Lure of The Temptress
(A Horse, a hero, a good girl and a very very bad girl)
Lure of the Temptress is the first game offered to the gaming world by a
then fledgling development company, Revolution Software. Released in
1991-92, the game has been resurrected by Sold Out Software. This company
has done a superb job of re-mastering older classic games to CD Rom.
Despite it’s age in gaming life, Temptress fared fairly well. It is the
classic tale of good vs. evil. Our hero with great reluctance finds
himself on a mission with the King’s Guard to set out and defeat an
alluring but ethically challenged temptress. It seems that things are not
right in our fair kingdom of Turnvale. Our hero, however, is a reluctant
warrior. In fact, he had tried to sneak away quietly into the night, but
his horse had other plans. Unfortunately, the evil sorceress has gathered
an army of unearthly demonoid critters. The demon horde goes to battle and
the King and his men are most foully dispatched. Our hero finds himself in
a dark, dank dungeon. He must save the day and the kingdom. That is of
course if he can get out of that dungeon, past the demonic guards and
perhaps give his horse a good talking to.
Quest 1: Installing the game
I wouldn’t normally give install tips at the beginning of a review, but
this is an ancient game by PC standards. I also have the game in an older
format - but there are some quirky moves you have to make with setting up
a formatted disc and all to save. There is also a horrendous copy
protection feature where you have to flip through a game manual and match
up little characters that are on each page with what the game requests
before it’ll load. Don’t go there. The game as set up by Sold Out is
wonderfully easy to get up and running. Well at least as far as I know it
does for W98 and earlier.
Copy the contents of the disc to a folder on your hard drive. Being highly
creative (cough) I named mine "Lure". Then just click on the Lure.exe file
in that folder and the game starts up. What is nice is that I didn’t have
to change any resolution or color settings. After that you can save easily
to your HD in that folder. There are 15 save slots available, which I
found to be more than enough. It was easier to load and play than many
newer games released in 1995 and 1996. One more thing. Apparently some or
all of these games have a weird little flaw where an important item will
simply not be where it should. However it is resolved by choosing restart
as soon as the main game screen comes up. I would do this at the beginning
of the game just in case. After that your game should play with no
problems.
I did a search and located a Brit site that has the game for 8.00 USD and
3.00 shipping
http://www.4pccd.co.uk/under5-2.html 4PCCD - Lure of the
Temptress/Sold Out version.
Quest 2: The Playing of the Game
The interface is standard point and click. It has a menu type selection
for varied actions. For those who are familiar with the classic Lucas Arts
games - this won’t be new. You right click on an object and you’ll get a
listing… "get", "open", and so on. Leave it highlighted on the option you
want and left click. You also get a standard "look" action when ever you
left click on a cursor highlighted object or person. Click on any spot and
the hero will go there. Large arrows appear at places where you can exit
or walk. If you took advantage of copying the files to your HD from the
CD-ROM - then saves are done through the menu bar at the top. The learning
curve on this seemed fairly brief for the most part, though there are
times you have to "tell" or order another character to do something for
you. You have to thread together the order and this can be awkward at
times. Essentially you select "tell" as the action option. Then you will
get a list of actions as in "go to" "use" and so on. Then you get another
list of options as to where they must go or what they must use and so on.
I found this to be cumbersome at times and on other times it didn’t seem
to get through and I had to repeat the order. It didn’t make me stop
playing - but it does impact the rating I would give the game. Now for
the story and other highlights.
Quest 3: The Telling of the Tale
The opening of the game is a slide show of silhouettes and graphics
interspersed with a scripted story of how our hero got where he is. I like
this when it is done well and like the opening to GK1, Revolution did a
great job with this and other cut scenes in the game. There aren’t very
many - but it does add a nice touch. Given the age of the title I was
impressed with some of the effects in the opening sequence. The story is
advanced through the basic seeking out objects and talking to the game
characters. The game environment is built like a maze. Yes that word that
gamers have been known to cringe at. I would strongly advise walking
around and roughly charting what exit leads to what place. I got used to
it and got familiar with some of the pathways to common places, but you
can do a lot of wandering. The story itself is the classic quest based
theme. One of the high points of the game is that the dialogue has the
earmarks of classic Revolution dialogue. People are sarcastic in many of
their responses and I enjoyed the conversations and the responses were not
at all predictable. Definitely one of the pluses and a factor that kept me
going despite some of the drawbacks.
