Preamble
This is a standard first person point and click adventure, set aboard
Captain Nemo’s infamous submarine, The Nautilus, from Jules Verne’s
classic sci-fi offering, “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea”. I shall not go
into detail on the required specifications, as I do not currently have the
case, however, it played perfectly well on my P2, 750, W98 with graphics
accelerator.
Setting
It is the present and you are a keen young scientist aboard a prototype
submarine conducting deep water oceanic exploration and research. Whilst
investigating a deep trench in the ocean floor your radar picks up a huge
metallic object. Obviously, as an inquisitive scientist you want to go and
investigate immediately, however, your bureaucratic skipper overrules you
and orders the object to be ignored. Not to be deterred in your keenness
to investigate this discovery you steal a mini-sub and head for the
Nautilus. You approach the enormous underwater craft, dock and then enter.
This is where the adventure gamer takes over.
Storyline
The general story is, that as the explorer of the ship, you rapidly
discover that it is deserted, abandoned by her crew many years ago and now
run by a mechanical AI, which has gone a bit doo-lally (very much along
the lines of 2001’s HAL or System Shock). So, after risking all to get
into the Nautilus, you soon realize that your primary objective is to stay
alive and get out!
The adventure is split into several stages, where a key objective has to
be achieved before moving on to the next stage. For example, one of your
main objectives in one of the early stages is to return electrical and
mechanical power to the ship in order to steer, gain access to other
areas, maintain life support systems and so on.
As the game progresses you learn more about what happened on board the
Nautilus those many years ago and why she was abandoned. Your primary
nemesis throughout the game is the central AI and much of the gameplay is
taken up with self-preservation against the travails visited on you by the
AI, which incidentally has a female character. The story is simple and
provides a reasonable and logical plot line to the game, though it does
not lend itself to any degree of game complexity or longevity.
Graphics
The graphics are nice, not breathtaking, not inspiring, not drop-dead
gorgeous (such as the Myst games, Syberia etc), but they are well drawn,
evocative and in-keeping with the game’s storyline. Perhaps the nearest
analogy for the style of the graphics would be Amerzone, Cameron files,
Dracula etc. though their scope is perhaps more limited and not perhaps as
beautiful nor diverse as these comparisons. In some instances I found the
graphics lacked a little definition and appeared blurry. But on the whole
the graphics lent themselves to the game’s ‘general immersion factor’
(GIF).
Movement is reasonably slick, there is 360 deg panning and movement
between locations is reasonably fluid and quick.
Sound
I do not know if I am peculiar in this regard, however, I prefer to play
my adventure games without background music. Although much game music is
quite pleasant and very much enhances the mood and immersion factor, I
prefer not to be accompanied on my quest by the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra, preferring to wander about ‘au naturel’ so to speak, as you
would if you were actually there, experiencing just the environmental
sounds (the cooing of unseen birds high in the jungle canopy, the buzz of
insects, the trickle of a fountain, the mesmeric hum of a generator). So
no comment on music, but the sound effects are sufficient and add to the
sense of you being trapped in this stricken, mechanical behemoth several
thousand leagues under the ocean, hearing the heaving and mechanical
groaning of the hull, feeling the eeriness and solitude of the empty ship.
Puzzles
The puzzles are, on the whole, practical, mechanical and logical and based
primarily on inventory management (fix something, build something etc.).
There are some spatial/logic problems, but nothing too taxing on the grey
cells and there are plenty of clues scattered throughout the game, so you
are never left with the sense that the developer has abandoned you to
figure out what was on their mind with no in-game nudges, suggestions or
plot threads (I find this a common problem with many games, where the
developer seems to think that in giving you a seemingly illogical puzzle
that does not really fit in with what is expected of you and not giving
you any clues or guidance, no matter how cryptic, is in itself part of the
puzzle – frankly, I think this is just idleness in thought, development
and process).
There is plenty to do and you are kept fairly active, there is some
‘toing’ and ‘froing’ between locations, however, on the whole you progress
to new areas and experience new surroundings. For the later stages of the
game you end-up having to work your way back through the levels you have
previously passed through, but they have changed quite dramatically with
new things to see and do (I shall not explain why as this forms part of
the storyline).
