INTRODUCTION: After tackling
Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Arxel Tribe has now turned Goethe’s Faust into
an adventure game. Is it worth selling your soul for?

The talented designers
at Arxel Tribe aren’t satisfied with the tried and true adventure
game settings. Not for them the Greatest Hits of Atlantis, Egypt,
and Maya. No, these folks have challenged themselves to get a bit
more creative when finding material to mine for games. First it was
medieval England in Pilgrim. Late last year it was Wagner’s five Ring
operas. Coming up next are games called – are you ready for this?
– Pompeii
and Jerusalem. Be still my heart. Don’t get me wrong, I love
Atlantis, Egypt and Central America, but I’m thrilled that this wild
German team are determined to boldly take me where no adventure game
has gone before!

Which
brings us to Faust. Based, of course, on Goethe’s morality
tale of a man who sells his soul to the devil, this story might not
be immediately obvious as the source for a good game.

The game takes place in
an abandoned amusement park. Mephisto, Satan’s front man, is a smooth
talking salesman who talks Marcellus Faust – the park’s old caretaker
– into being a sort of referee for seven tales of sin and possible
redemption. The stories all concern former employees of the park,
including a pair of treacherous Siamese twins, a fascist tiger trainer,
a sad fat lady, a bootlegging midget and others.

This is an absolutely gorgeous
game to look at. The format is point-and-click, with smooth 360 degree
panning. Even though it would have been nice if the movement had been
accompanied by full motion animation, the full-circle vistas create
a much better sense of place than a slideshow could. The colors are
rich and the backgrounds and artifacts very evocative of the sad,
faded park.

The smart cursor could
use a bit of schooling, but it’s not bad. (There’s a design choice
that makes the “Back Up” cursor virtually identical to the
“This May Be Examined” cursor. Naughty.)

The characters are beautifully
realized and rendered in 3D. The voiceover work includes some of the
best I’ve heard in a game.

Playing
this game I was reminded of three distinct games: The gorgeous, detailed
and convincing natural backgrounds are very reminiscent of Riven;
the beautiful 360 panning and lush colors are reminiscent of Redjack;
and the story structure is very reminiscent of Morpheus.

Okay, so if you’ve got
to be a bit derivative, you might as well copy really good stuff.
Riven, Redjack and Morpheus are all favorites
of mine, and so you can guess that I was very comfortable and entertained
in the world of Faust.

The story is punctuated
with extremely well-done cutscenes, including several very short ones
that add a true macabre touch to the proceedings.

Some of the puzzles require
a bit of lateral thinking that escaped me and my playing companion,
and I admit we had to resort to a hint or two. On the other hand,
the game also includes some puzzles that were quite elegant and entertaining,
such as a tricky hunt for a key prop that involves a candle, and a
brilliantly conceived and executed logic puzzle in which you have
to master a bit of tiger training yourself!

I
should make very clear, however, that much of the subject matter of
Faust is macabre, dark and intense. If you know me, you know
that those three adjectives are high praise indeed, and I LOVE games
that tread into this area. But I recognize that there are players
out there who aren’t interested in this kind of material. So, when
you’re deciding whether to play this game, ask yourself if you are
really in the mood for a walk on the wild side. The game touches on
child labor, murder, dismemberment, disfigurement, and rape. It also
includes the first (fleeting) instance of full frontal male nudity
I’ve ever seen in an adventure game. (Those Europeans, you know.)

I’m very fond of the type
of storytelling used in Faust. The seven episodes are separate
but interrelated. Thus the narrative is elliptical and fragmented,
allowing the player to put the sad and twisted world of the Dreamland
Park together like a jigsaw puzzle. In each episode facts are uncovered
that retrospectively reveal elements of the earlier stories.

Faust is full of
creative attention to detail, in too many areas to enumerate here.

I also must say that Faust
has the best use of music I’ve ever experienced in a game. Period,
bar none, absolutely, end of story. The score includes old torch songs,
Big Band era music, Marvin Gaye ballads, and even a rock tune or two,
all of which add immeasurably to the atmosphere of the game. In fact,
in several areas the choice of music adds an additional ironic layer
of comment to the proceedings. And to top it all off, there’s a feature
in the main menu that allows you to get a rundown on every single
piece of music used in the game. I hope game designers everywhere
will study Faust when it comes time to work on music for their new
games.

Of
course, nobody’s perfect, and Faust is far from a perfect game.
In addition to aforementioned illogical puzzles, the game has a few
other problems. Storywise, it promises a climax that never comes –
always a bit of a letdown in a game this ambitious. Unfortunately,
the main menu contributes to this disappointment, as it includes enticing
elements that look like they will be used and then never (or rarely)
are.

There’s also a built-in
hint device that simply didn’t work. Instead of giving us hints, it
transported us to a deranged bunny shoot! The manual says that the
hints only work if the Homunculus (don’t ask) is “rested.”
Well, my friend and I never seemed to get him rested, and we got bunnies
every time we tried it. We also experienced a terrible crash in the
game at one point that literally wiped out all our earlier game saves!
To be fair, I have not heard of this happening to any other player;
it was hopefully just, I don’t know, sunspots or something.

I don’t care about length
in games, but for those that do, I have to say Faust is fairly short.

Faust is not a masterpiece;
it’s a bit too flawed for that. But it’s a compulsively playable,
beautiful, sinister and complex game that is bursting at the seams
with creativity. For me, the game’s problems, while not inconsiderable,
were very much overshadowed by its enormous strengths. I had a wonderful
time playing it. It’s a huge leap forward for Arxel Tribe, and makes
them truly a studio to watch. Bring on Pompeii and Jerusalem!!

PROS: Best use of
music I’ve ever experienced in a game; gorgeous graphics; nice interface;
complex, dark and engaging story; some excellent puzzles.

CONS: Material too
macabre for some players; useless hint feature; smart cursor not smart
enough; ending a letdown.

CONCLUSION: Where
do I sign?

Final Grade: B

System Requirements:

Windows 95/98, Pentium
200 MMX, 32MB RAM, 12x CD-ROM drive (24x recommended), 290 Mb available
on the hard drive, DirectX6 (supplied on the disc), 16 bit graphic
card (24 bit recommended), 2Mb video memory, mouse.

NOTE: Your system must
be entirely compatible with DirectX 6. This game doesn’t run on
non MMx PC, such as Pentium Pro.

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.