Adventure
junkies, get ready – a Russian PC game developer / publisher is about
to unleash its first release on the North American market. The good
news: it’s a good old-fashioned adventure epic. The “even better
news”: the game is fabulous, fun, and the production quality
is right up there with the “big boys”. The company is called
1C and was founded in 1991. Since then, they have been producing games
for the growing Russian market. The game they will soon be marketing
in North America is entitled Jazz and Faust. Welcome,
1C!

You
know how you sometimes feel when starting a new PC adventure – rife
with anticipation like a kid on Christmas morning? Well, I felt that
way with Jazz and Faust. Randy had told me that the beta CD
I played had Russian digitized voices with English subtitles (the
North American version will have English voices). Frankly, I didn’t
know what to expect. As the intro started, I was stunned. Beautiful
animation, triumphant music, wonderfully immersive SFX – in a word,
WOW! The product had quality written all over it, and this quality
continued throughout the game.

Jazz
and Faust is effectively two games. As the player starts the game,
they select one of two characters – Jazz, am avaricious smuggler;
or Faust, an enchanting sea captain. The storylines for each scenario
differ significantly – each from a different perspective. Poor Jazz
starts out imprisoned in jail. Captain Faust finds himself suspected
of a murder and must prove his innocence. These guys even cross paths
during the game. Cool concept. 1C promises over 80 scenes and more
than 50 interactive characters. The “puzzles” are very context
relevant and the journey is fairly linear. Clues are everywhere. The
character usually has to perform an action, solve an environmental
style puzzle, or speak to the right people in order to open up new
destinations. The cut scene animations are first rate. There are even
day to night lighting transitions as you play. What impressed me most
was the attention to detail: the most realistic “jaw dropping”
ocean waving and translucency I’ve ever seen, birds flying high overhead,
many very realistic water fountains, smokestacks, and a lot of wonderful
ambient SFX. Did they need to include this? No. But the fact that
they DID speaks volumes on 1C’s commitment to excellence.

This
is basically a point and clicker, sometimes involving a little frustrating
pixel hunting. The save options are all you could ask for. The interface
uses a context relevant cursor which morphs into differing icons depending
on what you want or are able to do. The inventory system is a snap
– very user intuitive. The game is played employing 3D 3rd person
characters on beautifully rendered 2D backgrounds.

From this reviewer’s perspective,
“adventure game of the year” does not seem out of reach.

Stay tuned to JA for the
full game review.