12-21-2004, 06:00 PM
|
|
Thoughts Media Review Team
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 599
|
|
Atlantis Redux reviewed
Product Category: Adventure game
Manufacturer: Clickgamer
Where to Buy: Handango [Affiliate]
Price: $24.95 USD
System Requirements: Windows Mobile 2003/2003 SE, 400MHz plus good graphics performance, 20MB free memory, 120MB storage
Pros:- Outstanding graphics quality;
- Taxing puzzles;
- Good storyline.
Cons:- Limited control over sound;
- Needs a lot of storage space;
- High system requirements.
Summary:
An adventure game with gorgeous graphics, great sound and puzzles that I can solve! (*) What more can I want from a Pocket PC game? (*) Well, mostly!
Read on for the full review!
Getting Started
There isn't much to the installation process for Atlantis Redux - copy the files onto your storage card and run the executable. The downside is that you have to use File Explorer every time you want to run the game as it doesn't install an icon anywhere. The upside is that the installation is easy and uninstallation is just as easy.
The first time that you run the game, you have to enter a graphics code that you get when you buy the game. I struggled with this a little bit because my Axim doesn't show some of the graphics clearly but you only have to do it once.
Playing the Game
When you start the game, your initial options are few, as Figure 1 shows.
Figure 1: Starting the game.
Clicking on How to play takes you to a single screen giving you the controls on the PDA, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Controls for the game.
My first quibble was the option on the menu for "Sounds on" - it is actually in reverse. It says "Sounds on" when the sounds are playing and clicking on it changes the text to "Sounds off" and the sound stops. It might make more sense to reword this option to "Turn sounds on" and "Turn sounds off" respectively. An associated quibble is that that is your sole control over sound - you can't adjust the volume from within the game and you don't get the choice of music and speech - it's all or nothing. The music, whilst being of very high quality, can get a bit grating if you are trying to figure out a puzzle and you've been stuck for a while ... with the same loop of music playing over and over and over again.
To play the game itself, you can either start a new game or load an existing game. The software allows you to have six saved game slots, as shown in Figure 3. Each saved game is represented by a small (very small!) picture of the location you have gotten to. It would have been better if those pictures were just a bit bigger to make it easier to realise which scene was which. I would also have preferred to have a few more slots. I realise that screen size is a limitation but other games permit this by allowing you to scroll through the saved games.
Figure 3: Loading a saved game.
Starting a new game takes you to Peru in 2018 where you see a movie clip showing someone digging away and finding a crystal skull. Both the skull and the person digging play important roles in the game :-).
Figure 4: Setting the scene.
The movie then takes you on to Hoggar in 2020 where you play the part of a young archaeologist searching for a metropolis reputed to have been built by the ancient Egyptians.
Figure 5: Lost in the desert.
Once the beautifully rendered movie has finished, you find yourself in the desert. Navigation through the game is both simple and complicated - simple because you can move left and right in a full circle; complicated because in some locations (such as the opening desert scene), you have to watch the landmarks carefully in order to map where you've been and where you are going.
What I really liked about the navigation, though, was that you had the choice of using the D-pad or the stylus in the extreme left & right zones of the screen. The downside is that there isn't any support for left-handed people.
Once you've reached a part of the landscape where you can move, the centre display changes to indicate this, as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 6: Moving forward.
Pressing up on the D-pad takes that action, as does tapping on the screen. When you reach someone that you can talk to, the centre display changes to lips, as you can see in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Talk to them then.
Tapping on the screen starts the dialogue. Sometimes it's a fixed exchange between yourself and the character, in which case the characters are shown saying their words, along with the text on the screen. The dialogue is very high quality but sometimes slips out of synchronisation with what is happening on the screen. One of the downsides of these fixed exchanges is that you can't skip through them as you can in, say, FADE. This means that if you've reloaded to a point you previously reached, you've got no choice but to sit through the dialogue again.
Figure 8: A fixed exchange of words.
More normally, though, when you start a dialogue, you will be given a number of icons representing topics to talk about, as shown in Figure 9. This is typical of games of this genre, where you are given a choice of dialogue topics.
Figure 9: Four things to talk about.
The third method of interacting with the game is puzzles. When you come across a puzzle that you need to solve, the display will often change to display a cog wheel, as shown in Figure 10. I say "often" because, just sometimes, the game gets a bit tricky and doesn't show the cog wheel until you try to use an object you are carrying with the background. Another way that the game can be tricky is that it might show you the cog wheel but tapping on it does nothing - often this is an indication that there is something you can do here but you don't yet have all the bits you need.
Figure 10: A puzzle to solve?
The last way you can interact with the game is through taking objects and then using them. As Figure 11 shows, the display changes to a hand and tapping on the screen adds the object to your inventory.
Figure 11: Take it - you know that you want to!
Gameplay
The quality of this game is very high indeed. The graphics are superb, the pre-rendered movies are excellent and the dialogue is very professionally recorded. As we've just seen, the game has simple but effective controls.
