KamisoriXSchattenjger
Posts : 1700
Joined: 15 MAY 2004
Status : Online | LEGACY: Dark Shadows
This is the first Title released by RAZBOR Studios, a new adventure game developer.
I have been waiting for this game for quiet a while and now it's finally released. It's a Sci-fi adventure game in the like of Blade Runner and its kind.
This is an old school click'n'point adventure game with good story and nice graphics, even they are not the latest one. The control is easy and the interface is a mix of TLJ (The Longest Journey) and Monkey Island 3 – The Curse of Monkey Island, but it got its own touch.
Well, I start first of with the graphics and there is nothing spectacular about it in this game. The backgrounds are nice 2D, where in some there are animations in it but mostly they are still, and the characters are 3D with up 10000 polygones and textures up to 1280x1024 (this counts only for the char textures, not the BG). The character and BG fits together perfectly and it doesn't look like out of place (most of the time). The cut scenes are low res but well done and keeps the mood of the overall game. The Main character Ren is well animated but a bit to stiff in the movement. The char design reminds me of the 70ies TV space soaps like STAR TREK or Buck Rogers and the acting is pretty much on par with those. There is a rather annoying design in the game and that is the path settings to other areas. It can happen that you get to a screen that appears to be plain go “left or right” with nothing indicating that there is a path going down. In fact there are only two of those but that didn't bother me as i have seen worse flaws in other titles.
All in all it's a very neat looking game, but not the most advanced.
The sound is good and gives a sort of life to the rather empty scenes. In the city you hear cars flying by (hovercraft cars...therefor flying)and the city noises. If you are in a computer room you hear the typical computer sound FX and so on. Unfortunately L: DS doesn't support surround sound nor high quality sound output, so all you get is basic STEREO sound (and I mean it, you have to set your sound device to BASIC or you might experience some sound problems).
The voice of Ren is rather cute with its accent, that gives her a lightly innocent touch. But her dialog are rather glib and in times, especially her comments on things, are quiet funny, that gives you the “more than meet the eye” feeling. The other voice actors are mixed in quality, some voices fits the chars and some are just out of space.
Puzzles are the blood that runs through the heart of an adventure game. And the puzzles in L: DS are mostly set, or tries to be, on the logic side. You go find items and use it somewhere. Most of the time when you find an item you probably need it a couple of screens later, so things are moving quiet fast. You also get your standard inventory item combination that is basically standard in these games, but they are all fairly easy, combine X with Y and you get Z, and for advanced Adventure gamer to easy in occasion. The only part that had me confuse was the arcade style puzzles which you have to play with the “Arrow-keys”. They were rather out of place and poorly thrown in.
All in all the puzzles are decent to good but I wish there would have been some harder ones that makes you truly think about instead of just saying the whole time: well, this would fit nicely on this and there we go. Here is a keypad so...doh...
Lets come to the STORY, the heart of an adventure game. And L: DS is very well written.
It's actually kinda cheesy but well executed. You actually get to play the intro of the game that is set in 1940ies during the German invasion of Stalingrad. But it's a two screen scene, so don't expect a full blown scenario. It's an intro after all.
The actual game takes place in the future, the year 2138 to be precise. You start off by taking a vacation on Mars when you suddenly get a call from an old friend who tells you that one of your partners has become missing. So you do what every other adventure game character would do, you go look for him on your way you will be traveling back and forth from Mars and Earth. At one point you are in a cargo ship with a damaged/crazy board computer that locks all your ways and opens one by one when you can solve it's riddles. The story unfolds quiet slow till you hit a point and from there it rushes down the aisle. Till at the end you are in Stalingrad. It's kinda predictable what will happen but it's still a good story.
I don't want to give to much out of the story so I stop here.
Well, L: DS is a good Adventure game and a “Great Debut Title” from Razbor Studios.
I enjoyed it all the way to “almost” the end and haven't got bored at any moment. With this title the folks at Razbor Studio shows that they can make great adventures and I hope they are here to stay.
With L: DS being a success in what it is and the next title is already in the works we got a new high quality adventure game devs which got rare lately. If you like old school click'n'point adventures you gonna like this one. If you wanna start then this is the right title since it has easy to medium difficult puzzles.
While it might not even come close to the standard of the graphics and other technical aspect of todays game it is very good presented for what it is.
My sexy rating for this is:
80%
8/10
B+
etc...
[IMG]http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/971/kamisig94ct.gif[/IMG]&&&&If the Earth would be a Sphere, and not a Disc, I wouldn't be so afraid to fall of the Edge...
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