Bolt Riley: A Reggae Adventure – Chapter 1
Adventure Mob/Corbomite Games
I am not that cool, certainly
not laid back, chilled out, reggae cool, and I don’t smoke, herbs or
otherwise. Perhaps that is why this failed to engage me.
We start with Bolt on stage,
about to wow the audience, and the short scenario is as much a tutorial
as anything else. We then skip back in time, and the story proper
starts, when Bolt was just another rude boy and being a reggae legend
wasn’t even on the radar. Far more mundane priorities are at hand, like
stealing a radio to appease the gang leader.
When the Chapter ended, I reckon
I had played for about an hour. Steam said it was 47 minutes. Not
including the opening, I had visited four separate screens, in one of
which I could only look at things, and one other acted only as a
cutscene. The bulk of the Chapter took place essentially in two
locations, each involving a single screen.
I didn’t get the radio but did
transact an arrangement whereby I might be given the radio. At that
point I headed off to what I expected to be some more activity (and
another location), only for it to end.
The “adventuring” in between
consists of collecting and using a minimal number of inventory items,
and some rather tedious conversation puzzles. One of the latter involves
a (comparatively) extensive and repetitive sequence to trigger the
appropriate action, an action that is obvious from the start but which
you can’t initiate until you have endured the “puzzle”. Bolt Riley isn’t
Robinson Crusoe in this respect, but it just felt like fabricated
padding.
Bolt Riley uses an animated
third person perspective, with a ribbon that pops up top of screen. The
current goal appears in the middle of the ribbon, you access the menu
top right, and your inventory bag is top left, along with an
“inspiration” icon. Bolt has to use it at certain stages to gain
inspiration and insight, without which trying to do the relevant action
won’t work. Point and click your way around, and save at will should it
be needed.
Voice acting is fine, in the
context of the reggae feel, and the backing track is probably the high
point. At times there is a lot of lip flapping for the related dialogue,
which will be more pronounced should you choose to use and read the
subtitles and then click to skip the spoken word.
Regrettably, nothing about
Chapter 1 would make me want to play Chapter 2.
I played on:
OS: Windows 10
Processor: Intel i7-3820 4GHz
RAM: 16GB DDR3
Video card: AMD Radeon HD 7800 2048MB
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May 2016
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