion of the passage of time before, but this appears to be the norm for Nancy Drew games, so it's hardly novel.

Conclusions
As a complete experience, I enjoyed playing this game, even though it is aimed at a completely different market segment from where I would normally be found. The puzzles were not in the least bit trivial, despite playing at 'Junior' level. There were no graphical glitches or game play bugs, but there were some crashes-to-desktop. I am certainly not ruling out playing other Nancy Drew games - older or newer.

Cons:

• 2 timed puzzles, 1 maze, 1 sliding tiles game, and 1 sound-matching puzzle
• 35 save game slots
• Annoying mis-positioned mouse hotspot
• Plot hole the size of Essex
• Some really rather poor English accents
• A few crashes-to-desktop.

Pros:

• Variety of puzzles
• Good story and entertaining characters
• Nice environment, and graphics, though the people are somewhat cartoony
• Some replayability due to the different difficulty levels and complex dialog trees
• Atmospheric music and well placed and helpful sound effects.

I'll give the final word to Purple Bear: "I think the game is aimed at the right age group. It's not too easy and it's not too hard. But I needed a little bit of help with some of the puzzles. I look forward to playing more Nancy Drew, in fact I'd like some more for my birthday or Christmas."

Grade: B

What do you need to play it?
Minimum Requirements

• Windows 98/Me/2000/XP
• 400 MHz or greater Pentium II or equivalent class CPU
• 64 MB of RAM
• 300 MB or more hard drive space
• 16MB DirectX compatible video card
• 16 bit DirectX compatible sound card
• 12X CD-ROM drive

(We used Win XP, AMD XP 2000, 512 MB RAM, and an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128 AGP)

Gooka, Mystery of Janatris

Originally posted at GameBoomers:

Where does it come from?

Hmmm, a game from the Czech Republic? Sounds interesting! I've enjoyed games from unusual European countries before; The Longest Journey, Faust (Seven Games of the Soul), and Rally Trophy (okay, that's about classic rally driving, but still a game) spring particularly to my mind.

So, I've done a little research. Not enough to spoil the game, but something to be going on with before I get my sticky little hands on the disk... now hang on, is this based on a story, called "Gooka and Yorimar," by Richard D. Evans, or by Vlado Risa? Confusion reigns.

Okay, lets get this straight. It's "Gooka: The Mystery of Janatris", but that makes it Gooka 2; there was a Gooka game published in 1997 too. It's based on a novel by Vlado Risa, or his Western European pseudonym, Richard D. Evans. Aha! Now I've got it!

Next problem, is this a point-n-click adventure game (as indicated on the back of the box), or an adventure/RPG hybrid, as I've discovered having completed it.

Confused? Yes, I was. Thankfully, once I started playing the game, things got better.

What is it?

As I've already said, the back of the box gave me the impression that this is a point-n-click adventure. However, once you get into the manual, it becomes clear that there's a degree of character stats development, and combat. Now, we're not talking about a reactions-based, laser-blasting, gore-fest, but combat it is. I'll come back to this later.

So, after my moment of confusion, I set off for my adventure in the land of Janatris.
This game actually is, for the most part, a point-n-click adventure, but from the third person perspective. Just like Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey, Syberia, and many more excellent games, we watch our hero, Gooka, progress through an environment that could have come straight out of Medieval Europe. Except... there are bits of future tech dropped in seemingly at random!

The graphical content, both environment and characters, is nicely modelled, and well rendered (on my 2-year-old graphics card), but the character animation is a bit sluggish, and Gooka is not good at opening doors - he reaches out to them, but they then open without his holding the handle - and in many cases, without his hand being even close to the door.

For the most part, the world is quite natural in appearance, the buildings medieval, and the creatures quite believable. All the creatures, except the rats and the humans, are fictional. The special effects, particularly as used in the combat sequences, are really rather nicely done, with subtle volumetric effects and swirling colours, even on my old graphics card. The overall look of the graphics approaches that of Schizm II, or Broken Sword 3 - quite coherent environments with attention to detail and vegetation that works close up.

Is there a plot?

You want plot in an adventure game? Well, you got one here; fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles... well, almost all of that. And I'll leave it to the reader to discern which one isn't in the game. ;-)

The story works something like this: in Gooka's absence, someone has attacked and burned down his house, injured his wife and kidnapped his son (Yorimar, of the original book's title). Upon Gooka's return home, he has to fix everything. Just as you'd expect from an upstanding citizen, really.

So, it's off to the monastery to find out what's required to save Lidra, and what's happened to Yorimar. Suffice it to say that both these tasks require Gooka to travel to various parts of Janatris (the planet) and cooperate with and fight against a variety of people and creatures to reach his goals.

How do you play?

The game play here is generally quite linear, with periods of wandering, trying to achieve larger plot milestones. However, the milestones occur in a particular order, and you can't go backwards through the story, nor skip milestones.

