Gobliiins Collection Review (Switch)

There’s obviously been a breakthrough in home computer emulation recently as we are getting more and more MS-DOS and Amiga games released for modern systems. While games like Turrican and the upcoming Apidya may be the obvious go to games for release we are pleased to see the often-overlooked Gobliiins franchise put together in a solid package.

The quirk of the games is that the number of I’s in the games title will tell you how many characters you will be controlling at once. The first game has three (Gobliiins), and then in a no doubt intentional move Gobliins 2 has two and then Goblins 3 has one. Game developers, eh?

There are five games here included, starting in 1991 and moving through to the 2023 revival. The sixth game is not here as we suspect that will get a separate release later. The complete soundtrack is also included and an excellent mini-series style documentary and gallery. It’s always nice to see game collections handled well and this had a lot of attention put into it.

The games themselves follow the standard point and click adventure template. Most of the time though you are restricted within a single scene, so the levels play out more like independent puzzles than a bigger, overarching world to wander around. This has the bonus of removing a lot of back tracking and carting around a ton of useless items with you everywhere you go. The games do play around with this as you go through the series but there is a general minimalist approach to aimless wandering.

Generally, the characters share an inventory and health bar. The characters also have different skills for the player to sue. This is most evident with the three goblins in the first game where one can pick up and use objects, one can punch things and the other casts spells. While there is a health bar, you can save the levels and ‘death’ just means a restart of the particular scene. As the levels are so compact this isn’t generally a massive issue.

Controls on the Switch has a virtual cursor on the screen that can be moved around via the left analogue stick. Other buttons are then used to shift through character selection and items. There are no touch screen controls which is a shame, but everything works well. You can also highlight interactive sections of each stage with one of the shoulder buttons. This really helps, especially with the earlier games as it can be hard to tell what’s an object and what is just background art.

All the games are good fun though. The 3D Goliiins 4 isn’t the best, but then every point and click game seems to have a misguided 3D entry in its series somewhere. The other four though are good enough across the board. The games never troubled the absolute pinnacles of the genre but they have left a legacy which as lasted over fifteen years which generally doesn’t happen if your games are awful.

Overall, the Gobliiins collection is a healthy dose of nostalgia done correctly. The first game is one we have a particular soft spot for and it’s an enjoyable series to work your way through. Its yet another slightly obscure retro game that we are more than happy to see again.

Overall 7/10

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream Review (Switch)

As point and click adventures go IHNMAIMS is certainly one of the darker and most out there ones. Based on the short story of the same name is follows the story of five humans who are held captive by an artificial intelligence known as AM. AM has destroyed the earth and now keeps the five humans alive for its own sadistic pleasure. They are held immortal and eternally tortured, so far, they have been tormented for 109 years.

The game works in the traditional point and click way. You move around with the Switch left analogue stick and click on items to pick up and things to interact with. There are dialogue trees to work though as well and unlike many point and click games you can die. AIM won’t let you really die though and instead will drop you back at the start of the adventure, so it pays to save often.

However, each of the chapters can be completed in numerous ways with different actions being carried out throughout. Your characters have a spiritual health bar which increases whenever they do something good and decreases when something bad happens. The state of the bar at the end of the level along with the route you have taken to completion results in determining if you have been successful or not (something you won’t know for sure until the final act).

Taking control of each of the five captives in turn, players must solve a mystery relating to each of them. These act as self-contained mini adventures and change dramatically in content. One minute you might be wandering around a fantasy castle making deals with the devil while another adventure is set in a prison camp where horrific experiments are being carried out on the inmates. The one thing that does stay consistent is just how dark it all is though.

There is no humour here and each of the characters must overcome nasty things in order to make it through their section. Everything relates to things in their past and they are certainly not for the faint of heart. One of the characters main aims is to commit suicide so that gives you a hint as to the tone. It’s also very easy to make mistakes which lead you down the darker sides of the adventure. A number of times thing happened that surprised us, or we didn’t even know could be avoided and this can be frustrating.

Frustration is one of the biggest problems with IHNMAIMS. It’s wildly changing frame of reference within the different setups for the adventures made us feel that much of the time we were simply fumbling our way through it instead of having great revelations. Often using items on things when you’re stuck can have a bad effect or bring the story to an end without any warning and when you are intricately trying to get something sorted it’s beyond annoying. In one scene we accidentally clicked on something in the background and our player was immediately dragged back to the hub world by AIM without any warning or chance to abort our action.

Overall, IHNMAIMS is a strange one. The story is excellent, and the dark tone and menacing atmosphere are something you don’t normally find in this type of game. The multiple routes are also good (in theory) and it does a lot right. However, it never really clicked with us. Without the humour it dragged a bit and the fragmented stories of the captives and changes in tone and design didn’t really help this. A lot of time we were solving things without really knowing why we were doing it, and I would be surprised if we dived back in to find the alternative ways through the game. It’s certainly worth playing through once though and one ever point and click fan should at least try.

Overall 7/10

Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars: Reforged Review (Switch)

In the mid 90's Revolution released Broken Sword with little hype or press attention. By the time the game came to be converted onto the Playstation, it was being acknowledged as one of the most astounding adventures ever made and to this day it remains at the peak of the point and click genre. The last we saw of the game on consoles was the Directors Cut which added a few extra sections for Nicole, some Wiimote waggle and, criminally, removed the iconic opening. This reforged version removes the added extras and gives you the original game with the option of both the original and new look graphics.

The plot follows unsuspecting tourist George as he finds himself caught up in a murder at a small Paris cafe. After a bomb blast George raises himself from beneath a crushed umbrella, brushes himself off and unwisely decides to investigate. The story takes you all around the world as countries such as Ireland, France and Syria give up their parts of the mystery.

What makes the game so great is the care and attention to the script. Every conversation contains humour and charm, and you never feel bored while the characters speak their piece. It helps that everyone you meet is brilliantly over the top (the mad kebab seller using the toilet brush for basting springs to mind). The skill of the writers to make sure the characters are funny as well as informative is to be commended. Although, characters can fall into the cliched category perhaps once too often.

Apart from the great characters, the puzzles are among the finest to be found in the genre. Broken Sword gently eases you into the way you need to think. Most puzzles are logical but do require you to really understand the objects you have. For instance, a blood pressure gauge found in the hospital can be used to stop the flow of water in a hose. The player really must think as inventively as the programmers to get through. This new version has added a hint system in for those looking to make quicker progress though.

