Review Crime Stories (aka Martin Mystère: Operation Dorian Gray) Developer: Artematica Publisher: GMX Media (Europe) The Adventure Company (NA) Genre: Adventure Release Date: 2005 Platform: Review by April 10, 2006		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:

Comparing Crime Stories to Martin Mystère: Operation Dorian Gray

Before I begin, let me note that this article’s purpose is only to point out the differences between the two games, not to review Crime Stories. You will need to have played Operation Dorian Gray or read its review to fully understand everything that is being mentioned. You can find the link to the review at the bottom of this page.

When I played Martin Mystère: Operation Dorian Gray last year, one thing that stood out was the sloppy, possibly even non-existent beta testing. The game was ridden with translation and spelling errors, hotspot-related and other bugs, and even two bugs that crashed the game completely. I was pretty sure that there would be a patch released, but that never happened. Now The Adventure Company releases the game in North America, supposedly having worked on its negative points. How good a job did they do though? I can sum up the answer with a movie title: The good, the bad and the ugly!

Starting with the ugly, the game has been renamed from the imaginative and relative to the story title Operation Dorian Gray, to the colorless, dull and unoriginal Crime Stories. What was wrong with the original title? I’ve heard the argument that Martin Mystère is not very well known in North America. That may be true, but now the full title is Crime Stories: From the Files of Martin Mystère. Why not Operation Dorian Gray: From the Files of Martin Mystère? To top that, the box cover art has also been changed to… erm… a fingerprint. Oh, the originality! The whole package, box and title, has ended up looking and sounding like a generic CSI knock-off, losing all its uniqueness and personality. A true shame.

To finish with the ugly, the manual has also been changed, from a newspaper-like booklet, to a small notebook-like one, which contains less than half the content of the original. On a good note though, the Crime Stories (CS) manual also includes a short Martin Mystère comic that slightly easies the pain caused by all the above ugly changes.

Moving on to the good, the game now is “Install & Forget”. Meaning, there is no annoying copy protection anymore having you look for the CD to put it in the drive every time you want to start the game or looking for “other methods” to stop this nuisance.

But the major change towards the better in CS is the voiceovers. Some of the voices in Operation Dorian Gray (ODG) were really bad, especially the ones of the secondary characters, like the police guards or the Mexican people. CS’s voiceovers are completely redone and sound a lot better and more pleasant, and also maintain more accurate accents. Of course, the fact that no one in CS can pronounce Eulenberg and Uben correctly is not a big deal anyway!

When it comes to the rest of the game’s appearance, graphics- and sound-wise, as well as the interface of the game, everything is exactly the same, except a little “M” icon that now appears at the top left of the screen and is used to bring up the save/load menu. Now everything can be done with the mouse, which I always find preferable. The Esc and F1 keys are still there, but for some unknown reason their functions have been switched.

Regarding all the bugs and crashes, CS provides a mixed bag of good and bad. Some of the hotspot problems have been corrected. So, for example, now Martin’s and his neighbor’s houses bear the correct hotspots, but the “boat” and “broken boat” hotspots. still change to “crumbling column” and “hieroglyphics” when viewed from another angle, and that poor critter in Uben’s house still doesn’t know if it’s a lemur or a monkey! Also, there are still hotspots that appear only under one angle, even though the items themselves are clearly visible under different angles. At least all spelling errors seem to have been fixed, so “Aztec” now maintains its “c” all the way!

Other little bugs have been eliminated, like the phone filter being lost during a phone conversation, but some bugs are still there. So you can still hear Martin making comments while playing as Diana, and Diana can still put the infamous disappearing battery in her inventory! Finally, from the two bugs that crash the game completely, only the “carvings” one has been fixed. The “destroyed boat” one is still there, with the cryptic “FRASE” accompanying it. Why were both bugs not fixed is something I cannot fathom.

The major change towards the bad though is the elimination of a certain puzzle, which I consider one of the greatest puzzles ever made. Actually, the puzzle itself is still there, but not in its original form and with the clues not working like they should anymore, which makes it more of a simple task rather than a puzzle. There is a reason why this happened though, which I cannot explain without spoilers. A real loss for everyone who will play CS instead of ODG.
(If you will play CS and are perfectly sure that you will not be playing ODG, click here to read why this particular puzzle was changed. SPOILER WARNING for ODG)

To finish with the bad, following the good old American way, CS has faced the scissor-hands of the censors, and of course lost. So a small cut-scene with a “certain content” has been removed, while a dancer has now put some clothes on! You can see what the cut-scene was about if you check the Extras/Sequences menu after you have visited the bar, but you won’t be able to play it there either. Let me point out that there was no sexual acts or nudity in ODG, only clothing that borderlined nudity, but it was still censored. I could use up all the gigabytes of JA’s server space to rant about censorship, but I will leave things pleasant and nice…

So, time for the big question: CS or ODG? Considering that very few bugs have been fixed, that the title and box have been butchered and that the game has been censored, the choosing variables have to be the voiceovers and spelling mistakes, as well as the omission of that particular puzzle. If bad voiceovers don’t bother you that much, and you can live with the spelling errors, ODG is the only way to go. Otherwise, if the title and box are of no importance to you, you don’t much mind missing a great puzzle and censorship doesn’t bother you, CS should be your choice.

Martin Mystère: Operation Dorian Gray Review

Final Grade: B-
(find out more about our grading system)

System Requirements:

• Win ME/2000/XP
• P3 866 Mhz
• 32 Mb Video Card
• 128 Mb RAM
• 700 Mb Available HD Space
• 32x CD-Rom
• Compatible Sound Card
• Keyboard & Mouse