The environments encompass a variety of settings: buildings, towns, beech, dockside, countryside, jungle, caves, a ship, and low- and high-tech castles.

You can use your mouse to achieve everything in the game, so perhaps this is the reason for the 'point-n-click adventure' description. There are keyboard alternatives to most actions, so you can mix and match mouse and keys to suit. Also, the Escape key is used to skip dialogue lines, which is handy as much of the dialogue is laboriously voice acted. The subtitles option is rather handy to get the story without waiting an eternity for the dialogue to finish. The Escape key also enables you to skip some animations (like rolling dice, or opening doors), but beware! therein lies a game crashing bug. This is rather more serious, as the use of the 'Escape' key is particularly useful to skip slow animations, but if you use if at particular animation transitions (I had trouble pinning down exactly which ones), the game will crash.

The combat sequences in the game are turn-based; you, your allies, and your opponents each get to take turns choosing an action to perform. The order of action is determined by the relative speeds of the people concerned. The fastest go first, the slowest last. I found that it was reasonably easy to learn how to do combat like this, but even the earliest fights are quite hard. Thank goodness for the AutoSave that happens before every fight. Although the game manual does describe the combat, it is lacking in the screen shots that would clarify that description.

Many RPGs involve the use of magical powers as well as swords and so on. In Gooka, we have the unusual feature of telepathic powers. However, when it boils down to it, they're basically magic spells by another name. Most of the time, Gooka's telepathic powers are used to boost his performance in combat - some powers are attacks, some are defences, some are temporary 'power-ups'. Many of Gooka's opponents and allies (whose actions during combat are also controlled by you, the player) have Mind skills, which the opponent character AI makes use of quite effectively.

The most unusual aspect of Gooka's combat skills, was the ability to shift power from his physical (Body) to mental (Mind) score, or vice versa. But the downside for me was that it seemed that the only way to win the majority of combats was to use a particular strategy which emphasized just one of those way beyond the other.

The puzzles do have a nice variety: some involve inventory items, one is a series of three timed sequences, one is audio, one is a small maze, some are pattern based and some numeric. For me, it was the dice game (no-one tells you the rules and I've never played that game before!) and the combat-based puzzles - especially the unavoidable milestone combats - that caused me the most difficulty. Until, that is, I discovered the combat strategy that worked, almost without fail, for the remainder of the game.

Conclusions

After playing this game for a few days, I began to get to like it, in a general sense.

The weaknesses are the frustrating combat issues and the dice game, the voice acting (dull & lifeless), and the lack of dramatic sound effects - a shipwreck should cause some distress in the characters involved, and make some noise to say the least! Furthermore, there were a number of times when the game would hang with a confirmation dialogue box back on the desktop, complaining of 'vertex errors'. The game didn't crash with these bugs, and clicking "OK" brought the game back. The 'Escape' key bug I mention during the dice game is rather more serious, and would be a serious candidate for patching.

However, I would say the real strengths of this game are the plot and variety of puzzles and environments. After two weeks playing, I can say that, because of these elements, I would go back and play Gooka again, which is more than I can say for many pure adventure games.

Overall grade: B.

What do you need to play it?

Minimum Requirements

• Pentium® III 733 MHz or Athlon™ 733 MHz
• 32MB nVidia GeForce2 / ATI Radeon video card
• 256 MB RAM
• 400 MB Hard Drive
• CD-ROM or CD/DVD-ROM drive 8x
• Mouse
• DirectX certified sound card
• Windows 98/2000/XP with DirectX 8.1

Recommended Requirements

• Pentium® IV 1.5 GHz or Athlon™ 1.5 GHz
• 64 MB nVidia GeForce 4 / ATI Radeon 9600 PRO video card
• 512 MB RAM
• Sound card with 3D sound support
• Windows XP

(I used a homebuilt PC running Windows XP, on an AMD Athlon XP 2400+, with 512 MB RAM, and ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128 AGP graphics card)

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2003)

Originally posted at GameBoomers:

What is it?

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (or PoP4 as it will be henceforth known), is an action-adventure, set in an Arabian environment.

Yes, I know that means lots of complicated controls (there's about 12 keys and the mouse is used too) and doesn't fit into our usual point-and-click preference here on GB. But, this one is worth the effort, I think.

The highlights (to be described further, below) include some pretty acrobatic moves for our leading character, stunning graphics, and game play that Core Design would kill for!

Where does it come from?

Surely we all heard of Jordan Mechner by now? No? Well, he's the guy who wrote the original revolutionary, 2D, rotoscoped Prince of Persia. It had a simple plot: bad guy kidnaps princess, street kid (rather like Aladdin) has to rescue her, by exploring the castle, fighting the bad guys and solving the puzzles. By the way, he also wrote the Last Express - a title that's probably better known around here. [Smile]

Prince of Persia 2 and 3 both took this idea and did it again... 2 was more platform-y, and 3 full 3D (quite a lot of fun, IMHO, but a bit clunky by today's standards).

Is there a plot?