The Switch controls aren’t up there with a mouse of course but they are more than a match for the few time-based puzzles found within the game. There are touch controls available on the pad as well, but we didn’t find them particularly useful or needed. The new look of the game is in keeping with the original and style and we couldn’t ever quite decide which look we preferred the most. Luckily the graphics can be switched with a simple button press at any time. One thing that hasn’t been updated though is the audio, which serves as one of the few disappointments as the recording quality is really showing its age now.

Despite its age, Broken Sword is an exceptional game and remains a high point of the genre. Apart from the slight problem with the controls it's faultless. This is one of the best adventure stories you will ever encounter and is perfectly scripted and perfectly executed in just about every way. It’s the best point and click game on the Switch and still one of the best games ever made.

9/10

Sam and Max: The Devil's Play House Review (Switch)

Written by Thomas G.J. Sharpe

I had briefly played the 2007 Sam and Max game by Telltale Games when it released, with all the appropriate eagerness of a rabid fan of Sam and Max Hit the Road and everything that creator Steve Purcell had a hand in. I bought Hit the Road in the US, in it’s full big-box, extra item-laden glory, at the height of the Lucasarts golden era. That game, with its full talkie CD-ROM treatment is a high point of the genre, to this day. The Devil’s Playhouse, as a part of the franchise that followed, has a nigh-on impossible job. This has been demonstrated for years after Monkey Island 1 and 2, where even the excellent Curse of Monkey Island, was burdened with the weight of nostalgia, historic success, and fan expectation. When I played through this post-Telltale remaster, I had to bat away much of this predictable and rather useless rose-tinted baggage. A team of ex-Telltale developers, under the moniker of Skunkape, have been breathing fresh life into this set of Sam and Max titles, that do a great job of capturing the essence of Purcell’s absurd creations. 

These are point and click adventure games of the generation spawned from Grim Fandango (the poster child of the post-2D world). While even Hit the Road had some 3D elements in it’s visuals, the whole way PnC could be played changed. Playhouse has scenes to puzzle through that operate and utilise the 3D-ness of the locations. The essential parts are there; inventory, dialogue options, and the modern squishing of action-verb tables or radials into a more succinct action prompt. There is a lovely comic-style feel to GUI and a charming little illustration of Sam when choosing some dialogue points on a radial. A key twist to this story is Max’s use of the Devil’s Toybox, which provide him with means to use all sorts of strange powers. This fits right in with Max’s frenetic weirdness, but in gameplay terms, keeps him much more engaged than previously. While Sam is still our straight-er man (dog), Max is less of a prop this way, or a means to deliver a psychopathic one-liner. Long and the short of Sam and Max as a concept, if you’ve not encountered it before, is a banjo playing, revolver wielding dog and an insane rabbit solve crimes in a bizarre bastardisation of the United States (that really just seems like the real United States a lot of the time).

After Sam and Max Save the World and then Beyond Time and Space, The Devil’s Playhouse appears to have some continuity, but not so much that I couldn’t enjoy it having not played the others. The episodic structure of the original Seasons is present, that feeds into the “case of…” detective schtick, and neatly providing some way to pace and metre out the plot points. As the scenarios are typically surreal and/or zany, they need to move fast. Most parts of this move at a decent whack, despite most of the entertainment of the thing being rooted in the classic point and click space of dialogue. There are consistent and reliable laughs in The Devil’s Playhouse, which is a relief given the IP. I didn’t expect to be amused this much. Often it was the dialogue itself, with it being quick and piercing to a great degree. This may lack the more scathing social satire of Purcell’s comics, there is enough of the absurd, the violent, and the indiscriminate about it. The sensibilities of both characters are dutifully flippant. They fight crime and cause more damage than the villains, and this is just how it should be.

There are memorable characters a plenty. My personal favourites were a set of talking radio gadgets, Sal the security cockroach, and the tin can army of Maimtron robots. The voice acting often hits the comedy mark instead of the lines themselves, and these are enthusiastically performed. Even at times, there is unexpected emotion and depth to what is inherently a very pulpy scenario. There is also a stand-out apex of the episodes here in “They Stole Max’s Brain” (“based on the similarly titled novel by Jane Austen” is one of the best lines in the game), where the drama ramps up and things get dark. Sam is always the best for me when he’s on tilt.

The graphics look great compared to the original game (from a little glance at some videos). The environments to have a slight sparse feel at times that does date it. These are remasters that will hopefully make the games up to date enough to smooth a modern audience into engaging. Subsequent Telltale games after these ones notched up the visuals, design and scene setting each time until it became the license hoover it did. I believe that these games will instantly be more accessible to modern audiences than any 2D PnC, however old feeling some of it is.

I will look to play the first two collections of episodes at some point as these feel they represent the true sequel to a beloved game of mine. You can feel the influence of the Lucasart era, and not just because of the closeness of some designers and writers, but just how well others have taken the characters and made them work in new but faithful ways. This is a great success that doesn’t have the baggage of a lot of the “cool” licenses that can get in the way of other Telltale games for me, and Skunkape have buffed it up real nice. Bravo.

Overall 9/10

Sam and Max Save the World Review (Switch)

It seems like a lifetime ago that the wise cracking canine shamus in the suit and the hyper kinetic, ultra-violent rabbit first made an impact on the gaming world. Luckily for us, after the proposed sequel was cancelled, Sam and Max found another way to reach their audience. It started as episodic seasons, of which Save the World was the first. You get Six episodes in total, and while they aren’t perfect, they certainly do enough to bring a smile to the faces of fans of the dangerous duo.

Sam and Max, as we all should know by now, are Freelance police who undertake missions given out by the commissioner. Sam is the thoughtful one, often pointing out the lunacy of what is happening around him, while Max is borderline insane and always looking for things to shoot, break or eat. The duo is joined in their adventures by Jimmy the rat- a low level fence who lives in their office, Bosco the shop owner and Sybil the woman of ever changing career.

The game controls have moved from the PC (and Wii) versions and now players directy control Sam. As he wanders around, things of interest highlight and can then be interacted with. This is still very much a point and click adventure with the character models and objects now in 3D.

It's somewhat of a relief to find that the writing and voice work retains much of its excellent quality. The humour and style that the original game was well known for is upheld admirably here. Some of the lines that our two heroes come out with are absolute genius and will have you laughing away on many occasions. The six episodes all have their own theme and range from average to excellent in terms of humour and general madness. Abe Lincoln must die stands out as a brilliant piece of social satire while Reality 2.0 might strike a little too close to home for many players.

As these episodes where released as episodic content on the PC and are self-contained three hour adventures there is a certain amount of repetition in location. Most episodes require you to visit Sam and Max's room, Bosco's Inconvenience store and Sybil's office. You will then typically have one or two other locations to explore relating to the episode you are playing. This isn't ideal and certainly not on a par with the original games layout but certainly shouldn't put you off.