The game departs from the path of logic on one occasion and gets a bit
silly, but not too much so as to detract seriously from the game. Maybe
this is the author’s fault as I skipped “How To Detach a Giant Squid From
The Prow Of Your Submarine 101.” at university.
There is a good deal of pixel hunting and at times finding things can be a
frustrating and long-winded process. This is compounded by a slight
misalignment of the cursor and the ‘hotspot’. The general cursor is a
small circle with cross hairs, however, to pick up an object, or to use an
inventory item the cursor changes to a ‘hand’ or ‘hand plus lever’
respectively. The problem is that the focal point for the interaction icon
is at the top left of the icon image and this is transferred to the
general cursor, i.e. if you place the general cursor directly over a small
hotspot, nothing registers, it is only when the position of the focal
point of the action icon passes over the hotspot that it changes to that
particular icon, which means that your general cursor is slightly to the
left and below the hotspot before it is detected. This can be frustrating
when trying to scan for objects and hotspots, especially in dark, shadowy
environments. It is also particularly annoying when a time limit is
imposed on you. This caused me some problems at the beginning as I would
position my general cursor over something I was convinced was a hotspot,
but would receive no reaction, it was only after moving the cursor
slightly southeast of the hotspot, to a position where the interactive
icon focal point should be, that the icon then changed.
From the review so far, you might already have gathered that certain
puzzles are timed, and yes you can die (in some instances, almost
immediately) so plenty of saves are in order, especially before entering a
room or about to perform a major task. I know many gamers loathe timed
puzzles, and I myself am not particularly keen on them, however, in this
instance it was in-keeping with the ‘reality factor’ of the game. There
was one particular puzzle (composed of several individual subtasks) which
was timed and I discovered that to do it properly I had to die several
times, before I had built up a full realization and understanding of what
I had to do, how, where and with what, and had effectively constructed a
step by step procedure, which I then performed all at once and managed to
complete the puzzle before my oxygen ran out.
On the whole the quantity and quality of puzzles was above average and
were similar to the previously mentioned Dracula, Amerzone etc.
Game interface
I have previously described the slightly annoying glitch with the cursor –
hotspot interaction. In addition to this you have the omnipresent
adventure gamers trusty rucksack (inventory) and a PDA with a variety of
functions.
There are a few problems with the interface, which can tend to make the
frustration levels rise at some points in the game. Specifically:-
1) Quite often a dialogue box will pop-up either with a holographic diary
of Nemo, or you thinking to yourself or the AI warning you of your
impending disembowelment. When this happens you are unable to interact
with the game environment, however, the time still ticks by, so in some
instances where you are on a timed puzzle and your fate is dependent on
your quick thinking and actions, time rolls on but you cannot do anything
until you close down the dialogue boxes.
2) In some instances this can be true of the inventory as well.
Conclusions
Not a long, nor particularly demanding game, however, I enjoyed it. The
action rattled along, if not at break-neck speed, certainly at a
reasonable canter, there was always something to do and a fair degree of
thought required. What I did like about the game was that there was an
overall objective to finish a phase, but in order to achieve this there
were several tasks, subtasks and processes that had to be performed, and
you had to think “logically how do I achieve my objective from where I am
now and how do I use the items I am finding”. Spurred on by reasonable
clues, plot threads and suggestions from the game you could plan ahead and
determine strategy, which I feel is a critical success factor for any game
to be good, successful and absorbing. There were occasions when you were
reduced to trawling through the inventory and trying everything on a
particular hotspot, but once something worked you could see the thought
process behind the puzzle and where the developer was coming from and
could then proceed.
A warning here, the game was buggy and I experienced quite a few crashes
whilst playing (another reason for plenty of saving!).
So, overall I enjoyed the game, it is not a classic but there again
neither it is a dud (could have been better – could have been worse).
There were a few moments of abject frustration primarily with the cursor
misalignment, excessive pixel hunting, dialogue box and occasional crashes
and these did detract from the game, but on balance I quite enjoyed the
experience.
Graphics: B-
Gameplay/story: B
Puzzles: B
Game interface: C
Overall: B-
design copyright © 2003
GameBoomers
Group
