French comic-book artist Benoit Sokal has been very, very good for fans of graphic adventures. His Amerzone (1998), Syberia (2002) and Syberia II (2004) were absolute feasts for the imagination. Sokal seems to have a real instinct for what adventure players crave: Mysterious, beautiful worlds, exotic and beautiful images, strong stories and intriguing characters populate his games.

In addition to those qualities, two other features regularly make Sokal’s games stand out from the pack. First is an emphasis on atmosphere and mood. This is one of the trickiest elements to pull off in any game, and Sokal’s games have it in spades. Remember the eerie funeral procession that begins Syberia?

Second, the games have a delightful emphasis on fantastic, impossible and beautiful creatures. Who can forget the water giraffes in Amerzone or the majestic mammoths in Syberia II?

In short, in a genre where gamers can get weary of trudging over the same Egyptian temples and Mayan ruins, Sokal games consistently takes us to places we’ve never been before.

With this rich legacy, it’s natural for adventure fans to be excited by the prospect of a new Benoit Sokal game. I’ve recently had the chance to spend some time with a beta build of one chunk of the new game, and here are my impressions.

The first thing I can say is that the game has my favorite main menu screen since Faust. You appear to be looking into a dark, empty crate. As you’re mulling over your choices on the bottom of the screen (the traditional set of New, Load, Options, etc.) you are startled by the head of a black leopard which lunges at you from the inky blackness. The cat is truly stunning, with fur you feel you could reach out and touch, emerald eyes blazing and intimidating teeth flashing.

The prologue of the game begins with two parallel scenes taking place. One is a small airplane in trouble, and the other takes place on an outlandish water vehicle. On the boat, an old man, addressed as “Your Highness” by a servant, worries about his daughter. The daughter, you presume, is in the plane, and after she crashes she wakes up in the harem of mysterious African prince.

The game takes place in four different environments. The beta preview included a partial build of one of these four environments.

Graphics: The cut scenes are predictably gorgeous, suggesting a steamy sub-Saharan jungle. The in-game graphics are prerendered and absolutely beautiful. The environments I saw were in and around the harem, and the colors and detail were exotic and intriguing. As in the Syberia games, the game is presented in third-person, and the various screens have nice little touches of animation.

Particularly good is the use of light and shadow. As the heroine stands by the window, you can see beautiful details like dust motes caught in the sunlight from the window. On the grounds of the harem, you can see dancing clouds of white butterflies. Dynamic shadows add to the sense of atmosphere and place. Also, the game makes use of some daring, cinematic angles on some of the scenes, which add to the sense of drama.

As the heroine begins exploring the large harem complex she’s found herself in, I was reminded of the opening scenes of The Longest Journey, as the game does a good job of conveying the games architectural environments.

The animation is still pretty rough in this build. Characters sit down on thin air, take awkward hops before descending staircases, dither before responding to a move instruction, etc. In one notable instance of clipping, our heroine was able to actually walk through the bars of the leopard’s cage.

Interface: The game uses pre-rendered backgrounds in a third-person environment. All character movement and game interaction is done with the mouse. It’s very much the familiar point-and-click interface used in the Syberia games. The mouse pointer is context-sensitive, indicating the ability to go in for a close-up, take an object, interact with an object, talk to a character, etc.

The inventory is brought up with a right-click of the mouse. In the inventory screen you can get a closer look at an item or select is to use in the environment. One tiny gripe we had was the fact that the “interact” symbol doesn’t change to indicate that an inventory object is necessary to successfully complete the interaction. But you get used to this quickly, and it’s not a big problem.

Sound: The rich, vibrant score is complemented by a nice set of sound effects, with particularly nice ambient bird calls.

Story: Remember, we didn’t see a large portion of the story or a large portion of the total game world. But the initial setup is compelling. The nameless heroine finds herself a prisoner in the harem of some exotic, forgotten central African kingdom called Maurania. We have reason to believe the girl is a princess, but she certainly doesn’t know that yet, as she is afflicted with the standard Computer Game Amnesia.

The voice acting is pretty good, but the dialog itself is pretty lame. It’s definitely not up to the high standards set by the Syberia games. At least, not in the early scenes we were able to see. Also, the game is missing the heady, quirky atmosphere of the earlier Sokal games. It’s a little harder to care about our amnesiac cipher of a heroine than it was about the dynamic Kate Walker.

Another odd thing about the game’s setting is that it doesn’t feel African at all, particularly not sub-Saharan African. It feels Indian or Persian, and as we met the parade of very Caucasian characters (one with a deeply puzzling Russian accent) we wondered where all the real Africans were.

Puzzles: Alas, this is where the mostly good impression the game was making began to crumble. The first set of challenges in the game has to do with our nameless heroine attempting to escape from the harem. In order to do that, she needs to impersonate the Prince’s “Favorite.” The very first puzzle in this sequence is frankly illogical, as it involves throwing water on sandbags to make teacakes magically appear (don’t ask). The next major step, preparing a steam bath for the Favorite, is a little better, but both of the puzzles are severely hampered by the requirement of finding an object that’s almost completely hidden in the environment. There’s a dirty rag that’s all-but-invisible on a boiler, and a jar completely obscured by an odalisque’s lovely foot.

There’s also a brutal bit of illogical gameplay when the heroine puts on the Favorite’s dress. Though the plot now depends on her being mistaken for the Favorite herself, as she walks around the harem the characters continue to speak to her as if she were the heroine! Oops.

Let’s talk just a little about he parts of the game we didn’t see. There are three more major environments in addition to the harem, and they will presumably also be beautiful and exotic. A book the heroine finds in the harem provides the tantalizing possibility that there are a bevy of wild Sokal creatures to be found later in the game. (I’m keeping my fingers crossed on that one!)

Also, there’s a real-time 3D action minigame in which the player will take control of the leopard while the heroine is dreaming. This element was not functional in the preview build I saw, but it sounds like fun.

Conclusion: I’m cautiously optimistic about Paradise, despite the flaws evident in the preview build. The graphics and sound are luscious and the setting is intriguing. There are problems with the dialog and puzzle design, but considering Sokal’s track record I want to believe that these elements will be more polished in the completed game.