On the whole, the puzzles are a mix of the logical and lateral thinking variety. Quite often you will have to be in the mindset of the game world to work out how to solve a certain situation. This works fine as most gamers will soon get the drift of how they should be thinking. There is a couple of instances where solutions are quite obscure though, our advice is simply to make sure you look everywhere and try everything. Even so, it's likely that players will stumble a few times and find themselves frustrated just that little bit too often.

Overall, We are really happy to see Sam and Max make it onto the Switch as this, and the games that followed it show enough of the greatness of the original. We can only hope that when the final of the three seasons has been released on the Switch we might get some news about further adventures.

Overall 7/10

Rauniot Review (Steam)

Review by Thomas G.J. Sharpe

Finnish point n’ click Rauniot had me boycott it for so long, and so early that I wanted to uninstall it. I’m glad I didn’t, because once this throwback gets into its stride, there is something wholly compelling and unusual about it.

At once familiar and a bit off, this is a mutated bit of nostalgia. The game world reflected in it’s feel. There is some fun diegesis with menus and GUI that remind me of other effective retro-futurism-immersion like Alien: Isolation. For some mad reason, the next one that came up for me was Crusader: No Remorse (it is far prettier, no shade intended). Something about the perspective and the mid-late 90’s graphical smoothness. Rauniot hits notes of shareware slideshows on PC Gamer demo discs graphically, yet it’s whispered, violent world is more akin to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Disco Elysium. It is, however, no way near as garrulous as those two titles.

The pitch is you play as Aino searching for a companion on horseback. The world is a stalled 1970’s after an apocalyptic event. Some decent indicators that everything has gone to Hull in a handcart is the proliferation of dog food, the bleak and oppressive lack of trust, and a haunted, reverberant world. The protagonist is barely audible and spins an atmosphere more dissociative as Finnish is not a language my ears are lucky to hear very often. Whispering asides that brood and menace are the soup of the day.

The litmus test of any point n’ clicker is the puzzles. Immediately I feel into a trap of having to pixel hunt. An almost first encountered item eluded me for far too long, which gives our first pause; there are mild outline hints on rollover for items, but do not expected things to be pointed out with neon signs. Take this how thy wilt, I suppose. I personally would like items to be in places where I can guess where they may be through inference, not through clutter. Other puzzles are marred by gating each other but with little nudging. Again, we could enter the puzzle vs intelligence vs brootal-git-gud thing, and I wish to be above the left-right paradigm, don’t we all.

Where Rauniot shines is an uncompromising story of human interaction. The characters you meet as Aino, and her herself, are on the very edge, the absolute limit of their trust in anything. This is a love letter to staring over an interpersonal cliff and wondering if the thrill of descent is worth leaving others.

This world is packed to the grimy rafters with detail, and uncanny locations, that really sing this nearly old game vibe. The minor hiccups in puzzle design throughout, I can personally overlook due to the caustic writing, unnerving performances, and this thoroughly effective evocation of a bit of a lost point n’ click style. It should be noted there are modern quality of life touches, such as quick move and a sort of back-pack-y menu thing.

For those with a penchant for sadness, whispering, dog food and being worried about neighbours. A little mucky gem.

Overall 8/10

Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit Review (Switch)

 

Of all the retro revivals happening at the minute the beloved point and click game is still somewhat underutilised on consoles. There have been some highlights of course with Broken Sword 5, Monkey Island and Roki being particular favourites, but compared to Metroidvaias and Rogue-likes there isn’t the strength in depth you might have hoped for. This is changing though, as the original Broken Sword and a new sequel are coming. Speaking of Broken Sword, here we have Crowns and Pawns which is a game clearly inspired by it and a title that should keep you busy until the triumphant return of George Stobbart.

Crowns and Pawns follows Milda, a girl with Lithuanian heritage who inherits a house from her grandfather which sets in motion a chain of events that sees her exploring the lesser highlighted areas of Europe and European history. The setting is a nice change from the norm as countries such as Lithuania offer a rich cultural and historical heritage to explore which will likely be less familiar to players. It’s something more developers should think about when choosing the settings for their games.

Of course, as soon as Milda touches down it becomes obvious there is much more going on than simply sorting out her grandfather’s house and soon, you’ll be caught up with the KGB and looking to uncover a long-hidden secrets and mysteries. This does play out in a way similar to the Broken Sword games with a lot of historical researching and visiting of churches and other cultural sights. But Revolutions game certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on churches so while it feels familiar it never moves into full copying territory.

There are two main processes to solving puzzles. The first will be familiar to point and click fans in that you move around areas picking up objects, combining when needed and then using them to solve a location-based puzzle. An early example of this is needing to figure out how to get a key from between a crack in the floorboards which requires magnets and string.

The other thing the game has you doing is combining notes in Mildas phone. For instance, when reading a book, she will often mark down important things such as locations or dates. You may then need to combine these with a note which says something like “My grandad was looking for treasure at a church”. Matching the two things will then normally give Milda a revelation leading to a new line of enquiry or a new location to go to and explore. The system itself is not particularly complicated but we did find ourselves stopped in our tracks a bit too often with this and starring at notes in her phone is far less interesting than interacting with the world.

Being stopped in our tracks is a bigger issue with the game as well. You’ll always get those moments where you aren’t quite sure how to solve a puzzle in point and click games but the clue giving in Crowns and Pawns is slightly off and not quite good enough too often. A lot of the time we didn’t have any idea what our goal was even when we asked what we should be doing, or we felt we had already done it. When you have a clear thread of what to do the puzzles are very good but too often, we found ourselves wandering aimlessly.

Overall, Crowns and Pawns is a fun and worthwhile game for point and click fans. It may be a bit unrefined in terms of its dialogue, but the puzzles, locations and general story are interesting and engaging. If you can get over the stop start nature of the game, then it is well worth playing as there is a lot of charm here and it’s clear the developers had a lot of passion for the project.

Overall 7/10

Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide To Side-Scrolling Beat-'Em-Ups

We’ve never had a Bitmap book come through the door we didn’t like. When this heavy tome arrived focused on side scrolling beat‘em ups we were immediately transported back to the arcades of old. Perhaps of all the books the team have released this has the potential to hit the nostalgia gland more than any other with the genre having many games that never made it to home releases.

Across the 456 pages it’s pretty much guaranteed you are going to find a ton of game you won’t have played, or perhaps even heard of, as the book covers games from all over the place. It’s set out into different decades running from 1980 all the way up to recent releases in 2021. The whole thing starts with a foreword from Renegade creator Yoshihisa Kishimoto followed by an informative and entertaining look at what makes a game fall into the genre. During this afterword section you also get the first of many double foldout pages.

In a visual representation of a side scroller, many of the articles about key games unfold to effectively create a four-page layout. This starts with Streets of Rage which is used to display a numbered scene from the game which acts as your guide to the key ingredients of the genre. The fold out pages are double sided as well so there’s no wasted space here.

Starting in the 1980’s with Kung Fu Master the amount of information you get on the games is massively impressive. For instance, Double Dragon has six pages dedicated to it covering development, gameplay, ports and classic moments. More obscure games get less or are reduced to split pages, but this certainly feels exhaustive in terms of the games featured and it’s hard to see what else could have been put in (even the notorious Bebe’s Kids is here). The big licenses are all in here as well, screenshots and all, so expect to see Turtles, Simpsons and even Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker.

There is a decent selection of screen shots and some full-page pictures but there is also a lot of text here so it’s certainly not just a coffee table book to flick through nonchalantly. The research and dedication required to get all this information together is impressive and everything is interesting and will likely send you off hunting for more than a few of the games. The fact each decade comes with a written introduction to the development of the games and market during that period is further proof that these books will likely end up on some kind of historical game development course in the future. There’s certainly enough to take you from knowing nothing to having a huge knowledge of both the titles and genre through the ages.

Overall, Go straight is an exceptional book. It’s perfect to dip into to look for your favourite game or read from front to back to get a detailed overview of pretty much every title in the genre. It’s logically organised which makes finding things easy and the intros to each decade are great encapsulations of the time they look at. Much like the Point and Click Adventure book before it, this is a real highlight in an already packed and impressive back catalogue from Bitmap books. Utterly essential for all retro fans.

 

Click here for store link. 

Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition Review (Switch)

Initially arriving about twelve years after Blade Runner came out in cinemas this always seemed like somewhat of an odd project from Westwood studios. Perhaps, even more strangely, it’s now beenr resurrected again and ported to consoles. The story runs parallel to the movie and follows detective McCoy as he investigates as number of crimes that may be related to an as yet unknown group of replicants. McCoy must gather clues and interrogate suspects as he searches for the truth, whatever that may be.

Blade Runner always was a massively ambitious game with a lot of care and attention has spent on it to keep everything in synch with the world portrayed by Ridley Scott and written about by Philippe K Dick. Voice actors from the original film such as Sean Young, James Hong and Joe Turkel return to add presence to their characters that feature again here. Choice cuts from the original Blade Runner soundtrack are present as well.

The cinematic quality of the movie is also replicated with a number of sweeping shots similar to its on screen counterpart. Locations from the film, as well as small scenes, such as the bicycles riding through the rain, are further used to make players feel they are inside the real Blade Runner world. As far as authenticity goes this game really cannot be faulted.

The game itself is a little removed from what we consider to be a traditional point and click adventure. There are very few actual puzzles to solve and even a few shooting sequences thrown in. Players make their way through the story by collecting clues, using the ESPER photo analysis machine (just like in the film) and talking to suspects. The game has six different endings and your clues can draw you in a number of very different directions. Certain events happen in real though, which can leave players guessing as they were busy investigating a different location when something goes down.

Unfortunately, the titles ambition never wasn’t executed quite as well as it could have been. On quite a few occasions you can be staring at a pile of clues and not really knowing where you should be heading. It is also far too easy to stumble onto a certain path without really knowing, or agreeing, with what your character may end up doing. It can all be just a bit too confusing at times. It’s also fairly short and just when you feel you are stacking up a decent set of clues you suddenly and abruptly arrive at the end of the game anyway.

We would have liked to have seen a little bit more patience from the developers to let players fully develop their opinion about what is going on. Far too often events happen too quickly and you end up thrust into a situation that seems to force the narrative along rather than letting the player do it. Certain sections of the game are also very hard and frustrating.

Criticism aside, the investigation you undertake really is interesting. All the characters are well acted and intriguing to interrogate and McCoy is convincing as the confused detective. The control system also works very well and looking through your clues and piecing together bits of information is satisfying. The combat is reasonable as well and more than adequate for the amount of shooting you end up doing.

The big sticking point is a flawed but ambitious game has now been ported to a less than ideal platform and it hasn’t been done in a massively successful way. For starters there are very few instructions about how anything works – this game really needed a digital manual. You also have an interface which really is not a decent replacement for a mouse and also there are no real quality of life features either. Playing this on the Switch screen really needs some kind of highlight button to show up objects within the scenes.

Fans of the film and book should still definitely check this out though. Sections of the novel that didn't make it into the movie are worked into the story here and the fan service is really worth appreciating. The game may not be perfect but it never stops being interesting and those six endings are going to take a real amount of brain power to track down. Any adventure game fan up for a challenge and something a little different shouldn't be disappointed. But, you really should be playing it on PC if you can.

Overall 6/10

Quest for Infamy Review (Switch)

For those of a certain age, you will no doubt remember Sierra’s much loved Quest for Glory series. At it’s core it was a point and click adventure series but also had elements of hybrid gameplay such as real time combat. The series lasted for five games and the mix of humour and mythology worked very well.

Quest for Infamy, is of course based heavily on this model and series of games. Indeed, in terms of how the games look the team have got the style down perfectly and it looks identical to classic Sierra games of years gone by. The tone and writing are also of a good standard and keep the humour level high throughout. Impressively, the game is fully voice acted which is some achievement.

The twist here of course is that instead of being a hero you are playing the role of a minor hoodlum. You aren’t a bad guy per say but you are certainly not going to do anything that you don’t end up profiting from. In their quest players can take on three different classes which will see them travel through the games via different routes. For the physical minded you can take on the role of a brawler, cast spells as a sorcerer or take the sneakier route of the rogue.

The game itself plays pretty well. The main criticism you can lay at it is that goals are often a little vague. This wasn’t such an issue in games of this type in the past as most would restrict your wandering around to a small number of screens until you got your bearings. In Quest for Infamy, we can see some players wandering off in the wrong direction and getting lost in the environment as these barriers and restrictions are far fewer. We also found it difficult to find some objects at times – even with the highlight option. Again, this is nothing new for the genre but these games didn’t used to be played on screens the size of the Nintendo Switch.

On the whole though the puzzles do have a crazy kind of logic to them, and the world is well realised and rich with detail. It’s clear a lot of thought has gone into this and on the whole the game holds up for the length of the quest. It also looks amazing.

As a further throw back to its retro routes the game also comes with a pretty extensive digital manual and even a guide to get players through the opening prologue of the game. Again, for those of a certain age it’s the sort of thing we all remember for those big box Sierra games of old.

