Celtica is a good, old-fashioned, first-person, point-and-click,
Myst-style adventure. Anyone who’s read any of my reviews will certainly
realize that I am someone who leans toward and loves this genre, so it seemed
a natural, once I got a copy of the new Virtual PC 4, to give this one a whirl
right away.

The premise of Celtica is that in an ancient time, an
alien race traveled to earth and left behind an Ascension Amulet, Ascension Harp,
and Ascension Book, all of which hold powerful secrets and can allow the one who
possesses them to ascend to the domain of the alien race. Celtica takes
place on an island, and as gameplay progresses, you uncover the story of the people
that went before and have since disappeared from the island and their search for
the items you are also trying to find. The story is actually quite detailed, and
part of the fun of the game is getting more pieces of it as gameplay progresses,
so I’m not going to give away any more here.

Graphics are quite beautiful.
Despite the Myst style of the game, it holds up completely on its own,
with really well-rendered environments to explore, including some rolling countryside
dotted with ancient Celtic statuary, a monastery, Stonehenge-style ruins, a mansion,
caves, lighthouse, graveyard–the island is really filled with explorable locations.
There are a couple of areas where path hotspots can be missed or are not really
clear, and this can hang up gameplay a bit as you retrace steps or looking for
which way a path should go, or even if there is a path.

I heartily enjoyed
the accompanying music. It was designed and presented in keeping with the Celtic
theme, and it certainly gave the environment the definite air of the ancient Celts.
Lots of harp and flute, all of which was certainly right on target as far as I
was concerned.

The puzzles were an absolute blast. Some were more difficult
than others, but all were sequitur and fit into what was happening in the game.
The game also was linear, but it was designed in three big open sections so that
the player has a tremendous freedom of movement right from the starting point
of the game but cannot progress past each section until all puzzles in that one
area are completed.

The game also features an unusually beautiful interface,
with Celtic-styled designs bordering the overall game screen, and also a very
aesthetic and complex (in style, not use) interface, where the player can see
what portions of the overall puzzles have been won and how much of the quest of
the game has been completed.

There is also a separate clues menu interface,
which stores books with clues that are found by the player. As such it acts as
a hint file and also tracks various collected manuscripts that enable the player
to piece together the story.

If you love peaceful, leisurely paced, first-person
games where you can take your time, explore and uncover a good story, Celtica
is definitely going to be right up your alley.

Final Grade: A

System
Requirements:

Mac:
I played
this with Virtual PC 4, on a 466 MHZ iBook with no glitches.

PC:
Windows
95
Pentium 100
8 MB hard drive space
16 MB memory
4X CD-ROM drive

8-bit Sound Blaster or 100% DirectX compatible
1 MB video card