Yes. And it's not the same as the previous three games. The Prince (yes, he's been promoted since starting these adventures) has stolen a mysterious dagger and has been tricked by the Vizier (never a character to be trusted in an Arabian tale), into using it to release demons upon the land. Now it's his job to clean up the palace and save the kingdom.. and there's a pretty girl to chase, rescue, and (possibly) marry too. Ahh, what would life be without 'structure' to our games.

Having said that the story is somewhat clichéd, the story telling within the game is nicely presented in frequent short cut-scenes giving you a preview of where you need to try to get to (some rooms need this preview to give some shape to how you approach them), and some rather nice flash-forwards that give hints of the acrobatics yet to come. This is something I think has been done well here, and other developers could learn from this!

How do you play?

As I've already mentioned, the controls for this game are reasonably complex (though less so that Outcast, IIRC). However, it's a case of one hand on the mouse, to control the camera (rotation about the Prince) and click to use the sword and do some moves (I'll come back to those in a moment [Big Grin] ), and one hand on a small area of keys (centred around W,A,S,D) for control of the Prince and his weapons. After a little practise, I found this worked fine, despite my usual preference for simpler controls.

Okay, those acrobatic moves. One word... WOW! The first time I saw the Prince do his wall-running stunt, I knew I was immediately back where I was when I first played Tomb Raider back in 1996. Our hero is a stunningly well animated guy, who does moves that would make Ang Lee proud - if you enjoyed the 'ballet' in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", then you'll love this!

Of course, this being a Prince of Persia game, there's fighting involved. Not all the time, certainly, but there are times when it gets a bit involved! There are always more that one opponent... but the Prince always manages to outclass them in the end! I did find some frustrating periods with some of the more difficult timed sections (a major part of this game) and some of the later fights. Though I think these added to the challenge, rather than putting me off.

Any other novelties?

There is one idea introduced in PoP4 that I've never seen before... a rewind function! Once you have the dagger of time in your grubby little hands, you can rewind up to 10 seconds of action at almost any time. So you missed that jump (after all, this is a platform game to a certain extent [Wink] ), not to worry... rewind will take you back to the point just before you made it. Be warned, however, the dagger does not have infinite power.

The graphics are wonderful. Not a glitch anywhere! No pop-up polygons nor limbs vanishing into walls. Something else for Core to take notice of. The palace is nicely modelled and feels quite real. My only quibble is that Prince of Persia 3D actually managed to look beautifully decorated (if slow & jerky in places), whereas these environments are a bit more staid... so far, of course.

The bad guys are as well animated as the Prince, with a nice level of detail, and plenty of attention to visual effects and so on. They even come across as reasonably intelligent on occasion, except for their willingness to throw themselves at the Prince who's clearly a rather special chap! [Smile]

I have a rather limited sound system, so although there are nice bits of voice-over commentary, and good sound effects, and music, I can't really say anything about any 5.1 or EAX issues. The sounds are well done, and keep the mood well. And the voice acting is so much better than many adventure games where the voices could be considered to be rather more important!

This next point counts as a real novelty in my book: the game has been remarkably stable in these days of game patches being released the day after the game hits the shops! AFAIK, there is no patch. But then, in my experience, there is no need for one! The only crashes I experienced were during a period when the entire machine was being unreliable, due to a hardware fault.

Ok, this is an adventure game, so what about the puzzles. Well, most of them are physical. There are places where the Prince has to jump between columns, climb walls (which he does rather more dynamically than Lara Croft ever did), creep along ledges, dodge things, etc. There are a few moving block and lever puzzles, but as the game progresses, the Prince gets more moves.. rope swinging, and narrow wall-top walking, and his sword gets updated a few times, so there are puzzles that make use of these abilities.

What do you need to play it?

Win 98 SE/Win ME/Win 2K/Win XP

Pentium III 800Mhz or faster

256MB RAM or more

Geforce 3 or better (Geforce 4 MX is explicitly *not* supported)

DirectX 9.0b (on the CD, although the website claims 9a is sufficient!)

(I used Win XP, AMD 1300 Thunderbird, 384 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128 AGP)

Conclusions

Downsides: Limited saves... this game is more in the console style than a normal PC game. Non trivial hardware requirements (for the time).

Upsides: Novelties like rewind. The story telling. The graphics. The acrobatics! And the overall excitement. This is what Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness could and should have been, but is so far short of. [Frown]

In fact, I found TR: AoD so dull and lifeless that I got no further than the bomb (people who've play AoD will know what I mean). PoP4 is so much more exciting, it took me a month (of 2-4 evenings per week) to complete. And, like PoP3D, it's one I'll come back to in the future.

Unfortunately, this game has received a rather muted and somewhat negative reception in the reviews I've seen thus far. The notable exception to this is JustAdventure's review which is nearly as positive as mine. And GameSpot ran a series on the final days of the PoP4 project.

If you enjoy action, this is a definite winner, and so, finally, I have to give this game an A!