Review The Exchange Student: Episode 1 Developer: Pan Metron Ariston Publisher: N/A Genre: Adventure Release Date: September 2006 Platform: PocketPC Review by Sudeep Pasricha September 29, 2006		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:

The Exchange Student (TES) is a comic adventure that has been in development for a very long time indeed. The game was originally targeted for Series 60 Mobile Phones and backed by Russian-based publisher Magixoft, but got left stranded up a creek without a paddle when the project was scrapped last year. Turbulent times ensued, and many twists and turns later, TES has now finally arrived as a downloadable, episodic adventure for the PC (the Mac and Pocket PC versions will be released soon).

TES is the story of one Emilio Carloni, a 22 year old Italian student who has had as much luck with the ladies as a pint of ice cream at a weight watcher's meeting. After hearing about the exploits of his friend Vicezo, who recently returned from an exchange program in Sweden, Emilio decides to follow suit and travel to Sweden for a semester and try his luck. The first episode begins with Emilio preparing to leave home, and follows him till the end of his first day in Sweden.

So what is TES: Episode 1 like? Think of it as the illegitimate love child of the classic Leisure Suit Larry games and the Johnny Bravo TV cartoons. The look and feel of the game is distinctly cartoon-ish, with some mighty fine background artwork from Bill Tiller and Bill Eaken (who’ve worked on such adventure classics as The Curse of Monkey Island, The Dig and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis), and unique character design and animation created by Paco Vink (of Monkey Island comic fame).

Pity then, that the first episode falls short on several fronts. As much as I wanted to like this game, by the time I reached the end I had a laundry list of peeves. First and foremost, the episode is way too short. Now I was well aware before I started playing that this episode was going to be short, but not so short that I would finish it in under an hour! While it might take someone who has never played an adventure game before a bit longer, the sheer lack of originality and mundane-ness of the handful of straightforward inventory-based ‘puzzles’ in the episode was disappointing.

Looking at the game, it doesn’t take long to notice the sparse, almost bare (although beautifully drawn) environments, which seem like an artifact of the game having been developed for a handheld device with a smaller screen. It’s surprising to see so many bare walls and a general lack of objects to interact with, which is an issue that should have been addressed while porting the game to the PC. And while the characters have been drawn quite well, the animation seems a bit too oversimplified. For instance, whenever Emilio walks, he starts shuffling his feet and you can see him being dragged from one point on the screen to the other, which is not particularly convincing. While this would not have be an issue on a small screen handheld device, on a PC it’s quite another story.

I do have good things to say about the TES though. The voice-acting in TES was quite entertaining overall, especially the voiceover for Emilio (done by the brilliant John Bell), which is probably the funniest part of the game. I also liked the simple interface, which makes use of hotspots on the screen that change the color of your mouse pointer when it rolls over them. Interacting with the object indicated by the hotspot requires a left mouse click which gives you the three options of looking, talking and using an object. Inventory items, the main menu (where you can save/load games) and a ‘Ints and Tips section (useful for novice adventure gamers) can be accessed by moving the mouse pointer to the top of the screen.

For the life of me however, I could not understand why the option of interrupting dialogues was implemented with the spacebar key on the keyboard. How hard could it have been to assign the function to the right mouse button? And even the spacebar key is no match for when the credits start rolling. I accidentally selected the credits option one time from the main menu and had to watch the entire credit sequence, with the spacebar key rendered impotent for the entire duration. The icing on the cake was when I had to sit through the entire credits yet again when I finished the episode.

I could go on about some of the other issues such as how the frequent fade-ins and fade-outs (when Emilio moves around) become annoying; how sometimes Emilio walks right off the main screen (you can notice it if you have a widescreen display) or minor inconsistencies such as how he opens the fridge and says that it is empty when you can clearly see that it is stocked with food. But I will stop now, because I don’t want to rattle on for longer than it took me to finish the game.

Conclusion

If TES: Episode 1 was a freeware adventure game, I admit I would have been a lot less critical and given a higher grade. But the episode costs 10 Euros (about $12). For the unremarkable quality (and quantity) of gameplay that is being offered, is it good value for money? I’ll leave that one to you. Here’s one caveat that you should be aware of if you purchase the game – you can only play it on the computer that you purchased it on, since the serial number that activates the full version of the game is machine specific. Jeez. If I pay for a game, shouldn’t I be able to copy it and play it on another machine I own?

I enjoy and look forward to playing good comic adventures all the time, which is why I really hope that the issues in the first episode of TES are ironed out in time for the next installment (episode 2 is due out in October this year). TES looks like a very promising game, despite its shortcomings, and all indications suggest that the second episode will be longer than the first. Here’s hoping that it delivers the goods.

If you would like more information on the game, want to download the demo or purchase the game, head over to http://theexchangestudent.com

System Requirements:

Minimum:
- Pentium 2 350 MHz
- 128MB RAM
- Windows 98, SE, ME, 2000, XP
- Mouse and Keyboard

Recommended Minimum:
- 2.00GHz Processor
- 256MB RAM
- 128 MB Graphics Card
- Windows 2000, XP
- 80 MB free in Hard Disk
- Mouse and Keyboard