I’m torn – I’ve
never been so torn about my feelings on a game before. When I was
first approached to review what has
been heralded as one of the most impressive adventure games of the
year, I leapt at the chance. I had seen snippets of extraordinarily
constructed worlds via the official Aura website. The story line
rang with pieces of The Longest Journey and Schizm, two of my personal
favorites. Graphically, Aura appeared to be an all out homage to
Myst 3: Exile, from the architecture to the details in the rock walls.

And yet, I am still torn.

In Aura, you assume the role of Umang, a young student of the wise
man Arakon. Arakon believes that Umang is ready for the trials of
achieving the highest knowledge, the knowledge that will lead him
through the great Ages of his people and all the fame and glory that
goes with it. Unfortunately, in the process of doing this, Umang
gets swept up in a revolt brought on by the wise men and is tasked
by Arakon to retrieve a series of magical artifacts from these great
Ages.

Aura really is one of
the most remarkable games I’ve seen
in quite some time. The environments are gorgeous, very accessible,
yet alien enough to make you believe you’re in another dimension.
The opening gate of the Age of Na Tiexu reminds me of Obsidian. The
landscape is gritty, pockmarked with natural deformations adding
to the organic feel that I’m sure the artists at Streko were
trying hard to achieve. At times, I questioned their use of color.
One area in the Age of Dragast had a white iron rail that surrounded
the edge of a balcony. But slapped across it was bright red paint
that was either blood or an homage to Jackson Pollack. Other times,
the bright colors were welcome, providing the imaginary, fantasy
element needed for such a game.

Aura has scores of FMV,
and most of it is quite gorgeous. One scene that especially stands
out is the journey from the Age of Dragast
to the Age of Na Tiexu. The only bits that I found annoying were
the close-ups of Umang, the character you play. His movements are
quite stiff and awkward as is his hair, which looks mysteriously
like a bad hair plug job that a friend of my father’s once
had. It’s strange that all the other characters could look
so fluid and expressive while you remain as emotional (or lack thereof)
as Al Gore during a presidential debate.

The sound effects are
extremely enjoyable. Streko made great efforts to give the sounds
depth and perspective. One great example of this
is in the caves on Dragast where water is dripping from one distinct
source and as you’re panning, the dripping changes location
depending on where your head is turned. While this is not extremely
new technology, I still find it encouraging when a game takes the
time to give that sort of detail. Without it, I believe it shows
signs of a lazy sound designer.

Music is not altogether
remarkable. This is where I was first really disappointed. When
I was first treated to Aura’s demo (before
playing the full version I am now reviewing) I thought the somewhat
cheesy, overly soaring MIDI track under the FMV of Umang going to
Dragast was just for demo purposes and that it would be filled in
with orchestrated music at a later time. To my dismay, this was not
the case. The ambient music found on the official site is present
in the game, only I wish there was more of it. One other particular
music bit of note is the Psycho-like down-bow of the strings found
in Dragast. I felt that at any moment some crazed person was going
to leap out and kill me.

But I promise, I’m not all gloom and doom here. There are
plenty of silver linings, mainly in the form of puzzles. If you ever
wished that the creators of Jewels of the Oracle, Obsidian, Myst,
and about a hundred other game designers had gotten together and
created a game, Aura would have been the product. The puzzles throughout
run the gamut, from inventory, to logic, to symbolist, to ritualistic.
There’s even a puzzle involving Zodiac symbols! (Oh no . .
. not that we have ever seen that before, shall I count the ways.)
But really, I found them to be creative in their approach, taking
old forms of puzzles and making them new again. There are times when
solutions seem quite obtuse and I’m still scratching my head
and figuring out how the heck I solved a couple of them, namely the
Zodiac puzzle.

Be forewarned: there are
a couple of music puzzles. For all of you who went running to hills
over the organ puzzle in Myst and the harp
puzzle in Shivers, this one will make you want to run even farther.
And if you’re tone deaf, consult a hint guide.

But again, I can’t be all sunshine and roses either. Here
is where I am torn, completely, utterly torn. My instincts are telling
me to give Aura a good grade, to let you all out there know that
another wonderful achievement has been added to gaming shelves all
across the world. That your $19.99 at Best Buy will not be spent
in vain. To be honest, I don’t know how things will turn out.
My full version of the game came from a copy of the Gold Master,
sent directly to me from the publisher. The game has (or had) one
huge bug that would tend to repeat at critical places and at one
point, had me completely unable to continue with the game, no matter
how I tried to fix things. I’ve been back and forth with the
Q and A people, and I think we pretty much figured things out, so
I’m hoping this problem doesn’t make it to the retail
version. Just know that if your cursor suddenly stops responding,
no, you are not losing your mind. So save often!

So where do we go from here now, dear reader? I can tell you that
if you invest in Aura, you will not be disappointed in its content.
Streko Graphics put great care into developing this little graphical
gem and I feel that even with the frustrations I had with a few of
its puzzles and the occasional cursor issue, I found Aura to be a
thoroughly entertaining escape from the day to day humdrum of work
and classes. Adventure fans, prepare for an out of this world journey
that will delight the imagination. With its superb graphical quality
and diabolical puzzles, Aura is one for all the Ages.

Addendum:

Hi everyone! Just wanted
to add a tag onto my recent review of Aura. The Adventure Company
supplied me with their most recent release
of the game and I’m happy to say that it is completely bug
free. Granted, I had to completely erase the previous version from
my drive and replay it, but I’m pleased to report the bugs
have been eradicated.

Enjoy without trepidation!

Final Grade: B+

System Requirements:

• Windows® 98SE/ME/2000/XP
• 800 MHz Pentium® III (or Higher)
• 64 MB RAM (128 MB
  Recommended)
• 16x CD-ROM drive
  (24x CD-ROM Drive Recommended)
• 1.3 GB Hard Disk Space ( 2.4GB Recommended)
• 32MB DirectX 8/9
  Compatible 3D Video Card (or Higher)
• DirectX 8.1