Overall, Quest for Infamy is a worthy addition to the many point and click adventures that have found themselves on the Switch. It’s certainly among the most retro of those titles but it’s a great throwback to classic Sierra games of old and we can only hope more appear in the future.

Overall 7/10

Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse Review (Switch)

 

Ah, Paris in the fall. The memories come flooding back as we think about our first experience with the Broken Sword series. Shadow of the Templars was arguably the best ever point and click adventure game so it wasn’t a massive surprise that the games that followed it couldn’t quite live up to it. Both Broken Sword 2 and 3 were both funny and taxing as the series moved from 2D to 3D but then came Broken Sword 4.

We’ve tried to play Broken Sword 4 on three separate occasions to bring our reviews up to date but it is awkward, dull and downright broken in places. But now The Serpent’s Curse is here and the series has returned to its 2D roots and it is so much better for it.

Broken Sword 5 has an air of wiping the slate clean and starting again in terms of design. We now start our game back in Paris, this time in the spring at an art gallery where George is soon reunited with on and off girlfriend Nico. Here a murder takes place and a strange painting is stolen. With George now working as an exhibit insurer he picks up the case to find out what has happened to the painting, who the murderer was and why the gallery owner was killed.

The return to Paris has also seen the series return to the 2D style that worked so well with the first two games. It’s not such a hand drawn look but the graphics are really very nice and keep it traditional while also working exceptionally well in HD and making the game look fit for the PS4. The control system has also reverted back to the ‘dragging a cursor around’ variety and clicking on things with the Switch Joy Cons doing an excellent job of mimicking a mouse.

The game also maintains the series excellent standard of voice acting and scripting with dialogue throughout feeling natural while also maintaining just the right amount of sarcasm and humour. The story itself is strong with a genuinely intriguing mystery to explore with the hints of magical MacGuffin we have come to expect.

One thing we could have done without returning are those tiny objects that require careful scanning of the screen to find. Right from the start there is something fairly well hidden. We weren’t entirely sure if it was colour-blindness that played a part or not but the option to highlight interactable objects would have been a useful addition. It’s a relatively minor point though and at least you know what to expect from games like this.

The actual puzzles are a bit of a mixed bag – though they are designed to stop you backtracking and wandering around multiple locations. Normally when you arrive in a location you can’t leave until the puzzle in the area has been completed. This is good in the fact that it allows you to focus on things with what you have to hand in the confidence there isn’t some tiny object somewhere else that you need. However, it did make us feel a bit penned in at times compared to some of the other games.

Though solid, there aren’t that many puzzles here that will remain memorable. There’s a nice one fairly early on in an art restorers loft but we found little that gave the same high as getting into the docks in Broken Sword 2 or getting the key to access the archaeological dig in the first game. Some of them are a little obscure as well – and not in the ‘use weird object to do thing’ way that these types of games are famous for. There’s also a slight over reliance on things like connecting wire puzzles and shape moving.

Overall, Broken Sword 5 is a solid return to form for the franchise. The mystery is genuinely compelling and the excellent art style and voice acting keep you interested throughout. It’s certainly not up there with the first game but it’s better than both the 3D games and gives Broken Sword 2 a fair run for its money as well. Above all else it’s a proper classic style point and click adventure and we’re glad to see it back.

Overall 7/10

Beyond a Steel Sky Review (Switch)

When we first reviewed Beneath a Steel Sky way back in the nineties it never really occurred to us that a sequel would arrive more than twenty years later. There have of course been rumours and previews of a sequel for years, but they always seemed to come to nothing. Finally, we now have the second instalment of the comedy cyber punk adventure.

The game starts ten years after the events of the original with the same protagonist (Robert Foster), living with a tribe in the vast wastelands (known as the gap), outside of Union City. After a child is kidnapped by a strange spider-like machine you find yourself drawn back once again into the corporate run mega city looking for answers.

The general look of the game works well to keep the spirit of the original alive and well. The cartoon style graphics are reminiscent of some of the telltale games and follows many of the traditional point and click adventurer tropes. Instead of moving a cursor around a screen, players now take direct control of Foster. As he moves around the 3D environment points of interest will pop up that can be interacted with once you move close enough. It’s pretty much the system we have come to expect from the many 2D point and click games that have made the jump into 3D worlds, and it works competently enough.

As well as the general wandering and picking up items the main gimmick of BASS is a hacking element. Most of the things that block your progress need tampering with in order to get them to do what you want. This takes the form of moving shapes around on a virtual circuit board. For instance, some machines will have instruction such as ‘Refill’ or ‘Empty’ written inside a shape such as a circle or diamond. Swapping the same shape around can then change the behaviour of the machine. Much of the game is then spent trying to get the machines with the right instructions that you want to swap within range of each other.

The general puzzle design is good but perhaps lacks some of the magic of the original. The dialogue and characters though are excellent throughout and feel right at home. The humour works and the game moves between darker satire and comedy smoothly, meaning nothing is ever too serious or too dark for the story being told. It also performs very well with nothing strikingly problematic in either docked or handheld mode. We were a bit worried about how the game would run on the Switch but it seems we had nothing to fear.

Overall, Beyond a Steel Sky is a welcome return for one of the most iconic point and click franchises of all time. It is clear Revolution have taken this sequel seriously and worked hard to make sure it fits in with the style and world of the original. It isn’t likely to become as iconic as it’s forebear but there is more than enough here for adventure fans to enjoy. Maybe even more importantly though it takes nothing away from the original game and stands on its own as a well-rounded experience that fans both new and old will enjoy immensely.

Overall, 7/10

The Art of Point and Click Adventure Games Review

Bitmap Books have built up an excellent reputation now with a string of extensive and informative releases. As long-time fans of the point and click genre it seemed a perfect opportunity to dive into their hefty tome based on everything involving using obscure items and dialogue trees.

The first thing to say is that this is another release that certainly gives a good impression with it being the size of a small bus – both in general size and page count. This edition of the book now contains around 500 pages organised into chronological order spanning from 1984 all the way to 2020. An excellent opening laying out the history of the genre draws readers and also gives a great overview for those looking to know more or who may be unfamiliar with it.

If there is a criticism here it’s that there is no glossary to allow you to get straight to a particular game. Luckily the exhaustive interviews in the book are indexed alphabetically meaning it’s easy to find which legend you want to read about. The amount of people interviewed is unbelievable. Pretty much every icon and legend of the genre is here meaning you get insights into just about all of the major publishers and developers that made their name in this area. Multiple legends from Lucas Arts are here such as Tim Shafer and Ron Gilbert, Sierra games such as King’s Quest, Gabriel Knight and Police Quest are spoken about, Revolution and Westwood get a solid nod and even people behind Future Wars and the Discworld games are on hand.

