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Review
The
Labyrinth of Time
Review by Ugur Sener
January 27, 2005 |
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1993 saw the original
release of Terra Nova Development’s
first person adventure game The Labyrinth of Time. Even though The
Labyrinth of Time was overshadowed by the release of the incredibly
successful Myst, the game still offered beautiful graphics and an
engaging storyline to adventure gamers who did not overlook it. Now,
thanks to The Wyrmkeep Entertainment, a reprogrammed version of the
game is available, 12 years after its initial release.
 The Labyrinth
of Time pays tribute to the legendary architect Daedalus and King Minos.
According to Greek mythology, Daedalus works in Crete
under King Minos and Queen Pasiphae. In order to settle a dispute
over his right to be the king, Minos seeks the god Poseidon’s
help. To prove Minos’s right to sovereignty, Poseidon sends
a pure white bull for Minos to sacrifice in the god’s name.
However, after seeing the bull, Minos refuses the sacrifice. Poseidon
punishes the king by giving Pasiphae uncontrollable lust for the
bull. Eventually, Pasiphae and the bull mate, leading to the birth
of the half man half bull beast known as the Minotaur. Minos forces
Daedalus to create a maze to contain the Minotaur. Every year Minos
orders young people to be fed to the beast as tribute. Eventually,
with Daedalus’s help, the hero Theseus slays the Minotaur.
 The Labyrinth
of Time starts as the player – who is in today’s
world - is on the way home from a long, dull day at work. The spirit
of Daedalus suddenly appears at the subway station, bearing grim
news. It turns out that after his death, King Minos has only grown
stronger. He is now forcing Daedalus to construct a labyrinth that
surpasses the boundaries of space and time. Once the labyrinth is
completed, Minos will be able to invade Earth in all its ages. It
is up to the player to travel through the labyrinth and find a way
to destroy it.
 Traveling through the various locations in the game, players will
discover an interesting subplot about an archeologist and his obsession
to locate a Mayan artifact. Using clues from the various articles,
notes, and the journal spread throughout the game, players will be
challenged to piece together the clues and discover how the labyrinth
can be destroyed. The story also successfully takes advantage of
the fact that the labyrinth exists in many places throughout the
course of time. By visiting certain locations in the past, players
will be able to change the course of time, making more clues and
items available in the future. While the time travel aspect of the
game should have been explored further, The Labyrinth of
Time does
offer a solid story that should keep players interested.
The Labyrinth
of Time also successfully delivers in terms of graphics and music. Compared
to other games from the early 90’s, The
Labyrinth of Time offers beautiful graphics and some impressive creative
artwork. Even in a gaming arena of gorgeous 3-D environments and
highly detailed character models, The Labyrinth of Time remains playable
and sometimes even fairly pleasant to look at. Even though it feels
a little overdone from time to time, the game features a nice soundtrack
that does a good job of setting the mood.
 The game does suffer from a number of illogical puzzles. Certain
items are found in places where they do not belong. For instance,
it is difficult to explain what a can of paint is doing in a secret
compartment in a throne room, or what a key is doing in the coin
return slot of a jukebox. Even though the illogical item placement
and puzzles do not significantly take away from gameplay, they could
have been avoided altogether. The game also features a significant
number of inventory items that can be picked up even though they
are never used. Especially since players will have to scroll through
items one at a time, the unused items needlessly crowd the inventory.
The fundamental problem many gamers may have with The
Labyrinth of Time is its core concept. If you cannot stand mazes, you should
avoid this game, plain and simple. The Labyrinth of Time features
a mirror maze, a medieval maze, a hedge maze, and a surreal maze.
The average player should expect to navigate some of these mazes
multiple times before beating the game. In fact, the entire game
feels and plays like one intricate maze.
 The game does feature
an excellent mapping system that significantly reduces the difficulty
of going through the game. As players explore
the labyrinth, rooms are added to the map. Each alternative path
is marked and an arrow clearly designates the players’ current
location and the direction they are facing. Upon entering the mirror,
medieval, or the hedge maze, the map expands to further help players
find their way. The only area where the map is not available is the
surreal maze. Fortunately, this maze consists of only nine rooms
and players can expect to figure out the trick to get out fairly
easily. Finally, The Labyrinth of Time allows players to place virtual
breadcrumbs that can be traced back if they get lost while exploring
a particular area. With all the help provided with navigation, maneuver
the mazes is not extremely challenging. The only real difficulty
with the mazes is the redundancy of traveling them multiple times
throughout the course of the game.
 Playing The Labyrinth
of Time is like running into an old, forgotten friend after many
years. The gameplay will not dazzle you with its
innovativeness. The puzzles will not cause you many sleepless nights.
Yet the interesting locations, the entertaining story, the pleasant
music, and the old-school graphics give the game an inherent charm.
If you can handle looking at aged graphics and if the thought of
navigating mazes does not make you want to run away and hide, you
should consider giving The Labyrinth of Time a try. This game has
something to offer to the seasoned adventure gamer who’d enjoy
a trip down memory lane.
For maze lovers (like me) the final grade is a B-.
For everyone else, the final grade is a C+.
Final Grade: B-/C+
(find out more about our
grading system)
System Requirements:
- 300 MHz or faster CPU
- Windows 98, ME, 2000,
XP or
- Linux 2.4 (x86) and
later or
- Mac OS X 10.1.2 and
later
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