Developer: Anim-X Studios
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: July 2001

By Ray Ivey

For two years I've been reading (and sometimes writing) crabby reviews of adventure games. Once the darling of the industry, adventures have become a favorite target of industry journalists.

One of the key criticisms being leveled at our beloved games is that they are acutely behind the times. We're going through an era that's tremendously exciting for computer gamers. New technologies have spurred scintillating possibilities for games. As a result, there are seriously cool games appearing in the real-time strategy, action, simulation, sports, and role-playing genres. Only the adventure genre seems stuck in the past.

That may finally be about to change with Anim-X Studios's Majestic.

Majestic is many things, but first and foremost, it's an online adventure game. It's a first in computer gaming in that the game actually invades your real life. As you explore its wonderfully paranoid story of shadow governments, evil scientific conspiracies, and murder by black-suited commandos, you'll get phone calls, faxes, emails, and other forms of communication from characters in the game.

Before you get totally scared off from trying Majestic by that last paragraph, let me hasten to add the very important point that when you sign up for the game, you have total control of all of the different ways the game will interact with you. You can choose to receive phone calls on a certain phone, at certain times, with a tag at the beginning of each message, or not at all. Same with faxes and email. Thus, every player can find a way to play the game at his or her own comfort level (not to mention having mercy on your poor family).

The first episode of Majestic is free. To play, you must register with the Electronic Arts game site, then register with Majestic. You also are required to create an AOL Instant Messenger account (it's free). (With the AIM account you can communicate with instant messages with characters and other players.) Further, you must download game software from the Majestic site. The whole process will take you about fifteen minutes.

The setup of the game is wonderful. First, you have to register at the Electronic Arts game site, then with Majestic. After this is done, you're given a video tutorial by the various members of the game's creative team. Through them you learn the mechanics of how the game works--the progress screen, the communications screen, the links screen, etc. (I strongly recommend you pay close attention to these talking heads, for reasons not immediately obvious.)

Then, while your main tour guide is wrapping things up, the video quality suddenly decays. After a moment, the image totally disintegrates. You then get an error message about the Majestic server having a problem. Momentarily you receive an email from Electronic Arts apologizing that, sorry, they've had to suspend the game until further notice.

At first, you're good and pissed off. Until you realize that the game has actually just begun!

It'll come as no shock to you that the game's conceit is that the conspiracies the story was built around turn out to be based on fact, not fiction. You're contacted by various characters in the game about a fire at the Anim-X studios.

Your first assignment? Find the back door into the secret, backup Majestic website. Once you've figured that out, you're off and running.

As I began playing this pilot episode, I got that feeling of excitement that I got when I first got hooked on adventure games. In fact, it reminded me of why I fell in love with adventure games in the first place: the ability to participate in and interact with a dynamic, exciting story.

I will freely admit at this point that I don't have a proper sense of objectivity regarding Majestic. I'm so impressed with what it's attempting to do, that I'm willing to be more patient with it than I might be with other games.

When you're regularly getting phone calls, emails, faxes, videos, instant messages, and web links from characters, it creates a gleefully giddy game experience that's very seductive.

A good example of this is the effect the instant messages are having on me. Playing Majestic requires that you get an AOL Instant Messenger account, and with it you can communicate with other people involved in the world of Majestic. Some of these people are real players, like yourself, and some are "robots," or computer programs acting as if they were characters. Buying into the reality of the game is so darned fun that I find myself talking to these characters as if they're real. "Stop!" I typed frantically the other night. "There's a homing device on your jeep! You're leading the bad guys right to the hiding place!"

Of course it isn't real, but then our traditional adventures aren't real either, but who cares? The fact that Majestic forces you to actually play a part in the game means that, on some level, the game is also an RPG. It's just a very curious RPG because the role you're playing is a made-up version of yourself.

The game's brilliance comes from the central fact that, in order to play, you have to enter into the age-old conspiracy called "willing suspension of disbelief," in order to enjoy the game's artificial "reality." Since the game is all about conspiracies anyway, playing it makes you an automatic voluntary coconspirator. This results in the game feeling like a delightfully naughty, guilty pleasure.

Further adding to the game's sense of reality is the fact that it plays out in real time. When a character tells you he'll call you tomorrow, guess what--you have to wait until tomorrow. When you get sent to news stories that pertain to the game, they all have the appropriate dates on them that correspond to when you entered into the story.

The puzzles in the pilot episode were pretty straightforward. And the very nature of the game determines that the whole experience is quite linear (I'm one of the few weirdos who's not bothered by linearity in games). And I will say that so far, Majestic feels more like interactive entertainment than a game.

But who cares? It's such a brilliant, innovative idea, I can't wait to finish the first subscription episode. I fully expect to get $10 worth of fun out of it in a month's time. Besides, if I don't help Mike and Kendra escape, who will?

I'll update you further after Episode One. In the meantime, trust no one.