INTRODUCTION

Well, here it is. The second and possibly last expansion pack for
the Uru series. If you haven’t played Uru yet, you might want
to check out my review of that game before getting much further.

Uru was originally intended to be a Massively Multi-player Online
Game, but that project was canceled at the last minute. This was
probably not a bad thing for two reasons:

1) I think the idea of a Multi-player Adventure game is stupid. Ubisoft would have lost their shirts on it. The exploration and puzzle
solving
of adventure games just does not lend itself to the group experience.

If you disagree, then by all means take your favorite adventure
game and play it as Multi-player. All you have to do is invite three
to
five of your adventure gaming friends over. Tell them that while
your fingers will be on the keyboard, you want them to tell you
where they want to go and how to solve the puzzles. Pretty soon the
fast
guy will be nagging you to hurry up while the slow guy is whining
that they want to go back and appreciate the cool graphics. The
smart guy will have already solved the puzzles before you have had
a chance
to even look at them. And you will be left wondering why you spent
$20 to have other people play your game.

2) This forced Ubisoft to re-tool the games to single-player where they would have a chance
to be enjoyable.

The first expansion pack, Uru
to D’ni, contained all the public
areas from the original concept with a few puzzles thrown in to make
it a game. This was offered as a free download to existing Uru customers.

The second expansion pack, The
Path of the Shell, consists of the
first few Ages which would have been offered in the online version.
They were re-tooled to fit the single-player experience and hastily
repackaged, along with the first expansion pack, onto a single CD.

INSTALLATION

The first thing you will notice about Path
of the Shell is that
it was obviously slapped together in a hurry and rushed out the door.

It comes in a plain box – no fold-out cover showing the great
graphics or exciting game play. Just a couple of screen shots and
a bullet list promising more Ages, more story and more puzzles. Nothing “new.” Just “more.”

The box contains the jewel case, registration card and a flier for
Myst IV. No manual. The jewel case has a single folded sheet insert
which tells you insert the CD and follow the Install Wizard. No Manual.
The sheet also says that the full game manual can be found on the
CD in PDF format. I checked and there is a PDF file on the CD, of
the insert. No Manual.

So you say a quick prayer that the install will just go as expected
and not damage your existing Uru and that you will not have to use
any of the intriguing utilities you saw on the CD while looking for
the manual.

And, for me, it worked. They are still using the same stupid copy
protection from the last two Uru titles, but it found my existing
Uru on a separate partition, installed and I still had my existing
character.

THE GOODNESS

You
get what amounts to three new ages to play with.

The graphics continue to astound and inspire.

There are three more scenes which have excellent background music.

There are some very good puzzles. In fact, I was able to get two
thirds through one Age before needing a walkthrough.

While the expansion pack modifies at least one Age from the original
Uru, you don’t have to replay Uru like you did with the first pack.
The changes are more of a background/Easter Egg variety.

THE BADNESS

Still uses the same sucky navigation system/interface. No real
surprise. Ubisoft was obviously trying to recoup their expenses from
Uru Online and didn’t want to spend any more time on development then they
had to.

While the graphics remain gorgeous, they were not cleaned well.
There are several missing polygons (expect to see more stone facing
on the wall and all you see is primordial chaos). There are also
several places where the polygon mesh was not cleaned up and you
can see little sparks of daylight leaking through the dark walls.

Although half of the puzzles where quite well designed, the other
half just about ruin the game.

There were three puzzles where the graphics were so dark that you
couldn’t see to solve them, even when you knew exactly what to do.
Push the red button? What red button? Where?

There were two other puzzles which require EXACT solutions. One
involved setting dials to a correct value. You could place the needle
on the black mark, but unless it was in the perfect center it wouldn’t
work. Without a walkthrough, you could be convinced that you had
the wrong solution even when it was correct.

There were several puzzle
with no clue as to what should be done and no feedback when you
had done something correct. Even after finishing
the game, I look back on these and wonder “How was I supposed
to know to do that?”

There was at least one bug left in. There is a personal-people-mover
you must use. Twice I tried using it and the controls went dead before
reaching the end. I had to quit and restart the game to get past
that point each time. There was a third time when I tried using it
and instead of taking me to the other side of the track, I was transported
to the far end of the world with no controls. I used this thing a
total of five times and it worked correctly only twice.

And finally, the box advertised that we would learn more about what
Yeesha is doing and the future of D’ni. It lies.

CONCLUSION

Mixing it all together,
I must give “Uru: The Path of the Shell” a ”B-.” It
does not set any new standards and it is significantly flawed. This
prevents it from getting an A. But it is a solid value and anyone
who enjoys Uru will enjoy X-Pack
2.

The average adventure gamer will enjoy Uru and if you enjoy the
genre, you should have this on your shelf. But you will need a walkthrough.

Also, as of the writing
of the review (July 2004) Ubisoft has released
the entire Uru trilogy (Uru and both expansion packs) as a complete
collection for only $20. Even with the frustrating flaws, this is
an an amazing value and I recommend it to all adventure fans.

Final Grade: B-

System Requirements: