INTRODUCTION: Feel like
returning to the tried-and-true 7th Guest formula? Trilobyte sure
hopes you do.

Clandestiny is the third
in the Trilobyte series of haunted house puzzle games. It breaks no
new ground in terms of format or content, but I really enjoyed it
nevertheless. I am personally a big fan of the formula codified by
the wildly successful “The 7th Guest” in 1992. The formula?
Stumble around a haunted house solving puzzles while being mildy diverted
by the thin storyline. Nothing revolutionary, but it works.

CARTOONS AND PUZZLES,
PUZZLES AND CARTOONS

The
only new element Clandestiny introduces is some fairly well-done animation.
The game is played in a combination of first and third person: first
person for navigating and puzzle solving, third person for the animated
cut scenes.

Your character has inherited
a Scottish castle and title, and you and your fiancee show up to claim
your windfall. Unfortunately, the castle doesn’t appear to be full
of treasure – merely ghosts.

The voice acting is for
the most part adequate, but I must say the the writing of the role
of the fiancee is pretty darned irritating. For whatever reason, she
cannot see the ghosts you see until about three-quarters of the way
through the game. Instead of this creating hilarity, it pretty much
just gets on your nerves.

THIS CASTLE IS A MYST-ERIOUS
PLACE

Unlike The 7th Guest which
provided beautiful 360 degree movement, the navigation in Clandestiny
is a slide show a la Myst. However, the environments are very well
done, and the castle is a very fun place to explore.

There
are two kinds of puzzles in Clandestiny. There are the traditional,
7th Guest type, involving word strings and chessboards and leaping
toads and such, and these are all entertaining. Some are fairly standard
and easy, such as a classic leapfrog puzzle, and others are pretty
fiendish, like one in which you have to painstakingly rearrange a
set of gears.

Then there are the “door
puzzles.” At the very beginning of the game most of the doors
in the castle are locked. In order to pass through a door you must
find the “key,” which is the answer to a riddle. Now, you
are either a person who likes riddles or a person who is driven up
the wall by them. If you hate riddles, this aspect of the game will
not be one for you. I actually quite enjoyed them. Also, each riddle
answer you get not only opens a door but adds a word to the family
crest. As this family crest begins to take shape and you see a clan
motto is being constructed by your riddle answers, solving the remaining
riddles gets easier — as you are looking for specific words to complete
the motto.

Opening a new door also
frequently lets you meet a new ghost. These ghosts are a mixed bag;
some are entertaining, others not so.

HEY, WHERE’S MY TEXT
OPTION??

On
a technical note, one thing that irritated me about Clandestiny is
the fact that it had only crude sound controls. It didn’t give me
the option of turning down the music independently of the voice or
effects tracks. Consequently I had a very hard time understanding
much of the speech in the game. This is a problem, because the comments
made by the various characters frequently contained vital clues. This
was a particular problem on the final puzzle, which was rendered almost
impossible to solve because of the difficulty of understanding the
various characters.

I guess I’ll have to make
an announcement: RAY’S GAME RULE #1: ALL GAMES MUST HAVE A “TEXT”
OPTION FOR ALL SPEECH. Don’t make me have to say this again.

CONCLUSION

Was it worth my time? Absolutely.
As I’ve said before, the 7th Guest game model is popular for a reason;
the reason is that’s it’s lots of fun. I really enjoyed most of the
puzzles in this game, and even some of the riddles. And the animation
was technically well done, even if the writing wasn’t spectacular.
I finished this game in two sittings with a friend . . . so I guess
we were having a good time!

PROS:
Nice animation and backgrounds, very fun puzzles, tried and true formula.

CONS: Nothing particularly
new here, ghosts a mixed blessing, riddles and irritant to some players.

CONCLUSION: This
game is the type of thing that’s very fun to those that like this
type of thing. Like me.

Grade: C+

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Pentium-60, 8MB RAM, 7MB disk space, local-bus video card with 1MB
RAM and support for DirectX 2.0, 2X CD-ROM drive, Windows 95; Sound
Blaster or compatible sound card