A game like this mainly hangs on two things - the storyline and the puzzles. The storyline is pretty good - the game is split into a series of parts and the journey through those parts generally makes sense. It was slightly disconcerting when I suddenly found myself playing the part of a male thief that looked very different from the female archaeologist!
Figure 12: Is this still me?
The storyline is assisted by the various video sequences that are used to carry the story along. Although they are large and what forces the game to be installed onto a storage card, they are worth it - the game definitely would not be the same without them.
The puzzles are, on the whole, logical and do progress in difficulty, although I must confess to getting stuck on the second puzzle in the game and needing help from the developer :-(.
One of my favourite bits was the game's version of snakes and ladders, as shown in Figure 13. The rolling of the dice is beautifully displayed, right down to the shadow it casts over the board. A slight niggle, though, is that you can't save the game at this point - you are stuck here until you win the board game. Since you don't get any warning of this, it can be very frustrating if you get stuck.
Figure 13: Snakes and ladders.
There was one other puzzle, nearer the end of the game, where I just could not figure out the solution. Even now, knowing the answer, I can't mentally join the dots and figure out how you get that answer. Apart from that, though, I enjoyed working through the game and solving the puzzles. Some of them are multi-stage, i.e. you have to solve a few smaller puzzles before you can solve a larger puzzle, which I really enjoy as you have to start mentally juggling more parts to get to the whole.
Unlike other games of this genre, this is definitely one where you'll want a pen and paper to hand - not only to map out the harder parts of the terrain but also to make a note of what at least one character says to you. You'll need it - you'll probably realise why when it is too late! Fortunately, I'd got enough saved places that I didn't have to re-play too much of the game to get the missing information.
Conclusions
This is an excellent game. It may not have the longest gameplay of the available games in this genre, but I found it to be about the right length - somewhere between 15 and 20 hours depending on how good you are at solving the puzzles.
The quality of the graphics has set a standard by which other games will definitely be compared! It will be interesting to see if the promise made at the end of the game is followed through :-).
|
| |
|
|
|
12-21-2004, 06:54 PM
|
|
Pupil
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 21
|
|
I�m a gamer, love to play Xbox, PS2, PC, Pocket PC and emulate some SNES on PPC.
I played this game on my friend�s PPC.
Couldn�t play it more than 5 minutes.
THIS GAME IS HORRIBLE!!!
Just my opnion. :wink:
|
| |
|
|
|
12-21-2004, 06:59 PM
|
|
Magi
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 2,341
|
|
Re: Atlantis Redux reviewed
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Philip Colmer
The puzzles are, on the whole, logical and do progress in difficulty, although I must confess to getting stuck on the second puzzle in the game and needing help from the developer :-(.
|
Excellent review Philip. I think it is difficult to review role playing, mind puzzling games like this without giving away to much....unfortunately, because like you I seem to be stuck on that second puzzle. I was hoping the reviewer would be a bit of help. 
Dave
|
| |
|
|
|
12-21-2004, 07:03 PM
|
|
Thoughts Media Review Team
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 599
|
|
Re: Atlantis Redux reviewed
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Paragon
I was hoping the reviewer would be a bit of help. |
I've PMed you with a hint.
The game is based on a PC game - variously called Atlantis II or III depending on who is talking about it - so you can find some walkthroughs on the net.
If you need more help, let me know.
--Philip
|
| |
|
|
|
12-21-2004, 07:08 PM
|
|
Magi
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 2,341
|
|
Thanks Philip...got it! I'm off to see the wizard....
|
| |
|
|
|
12-21-2004, 07:21 PM
|
|
Intellectual
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 138
|
|
Did you play the game on a VGA ppc? Just wondering if the graphics are scaled for VGA devices.
|
| |
|
|
|
12-21-2004, 08:34 PM
|
|
Thinker
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 352
|
|
I could play it on X50v, if I ever got around to play it :lol: . After the holidays, maybe. Graphic looks awesome on my device.
Nice review, Philip. You could create an icon on your Today screen using Pocket Plus 2.2. No need to go thru File Explorer to run the game.
|
| |
|
|
|
12-22-2004, 01:43 AM
|
|
2000 Posts And This is All I Get?
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 2,017
|
|
Just curious,
From clickgamer.com :
Atlantis Redux for Pocket PC
Windows Mobile 2003, Windows Mobile 2003 SE/VGA (.mpeg)
WM2003 only ? No PPC2002 ?
|
| |
|
|
|
12-22-2004, 03:49 AM
|
|
Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
|
|
20MB of free RAM? I'm not sure it would even launch on my 2215. :|
|
| |
|
|
|
12-22-2004, 04:22 AM
|
|
Developer & Designer, News Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 12,959
|
|
I love the graphics, but I think my h1940 would explode at the thought of even attempting to run this beast of a game. 
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Linear Mode