Quest 4: The Good People of the game
Revolution used a type of real time program in the game that they called
"Virtual Theatre". Basically this means that the NPC’s in the game walk
around with their own agendas and at unpredictable intervals. I am not
sure exactly why they did this, as it really doesn’t add that much to the
game. Essentially you have to add chasing people down to your wandering
around trying to remember how to get to this place or that. Fortunately
they don’t roam very far and there are usually others you also need to
talk to., find or give something to. The other thing is that you can do
things in any particular order as you progress to the major points of the
game, so I managed to keep going and never really felt stuck. The
characters themselves have very distinct personalities. I enjoyed this
aspect of the game very much. There is your devoted servant of sorts who
is an aspiring jester. There is the girl (isn’t there always one in any
good quest?). There is a sneaky trader, a lusty barmaid, a thick headed
barbarian, a voluptuous and thoroughly bad temptress, and the nasty Skorl
warriers. They apparently love wine and aren’t too bright. There are many
others that you run into and they all have a smart comeback or two. Well -
except the Skorl warriers. "Out of my way - uman!" is their primary
comment. Revolution has a real flair for creating interesting characters
in their games and they didn’t skimp in this area in their first release.
Quest 5: The puzzles or Challenges
With a few exceptions, there weren’t really any puzzles in this game. You
spend much of your time using inventory items in logical ways. A peg won’t
turn - it needs to be greased. A lock needs to be picked, a fire lit.
There were however some challenges that were unique and stumped me for a
little while. You may need to spy a bit, eavesdrop and the like. You can’t
jump the gun in this game either. You may think that something looks
useful or needs to be interacted with - but until your character "notices
it" - You can’t interact with it and won’t even get a highlight on the
object. So be liberal with your left click "look at" feature. This part of
the game was another strength to me and one of the things that makes the
game worthwhile. One of the drawbacks of the game however are two awkward
fighting elements. I got stuck for awhile on the first one til I realized
that there really wasn’t a strategy to it - you just stood and kept right
clicking til the guy was vanquished. It was an awkward interface and
didn’t add to the game at all. I would have ditched these - they felt
tacked on and were frustrating at best. SO be aware if you can’t stand
even a hint of clicking up and down a character to swing an axe down or at
a creature - save your game dollars for another game. There are only two
of these though and after you succeed at the first one - the next one will
not be a problem.
Quest 6: The other stuff
The music, if you want to call it that is the standard tinny background
music from games put out in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I turned it off
after a while. There are no voices in the game, so it really isn’t needed.
Every once in a while I would get bored with the quiet and turn it back on
for just a bit. The graphics are actually quite good for the age of this
game. If you have played Beneath A Steel Sky - they are the same and maybe
even a shade better. This was a surprise since Steel Sky came out later.
And they lived happily ever after…..
Overall, I liked Temptress. I wouldn’t put it in my top 20 or maybe even
30 games of all times. But it was fairly long, I liked the characters,
general game play and had a fairly good time. It also was fun to see the
beginnings of Revolution. I have all of their games and definitely liked
seeing their first game. I wouldn’t spend a fortune on this game. It is
harder to find these days. I had seen it for sale online at a number of
British retailers, but only found one this research trip. That site and
the price of ordering is listed under the install part of this review..
Final Grade
I think the dialogue, challenges and characters make this game worth a
try. However due to the two awkward fight bits, maze game environment and
the associated constant ramblings looking for people and things I would
have to give this game a C+ or in GB parlance 3 Baags.
Min Specs:
The box specs are so minimum - I doubt anyone’s machine can’t handle the
game requirements. As to whether it’ll install and play on any OS after
W98. That I can’t say.
copyright © 2003
GameBoomers