In fact, the only real omission we found was that Ragnar Tomquist wasn’t interviewed about The Longest Journey series. That and the interview with Jane Jensen about Gabriel Knight had some strange questioning considering the game was remade in 2014. It would also have been nice to delve a little deeper into the issues regarding Discworld and what would be required to bring the games to a new audience. These are all minor point though as the amount of stuff in here is mind blowing.

The exhaustive collection of information also covers just about every major point and click game you can possibly think of. Being as pedantic as we are though we would have liked to see a 2004 mention for The Moment of Silence. Aside from that though we really couldn’t think of anything that was missing. There are hundreds of games here and it will likely send you racing to eBay to try and find adventures you’ve missed out on.

Mass of information aside the other big selling point of the book is of course the art work. As usual this have been handled expertly. Most of the titles are treated to at least a double page spread of an iconic image from the game. Key games are also given extra pages to show off more of the locations and key art work. All these pixels and screens and are presented beautifully.

Overall, The Art of Point and Click Adventure Games is an exceptionally high quality release from Bitmap Books. It works both as a casual coffee table book to be browsed through and looked at just for the art and also as a more thoughtful read containing all the information you would ever need for those looking to learn about an important and iconic genre. It’s easily worth the asking price and stands out even against Bitmap Books other excellent releases.

Click here for store link 

*picture from Bitmap Books website

Thimbleweed Park Review (Nintendo Switch)

In recent years the classic point and click adventure has had a bit of a revival. We’ve had very welcome remasters of Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango and new properties such as Broken Age. This along with the rise of rise of the various Telltale Games series’, The Longest Journey’s long awaited third episode and Broken Sword 5 shows the genre is certainly back on the map.

Thimbleweed Park is perhaps the highest profile throwback to the idea of old school point and click games to appear in many a year. Whereas many of the other games have embraced new systems or at least worked on the systems from the later era Lucas Arts games, Thimbleweed harks way back to the early output of the aforementioned company with a system closer to that of Maniac Mansion - Only this time it’s designed to be far more user friendly.

The game initially follows two FBI agents who are drawn to the small town of Thimbleweed to investigate a murder. As the adventure progresses you are placed in control of a further three characters who are introduced via flashbacks. All five have their own motivations and goals as well as inevitably coming together as the plot thickens about the strange goings on in the town. The whole thing is presented in an older pixel style and carries a heavy Twin Peaks/X Files kind of vibe that works well with the odd-ball inhabitants and feeling of the town.

For the uninitiated, Thimbleweed follows the tried and test point and click adventure model. As you explore the town you will come across items which you collect. These items are then normally combined with other items or used in order to solve puzzles. For instance, at the very start of the game you need to find a stone to smash a light so you can move forward unseen. Moving your character is done by dragging a cursor around the screen and clicking or holding down one of the buttons to direct your character to wherever the cursor is moving. You also have a list of commands such as ‘Give’ or ‘Pick Up’ which can be accessed via button pushes or the cursor which need to be combined to complete certain actions. For instance, you would click ‘Pick up the rock’ then click ‘Use the rock on the light’ to smash it.

The puzzles themselves are fairly logical once you get your head around the way the game wants you to think. There’s certainly nothing here as bizarre and crazy as seen in many other games such as Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle. For those new to the genre there is also a casual mode which removes a lot of the puzzles (and even some locations), while still allowing you to experience the story. If you want the full experience but still get stuck there is an in game help line that can be called from the phones dotted around town that will keep you on track. It helps keep things moving but some may find the temptation too much when they find themselves facing a frustrating puzzle. If there is one major criticism, it’s that there is a little bit of overreliance on using the towns phonebook to solve problems by calling up specified numbers.

The characters are for the most part fairly standard fair but there are a few that leave a lasting impression such as the town Sheriff and the five main characters themselves. The plot holds up well for the most part providing an interesting tale and one that always hints at something more just beneath the surface. It’s hard to say much without giving it away but the whole thing goes a bit too meta for our personal taste towards the end and a few too many questions are left unanswered but it’s certainly a game we’ll return to in the future.

Overall, we found Thimbleweed park to be an enjoyable throwback to the days and style of early point and click adventures. We really like the fact it has gone down the Manic Mansion route as it sets itself apart both visually and in tone from the many other new games in the genre. The story kept us entertained (even if we were a bit disappointed by the conclusion), and the characters are fun to mess around with. There have also been just enough concessions made in terms of hints and moving around the place to keep things low on frustration. Thimbleweed succeeds at being both a love letter to games from the past and something relevant for gamers today and is certainly a game not likely to be forgotten by any who play it.

Overall 8/10

Day of the Tentacle Remastered Review (PC)

A long time ago in what seems like a galaxy far, far away point and click adventure games used to be all the rage. Lucas Arts were well known for its skill in making graphic adventures and Day of Tentacle is one of its most famous titles. Now in its new spruced up form we get to see if the game still stands up today.

The sequel to Maniac Mansion, Day of The Tentacle starts with Purple Tentacle drinking some toxic sludge which causes him to develop super intelligence and the urge to take over the world. Enter our three heroes Bernard, Laverne, and Hoagie who arrive fresh from receiving a note, delivered by hamster, from Green Tentacle asking for help. The original Maniac Mansion is also hidden away in the game but it hasn’t had the same graphical overhaul sadly.

Dr Fred, the man responsible for all the trouble attempts to send the three back in time to yesterday so they can turn off the machine polluting the water. However, something goes wrong and Hoagie, a fat rock loving stoner and Laverne, an insane spaced out drip, end up stuck in the past and future respectively. Players have to solve the puzzles in the different time frames to bring everyone home and then work out a way to stop Purple Tentacle.

The game has a unique graphical style which has really helped it to keep its place in many people's hearts. No other game out there looks quite as weird as Day of the Tentacle and the oddball graphics help portray the characters and complement the twisted humour really well. The HD re-working of the graphics sticks to the style well and give the player more of the game on screen by removing the interface commands at the bottom. If you just want to experience it in its original glory you can do that too at the push of a button.

There are a few new interface options to replace the old system. You can use a controller now if you wish or mouse commands which now revolve around holding down the right button to bring up an action wheel. It’s similar to the interface used in Full Throttle and most ‘classic’ styled point and click games now.  We found ourselves naturally slipping into it and it certainly does the job well.

The biggest plus about game, the crazy humour, can also be its biggest frustration. It's almost impossible to get through Day of the Tentacle without using some kind of guide as the puzzles often require you to think in the oddest and most obtuse ways possible. This would be a major problem if it wasn't for the fact that the game is so incredible hilarious. Every line is delivered perfectly and the three main characters all bring their own quirky nature to proceedings. The excellent voice cast also adds a whole new level of genius to the game.

