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Topic: Symbiocom, a blast from the past

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All Forums : [Member Arena] : Members' Adventure Game Reviews > Symbiocom, a blast from the past
#1
28 FEB 2003 at 5:46am
Deleted UserI will do it quickly this time, and will try to be clearer than usual  
.

I bought this game in a bundle along with Zero Critical (soon to be played) at a very ridiculous price. There was two bundle taking an incredible amount of space on the shelves in the EB store (the boxes wrapped side-by-side ) and I couldn't let those unknown/unattractive games suffer the humiliation longer (screw the other bundle, I did my part  
).

The game installed himself properly and no crashes or bugs of any sort occured during gameplay. -WIN98SE ; 1GHz Athlon; GeForce4 MX etc.
The game uses Quicktime 2.?, which can run along with other Quicktime versions.

The game itself is a first person point and click with transitions between every foward moves. The playing window is relatively small (but big enough for appreciating the graphics) so all that video is held on 1 CD; no disk swapping galore! This feature was like a fresh breath of air since my last play was Dark side of the moon  
, but it fitted with the general idea of the game: enjoying the environment and the story, solving the easy/medium puzzles and progressing constantly through the game. This game wants to be love  
!

I thought at first the Sci-Fi story would be a kind pretext to guide the player into puzzling situations like many other Myst-like, but it appeared Symbiocom was the opposite: the majority of content is context relevant and not necessarily pertinent for the progression.

But the most original thing about this game is one of the story element itself: your Sym-implant! This chip implanted in your brain is not only giving you information on about 90% of what you can see in each screenshot (by clicking), it has a real personality! Its comments appear under the view screen at any time, requested or not. It provides an incredible narration, asking questions and comments about what's going on at the very moment. There is no voice-over ( so it's not annoying) and the scripted answers seems almost infinite.
Clicking on a pipe near the beggining:
"It's just a pipe"
Clicking/taking a broken pipe on the left shot:
"I hope you're not dissassembling the station entirely?"
Clicking on another pipe later:
"You ALREADY got a pipe..."
In another base:
"You're not going to take all the pipes here too, aren't you?"
Result: the Sym is now in my <<memorable sidekick>> section of the brain for real  
.

On the downside, the game is pretty short and easy. If you like your games to be long and tough, Symbiocom is not for you. Also, this game is now outdated graphically and the sound is of pretty low sampling quality.

In one word: refreshing.
Overall impression: 8/10.

Marc-A.



#2
28 FEB 2003 at 6:06am

Stammer

Guild Master
Guild Master


Posts : 3894
Joined: 5 JAN 2003

Status : Online		Great review Ranndom!!



really good job  










BRAVO!
Resistance is not futile, we're gonna win this thing, humankind is too good, we're not a bunch of under-achievers! We're gonna stand up, and we're gonna be human beings. We're going to get fired up about the real things, the things that matter! Creativity, and the dynamic human spirit that refuses to submit.

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#3
1 MAR 2003 at 5:36am
Deleted UserThank you Godfather!
I forgot to mention what was the game about:
You wake up in a ship where everybody disapeared.
Done  
.

You should really give it a try if you come across this one!

#4
25 APR 2003 at 1:49am

adventuredog

Guild Master
Guild Master


Posts : 3255
Joined: 14 JAN 2003

Status : Offline		Thanks Randdom -  
you reminded me that I never finished this game.  I just reloaded it and will be working on it in amongst the others I am currently playing.  

Still adventuring after all these years!

Patiently awaiting The Last Crown: Haunting of Hallowed Isle, and Bracken Tor... 

... and Asylum if it's not tooooo scary...


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