| Deleted User | Titanic: Adventure out of Time is an older game by CyberFlix which is well worth a look if you find a copy- but there are many flaws in the game such as gratituous fighting sequences, annoying characters, and weird crashing problems on my machine (PII 400, Win 98
).
Plot: The premise of the game is that you are a failed secret agent who miserably bungled an important mission aboard the Titanic in 1912. You begin the game as an old man in your cheap apartment in 1942, with an angry landlady demanding your money. Eventually a bomb hits your apartment and somehow are propelled back in time to the Titanic in 1912. The game developers do not explain whether this is a memory, a dream, or if you have actually gone back in time. This doesn't matter, however, as this introduction is only an excuse to get the ball rolling. You can take many paths through the Titanic and accomplish various side quests. As a result, there is more than one way to win and many ways to lose. You can be killed by the bad guys and you may get to the very end of the game only to discover that you cannot win because you missed an item you needed to recover. I didn't mind this, although I'm aware this may turn off some gamers. The many ways to play added more realism to the game.
Technical Stuff: A few weird glitches really brought the game down in my opinion. A couple times while playing the game "performed an illegal operation" and was shut down. Other times, all of the menus and dialog boxes turned completely black, making it difficult to play- and worse, this continued after I had exited the game! This may just be my machine but it was quite a turn-off for me.
The interface is partially mouse controlled and partially keyboard controlled. The game is played from a first-person perspective. You use the keyboard to move your feet by walking and turning around. You use the mouse to pick up things, examine an object more closely, and manipulate any interactive items. I found this interface quite simple to use once I got used to it and was soon able to travel through the ship at breakneck speed- handy as the game is timed.
Multimedia- The graphics of the ship are excellent and the designers have thoughtfully included a tour mode to allow you to explore the environment without the constraints of having to meet your contact and complete your mission. The character graphics are not so well done. The characters on the ship are represented by a grainy and indistinct computer generated model as they walk around the ship. If you stop and talk to them they magically turn into real actors who look nothing like their CGI counterparts. What is worse, many of them have incredibly annoying voices and personalities.
The sound effects are fine but the music consists of a few annoying tunes repeated over and over again until they become unbelievably annoying.
Difficulty: I mentioned before that the game is timed- however, the timing seems to be based on the specific game events that have occured rather than actual time. I did not find the clock to be too much of a hassle, especially as all of the puzzles (except one which was a bit of a leap) were sensical and easily understood. There are no twiddleware puzzles here- all the puzzles are based on realistic situations. However, there are two fighting sequences- a fencing match and a fistfight- which I hated. Nonsensically, the outcome of these matches did not matter- if you lose the fencing match you will still get the information you need. If you lose the fistfight you will wake up at the same place and can continue as though you had won. This makes the fistfights seem like an exercise in futility.
I notice that I've been somewhat hard on this game in several of the categories and I'd like to emphasize what the game does right. The graphics of the ship are beautiful and well-done especially for 1996. The puzzles are sensical for the most part. The interface is excellent and easy to use. The plot, with its many twists and turns, is quite interesting, especially with the multiple outcomes to the story. And it is so much fun to be able to walk around the Titanic.
Verdict: Give it a try if you find a copy, especially if you like edutainment games.
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