From Russia with Love

By Randy Sluganski

From Russia with love (sorry, but I just had to say that) come three new adventure games. The first two are from a wonderful award-winning company that has been making games since 1991, Nikita Ltd., a Russian firm specializing in the development of computer games and educational programs for children. The third game, from New Media Generation, is a complete departure from the wholesomeness of Nikita Ltd.

The first game we'll review, New Robinson, is loosely based on the classic novel by Daniel Defoe and admirably proves that humor is universal. Even if the humor is, at time, toilet-based. New Robinson is 2D animation in the style of the old LucasArts games like Day of the Tentacle and Sam and Max. This animation, though, is minimalist and doesn't present a lot of opportunities for red herrings or background detail. The game is in Russian, with English translations at the bottom of the screen, similar to watching a foreign-language movie. Occasionally, a poor English translation will cause unintentional laughter. The music loops soon becomes very annoying, and sound effects can best described as functional--though the voice of Robinson speaking hurriedly in high-pitched Russian does serve to make the character endearing. This is not, though--and this seems to apply to all three of the Russian games I played--a game focused on innovative graphics or fancy gameplay, rather it is more concerned with the plot and the fairness of the puzzles.

New Robinson is the ageless tale of a man, his shipwrecked boat, and his man Friday. It is our task to help Robinson in his attempts to escape from the island, a matter that is complicated by the ineptness of this Russian Gilligan. For survival we will have to find food, build a house, and escape from cannibals. A parrot that lives on the island will offer clues if we are stuck. None of the puzzles are extremely difficult, but at times they make so much sense that the obvious solution can be easily overlooked. For instance, if you have an axe, it is used to chop down a tree. Need to get rid of a crocodile? Throw a stone at it. There are a few wonderfully innovative puzzles that require the player to find salt to use on the fish caught in the ocean and another that requires you to make a candle.

The last third of the game concentrates on your escape from the island, aided by Friday (who is named Aborigini), who becomes indispensable to help navigate a hot-air balloon and escape from pirates.

New Robinson has yet to find a North American publisher and, honestly, most likely never will, as it would be considered outdated by most of the American gaming public. It is, though, a game that is well worth playing for the adventure gamer who enjoys, as I do, experiencing games for all over the world with an open mind.

Final Grade: B

Our second game, Blue Beard (this game was originally known as Barmaley, but in what seems to be an attempt at universal appeal, the title was recently changed to Blue Beard), is a fun-filled romp through the jungles of Africa. Geared toward children, you play as a young boy who must outwit the evil Blue Beard and free captured animals bound for the zoo. The game is a combination of simple, but involving, arcade/action sequences and adventure-type puzzles.

The arcade/action sequences area all entertaining and must be completed to advance to the next stage. You will ride on the back of a lion in a race to reach the jungle before Blue Beard. avoid mermaids to reach a sunken ship, and catch baby panthers. Many of these situations are ingenious and add immensely to the overall fun factor of the game.

The puzzles are perfect for youngsters who welcome a challenge. Some of the more inventive ones include figuring out how to open a coconut (hit a palm tree with a stick so that the coconut falls on a turtle's shell and cracks open), answering five riddles so that a python will free you from its grasp, and finding a way to distract Blue Beard while you free the animals from their cages. For those who might have problems with any of the action or puzzles sequences, the game disk includes saves for almost every portion of the game so that if you are stuck in one area too long it is always possible to move forward.

While Blue Beard is not as good as the Humongous or Learning Company product line, it would still appeal to the younger gamer. The concept of what a child wants in a game seems to be universal as a serious subject (poaching) is approached with humor and lightness. In fact, if Blue Beard were in English (which the new version supposedly is), one would be hard-pressed to determine its country of origin. Blue Beard 2 is currently in production and expected to be released soon.

Final Grade: B

If you would like to order New Robinson, Blue Beard, or any of the other Nikita games, they are available through the Nikita website for a price of $29 per game, which includes the cost of shipping anywhere in the world.

Last, and certainly least in this case, is Escape from the Haunted House, and this is one haunted house you won't be able to get out of quick enough. An attempt at emulating The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour fails miserably. While I love the cheesy title and the hokey horror it implies, the title is about all that is interesting.

The story is as basic and bone-bare as possible: you are the nephew of a demented genius and are now trapped in his house. The only reason you are trapped in his house is so you can solve all the puzzles and escape. If you escape, the house is yours to keep. But the cost of upkeep alone of such a monstrosity would be prohibitive!

All of this could have been fun if there were any character interaction at all, but there isn't. Nor are there enough animations to keep the player on edge. There are a few, very few, at the beginning of the game that offer a glimmer of hope for some spooky situations, but just as they dissipate, so does the ambiance. What there is, though, are puzzles. Puzzles that have been around since the beginning of adventure gaming: open a safe by pressing the correct buttons, make a generator run by rearranging the gears, activate an electric circuit box. In other words, puzzles that are not even remotely related to and do contribute to the supposedly frightening atmosphere of the game.

The graphics are well-done, and the large rooms of the mansion are sumptuous and extremely colorful, but they often seem as though they were placed without regard to architecture and more for how they could influence a puzzle. To make matters even more frightening, the game is linear, so if you are stuck on a puzzle, then you are stuck forever.

Other than a well-done opening movie and some pretty graphics, there is not much reason to recommend Escape from the Haunted House other than its being so short that an experienced adventure gamer would finish it in under a day.

Final Grade: D

System Requirements for All Three Games:

Pentium 200
Windows 95/98
16 MB RAM
Video card
4x CDROM
Sound card
Mouse