The puzzles, although quite clearly programmed by the insane, also raise a smile. It's hard to describe any without giving the game away. Needless to say, Hoagie crashing the signing of the declaration of independence and Laverne being sent to a future where earth is run by tentacles and humans are kept as pets offer up a plethora of opportunities for madness. Throw in a hamster and a talking horse and you really can't go wrong.

It's good to see that after all these years that Day of the Tentacle is still worthy of all the praise that gets lavished upon it. There has never been a funnier game and if more titles had characters as well thought out as these then the industry would be a much brighter place. Even though the puzzles can drive you to madness it's all worth it to experience one of the most unique and original adventures out there.

Overall 8/10

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – The Graphic Adventure Review (PC)

Written by Dan Gill

Writing retro reviews can be a funny old thing.  As a writer you try to judge a game on its merits, on how it plays right now.  In some cases there will obviously be some bias towards a title due to having played and enjoyed it in the past, no matter whether it was any good or not.  For example, I quite enjoy Gremlin’s C64 version of platform/shoot-em-up Future Knight, despite the fact it isn’t a particularly well designed title (and received a critical panning and little commercial success upon release), and a close friend (who shall remain nameless) enjoys 3DO’s mostly awful Army Men titles.  Still, despite all this we reviewers need to put our past selves away and play a game with fresh eyes.  With that in mind, I take on one of Ron Gilbert’s early titles for Lucasfilm Games.

Readers of my somewhat sparse and sporadic past wordblurts will know how fondly I look upon LucasArts’ point-and-click library, of which I still feel the pinnacle is The Secret of Monkey Island, a game about which many words have already been written. The same can be said of Maniac Mansion, the debut of the SCUMM engine.  However, poor old Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – The Graphic Adventure (a snappy little title if ever there was one), is often overlooked in favour of the aforementioned games, and its own sequel – the rather spiffy Fate of Atlantis.  Despite being a movie tie-in, Crusade manages to avoid the early nineties trend of only being loosely affiliated with its source material and dressed up as a platform/shooter/beat-em-up (like Wayne’s World on the Game Boy for example).  Well, The Graphic Adventure does anyway (an Action Game was also released.  It wasn’t great)

The story follows the plot of the film where Dr Jones is on the search for the Holy Grail, all the while dodging troublesome Nazis, reuniting with his father and bumping into Hitler.  The game looks pretty good for a title from 1989, losing the giant heads of Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracke  and recreating the environments from the film in 16 glorious colours (although I played the CD ROM re-release which uses an eye-melting 256 colours).  Given the limitations of the time, the team did an impressive job of creating the locales.  From the university to the library, the backdrop to Indy’s search looks much nicer than anything being produced by Sierra at the time.

Of course, such things are moot should the game not play well.  Thankfully, Crusade retains the humour of its predecessors while tightening up the adventuring a little.  A point system is introduced (the Indy Quotient), which scores you on how you overcome obstacles with some puzzles having multiple solutions that affect the score you receive.  This is quite novel for a LucasArts title and adds a bit more replay value.  On the whole, puzzles are fairly logical and manage to keep the player thinking without being too obtuse.

The one aspect of the game I’m not particularly keen on is the awkward fighting system.  Using (ideally) the numpad on the keyboard allows Indy a variety of blocks and punches with which to take on opponents.  My trouble with this was that it deviated from the adventure gaming I was used to and seemed awfully fiddly and random.  On a couple of occasions fights ended up with me loading an older save to replay an entire section in order to attempt to retain health, or to avoid the fight completely.  Since this is an earlier SCUMM game it is possible to lose/die and after being downed by a single punch over and over I lost my patience and had to leave the game for a while.  Perhaps this is more a sign of how games have coddled me in recent years, or maybe indicative of how adventure game design has improved over time, be it Monkey Island’s insult sword fighting or The Walking Dead’s QTEs.  Either way, this is my only real gripe and it didn’t sully my experience too much.  It did also teach me to man up and get on with it; another trait required of retro reviewers.

So, is Crusade worth playing?  If you’re a fan of point-and-click adventures, absolutely.  It’s a game from a time that Lucasfilm was at a turning point, where they would lose the cul-de-sac trappings of adventure game design for future titles (at least for the most part), and one that shows the great writing and design the company later became renowned for.  Sure, Crusade would be improved upon by its stablemates, but it’s still worth revisiting.  And I say that on viewing it with a fresh pair of eyes rather than through the warm, fuzzy fondness often observed through the Retroscope™.  Should you choose to play this, be safe in the knowledge you’ve chosen wisely.

7/10

Armikrog Review (PC)

Funded via Kickstarter and much delayed, the spiritual successor to the Neverhood and Skull Monkeys has now finally made it’s on the PC. Whether it’s actually in a state to have been released at this stage is another thing entirely.

It all starts out very well with a beautiful claymation style that is simply breath taking. It looks gorgeous and our two protagonists Tommynaught and his pet talking dog thing Beak-Beak are likable and voiced with humour and a lot of character. After an impressive cut scene where you are chased by a fluffy monster thing the game begins properly and quickly it begin to unravel.

The game is a point and click adventure but lacks most of what we have come to expect from the genre. The first major issue is the mouse cursor. Normally the cursor in these sorts of games changes in some way to indicate that you can look or interact with things. Not here, it just stays like a mouse cursor with no feedback given to the player about what you can do.

This in itself wouldn’t necessarily be a problem but clicking on things results in nothing at all. Yes, no description of the object, no text, nothing. You have absolutely no feedback at all with regards to what is an interactable object and what isn’t. If you can pick up an object you walk over and grab it but no indication is given to what you have actually got and you can’t access an inventory either. There’s no way of telling what you are carrying around or examining it. If you happen to click on the thing the object goes with you will automatically take it out and use it.

It’s a baffling decision and must have been brought about through time and budget issues. There is clearly no way it could have been originally envisaged like this. We endeavoured to adventure on hoping we would get used to the game and for a few rooms it did seem to improve. We managed to get some fluffy thing moved to act as a ladder and Beak-Beak went through a little hole which sent everything all trippy but sadly, the fun didn’t last long.

Time and time again we came up against irritating puzzles which required panels to be moved, or thing to be slid or turned. The sort of puzzles that turn up about once a game in other point and click adventures and end up being the bit everyone hates. The puzzles arrive with no explanation as how to complete them and no context as to how they relate to anything. It makes the game incredibly disjointed and frustrating and after even an hour we were tiring very quickly of it.

