From
the Sublime to the Ridiculous

Two
weeks ago in this space I gave a stellar review to The Adventure Company’s
Broken
Sword: The Sleeping Dragon. When you read this review, you
may well wonder if I’m suffering from bipolar disorder.

The game from The Adventure
Company that I’m talking about today is Traitors Gate 2:
Cypher. This will not, I’m sad to say, be a stellar review.

The first Traitors Gate
was developed by a talented Swedish studio called Daydream Software,
and I was a very big fan of that game, as well as the team’s
earlier effort, Safecracker.
Daydream did not develop Traitors Gate 2.

Alas.

What’s
in a Name?

The
very first problem with the game is its title. It shouldn’t
be a Traitors Gate game, as the great bulk of the game has
absolutely nothing in common with the sly and crafty stealth and techno
gameplay that made the first game so fun.

It’s true that you
you technically play as Raven, the same character that starred in
the first game. But that’s about all the games have in common.

Cypher informs
you that you have to stop a deadly computer virus that’s going
to destroy the world. So far, so good. But then it drops you into
an ancient tomb and the game turns into something completely different.

Coulda
Woulda Shoulda

The bulk of the game consists
of navigating an insanely complicated series of ancient chambers which
are chock-full of life-or-death puzzles.

This in itself could have
been lots of fun. In fact, for the first hour or so, I was having
fun. The graphics are attractive (particularly nice is a reflection
effect on metallic surfaces). The puzzle rooms are imaginative and
visually fun. The controls are decent.

So for a while I thought,
“Okay, so this is going to be sort of like Jewels of the
Oracle in 3D.” And that’s a perfectly acceptable
and even intriguing idea for an adventure game.

The
game also has an understated, somewhat evocative score.

Unfortunately, the game’s
shortcomings quickly short-circuit any possible fun.

First of all, the game
is woefully in need of a map feature. This vast underground complex
quickly becomes a nightmarish 3D maze. Any game with geography this
complex owes the player some kind of mapping feature. Without one,
you spend lots and lots of time running around halls and staircases
that all look exactly alike. Fun!

The next problem are the
puzzles themselves. Many of them are obtuse in the extreme, with precious
little clues or indication of any kind of what your goal is supposed
to be. Or unkind touches that can triple the length of time it takes
to solve a puzzle — there’s an eggregious example of this problem
with an otherwise intriguing boat maze in which you’re supposed
to capture a key. There are three keys, and it’s almost impossible
to figure out, except by luck, which is the appropriate one. So if
you’re unlucky, you have to navigate the maze three times instead
of one.

Even worse, there are “clues”
scattered about the tombs, and the clues just make the player end
up more baffled.

Having just played a spectacular
example of a 3D adventure game (the afore-mentioned Broken Sword:
The Sleeping Dragon), I truly missed that game’s “active
hotspot” feature. Cypher gives you no such help, so
you have to bump around, attempting to interact with everything. This
is one of the biggest things about 3D that adventure gamers don’t
like, and you’d think that a company like The Adventure Company
would understand that.

It
gets worse when the main character opens his mouth. Every single thing
he says is terrible. When encountering a huge maze (yes, I said the
“M” word again, and you have to go this particular one
multiple times, yum!) he drawls, “I’m going to have to
keep track of my bearings.” And when encountering a giant snake
god in one room, he utters the most bafflingly bad line I’ve
heard in an adventure game in years: “Ah! Sir Hiss, I presume.”
What were they thinking?

When the main character
in the game doesn’t take his life-and-death predicament seriously,
why should you, the player? Ecchhh.

In fact, the entire game
feels like a textbook example of why mainstream game media are so
dismissive of games in the adventure genre these days. Get your rotten
tomatoes ready, because I’m about to utter an unkind truth:
Games like Traitors Gate 2 are the reason why people make
fun of the Adventure Game genre.

But
Wait, There’s More

I hate to tell you, but
I haven’t even gotten to the worst part. If everything above
was all that was wrong with this game, I still could have recommended
it to hard-core adventure completists.

But.

The
game has bugs in it. Killer bugs. Game-killing bugs. Yes, more than
one.

I reviewed a commercial
release copy of the game and these problems had not been resolved.
Unfortunately, this means that The Adventure Company is shipping a
game that’s virtually unplayable.

Tough
Love

It’s no fun writing
a review like this. I want EVERY game to be Broken
Sword. And I hope someday, someone takes the very good germ
of an idea this game has — Jewels of the Oracle 3D –
and makes a good game out of it.

Final Grade: F

Final Grade with Patches:
D

System Requirements:

• PIII 700MHz or equivalent
• 128 MB RAM
• Sound Card
• 3D Card
• DirectX 8.1

This
review is copyright Ray Ivey and Just Adventure and
may not be republished elsewhere without the express written consent
of the author. Republication of said review must also contain a link
back to Just Adventure.