Even the options menu is poor with the ability to save, load and change the sound level. That’s it. There’s also very little confirmation that you’ve actually saved your game. When you return to the game you can’t continue from the main menu screen either and have to go into the options menu again to load. 

The fact it grew tiresome so quickly despite looking so amazing is a real shame. It is clear that a lot of care and attention has gone into the look of the game and it’s one of the most unique aesthetics we’ve ever seen. But you can’t hide the fact the rest of it is frustrating, seemingly unfinished and even a bit broken in places. Though patches have been put in place we still found some issues with things not working how and when they should.

Overall, it’s a harsh thing to say but this reminded us of Rise of Robots. It’s all style over substance and beyond that it is does its very best to annoy and irritate the player. It may well be a case of over ambition but in its current state we can’t recommend Armikrog to anyone. It’s just not up to the standard we expect of point and click adventures.

Overall 3/10

Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse Review (PS4)

Ah, Paris in the fall. The memories come flooding back as we think about our first experience with the Broken Sword series. Shadow of the Templars was arguably the best ever point and click adventure game so it wasn’t a massive surprise that the games that followed it couldn’t quite live up to it. Both Broken Sword 2 and 3 were both funny and taxing as the series moved from 2D to 3D but then came Broken Sword 4.

We’ve tried to play Broken Sword 4 on three separate occasions to bring our reviews up to date but it is awkward, dull and downright broken in places. But now The Serpent’s Curse is here and the series has returned to its 2D roots and it is so much better for it.

Broken Sword 5 has an air of wiping the slate clean and starting again in terms of design. We now start our game back in Paris, this time in the spring at an art gallery where George is soon reunited with on and off girlfriend Nico. Here a murder takes place and a strange painting is stolen. With George now working as an exhibit insurer he picks up the case to find out what has happened to the painting, who the murderer was and why the gallery owner was killed.

The return to Paris has also seen the series return to the 2D style that worked so well with the first two games. It’s not such a hand drawn look but the graphics are really very nice and keep it traditional while also working exceptionally well in HD and making the game look fit for the PS4. The control system has also reverted back to the ‘dragging a cursor around’ variety and clicking on things with the PS4 controller doing an excellent job of mimicking a mouse.

The game also maintains the series excellent standard of voice acting and scripting with dialogue throughout feeling natural while also maintaining just the right amount of sarcasm and humour. The story itself is strong with a genuinely intriguing mystery to explore with the hints of magical MacGuffin we have come to expect.

One thing we could have done without returning are those tiny objects that require careful scanning of the screen to find. Right from the start there is something fairly well hidden. We weren’t entirely sure if it was colour-blindness that played a part or not but the option to highlight interactable objects would have been a useful addition. It’s a relatively minor point though and at least you know what to expect from games like this.

The actual puzzles are a bit of a mixed bag – though they are designed to stop you backtracking and wandering around multiple locations. Normally when you arrive in a location you can’t leave until the puzzle in the area has been completed. This is good in the fact that it allows you to focus on things with what you have to hand in the confidence there isn’t some tiny object somewhere else that you need. However, it did make us feel a bit penned in at times compared to some of the other games.

Though solid, there aren’t that many puzzles here that will remain memorable. There’s a nice one fairly early on in an art restorers loft but we found little that gave the same high as getting into the docks in Broken Sword 2 or getting the key to access the archaeological dig in the first game. Some of them are a little obscure as well – and not in the ‘use weird object to do thing’ way that these types of games are famous for. There’s also a slight over reliance on things like connecting wire puzzles and shape moving.

Overall, Broken Sword 5 is a solid return to form for the franchise. The mystery is genuinely compelling and the excellent art style and voice acting keep you interested throughout. It’s certainly not up there with the first game but it’s better than both the 3D games and gives Broken Sword 2 a fair run for its money as well. Above all else it’s a proper classic style point and click adventure and we’re glad to see it back.

Overall 7/10

Discworld Review (PC)

Back in the mid-nineties when point and click adventure games ruled the world there was a never ending supply of quirky games to take on. The Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchet was seen as a rich source from which to draw and develop something in the genre and three PC games were made. It brought a new audience to the books and many gamers who had never read a Discworld novel still played and enjoyed the game.

Players take control of the hapless wizard Rincewind (continually followed around by his walking luggage chest), as he is tasked with getting rid of a troublesome dragon. Voiced by Eric Idle you need to go around picking up objects and then using them to solve puzzles. Very obscure, logic defying, puzzles.

Looking back it’s amazing anyone ever finished the game without a guide as there are some unbelievable leaps of faith in there which could only realistically be solved though using everything you have in your inventory on everything else until something happens. There is at least a small mercy in the fact you can’t die

It’s testament to the games script though that despite the insane difficulty that the game is still incredibly enjoyable. The voice acting and humour keep the game afloat and there are lots of things to see and interact with which cause one liners or animations. The vocal talents of Tony Robinson, Rob Brydon, John Pertwee and Kate Robbins are also on show which keeps the dialogue at the highest quality.

In a strange way, playing with a guide doesn’t really detract too much from the experience. It will certainly lesson the frustration while allowing players to enjoy the beautifully drawn environments and humour on display. The biggest sin the game commits is a succession of tiny objects that players will need to find. The worm in the square, people’s pockets and the golden banana (hidden behind a characters ear and only visible when he turns his head for a split second), are by far the worst offenders and will require pixel by pixel scanning of the screen. How anyone found these things playing on small PC monitors is anyone’s guess. The first act of the game isn’t impossibly difficult but as soon as you get into act 2 you’ll be running for a guide almost straight away.

The other big offender is the world map. Some of the locations are so tiny that you will be very lucky to stumble upon them. The inn on the West side of the map and the Broken Drum pub were things I stumbled upon completely by accident as they inhabit a tiny square in the city. Realising the back alley continued past the elevator stone thing is also not exactly obvious.

When the puzzles aren’t being impossibly obscure they are actually pretty inventive and strong. If you can get your head around the logic they provide some real ‘eureka’ moments that few other point and click games can match. Getting the Dragons breath is a fairly simple but inventive exercise and my personal favourite is stealing the chefs pancake mid-flip so he leaves the kitchen to complain about wizards altering gravity. 

Overall, Discworld is an exceptionally presented game which fans of the books will love. The graphics and voice work is top class and up there with the best in the genre. There are big downsides to the experience though with the impossible logic and difficult to find objects and locations. Don’t let that put you off though as this is a great adventure with tons of humour and things to see. If you find yourself pulling your hair out go to a guide, chances are there’s some tiny thing you’ve missed. It’ll make the whole thing seem so much better and when the game is good there’s nothing else that can match it.

Overall 8/10