Noctropolis is
a stylish and atmospheric adventure game, inspired by the world
of comic books (so
if you hate comic books, be sure to avoid Noctropolis). There is, in fact,
one little comic book included in the game box to set the stage for the game’s
story (the same comic book can also be viewed in the game).

The comic-book Noctropolis
is a city of the night – literally. About a hundred years ago,
some kind of natural cataclysm caused the sky to be completely
shrouded by an impenetrable cloud of smoke, ashes and dust. Since
then the sun no longer rises in Noctropolis. And like other comic
book cities, Noctropolis also has a big crime problem. Not just
street gangs and thugs but super villains, incredibly evil and
powerful.

And like other comic book
cities, Noctropolis has a superhero. His name is Darksheer and
he is a creature of the night, with the ability to become nearly
invisible in darkness. He is also almost invincible. A person like
that of course deserves to have a comic book series published about
them. In this case it’s “Darksheer, Crusades in the City of the
Night” by Cygnus Comics.

Darksheer is so good,
in fact, that there are not too many villains left. The issue of “Darksheer” included
with the game deals with his elimination of the last three: Desperado,
Widowmark and Top Hat. As we flip through the pages, we learn how
Darksheer dispatched the first two. But Top Hat, the sinister trickster
and magician, would have killed him if it weren’t for the last-minute
intervention of Stiletto. She is supposed to be Darksheer’s partner
and as her name suggests, she is very, very good with knives. The
two heroes have a bit of falling out and Darksheer does the one
thing that superheroes are not supposed to do: retire. The city
throws him a huge farewell parade and Darksheer disappears, never
to be seen again. Or…?

Meanwhile, in the “real” world
we meet Peter Gray, owner of a not very profitable bookstore specializing
in rare books (sounds a bit like Gabriel Knight doesn’t
it? Both games appeared at about the same time). His wife has left
him, he is in debt and the outlook is not good. But he still has
his comic books and especially his favorite, the “Darksheer” series.
Except that, after reading the issue I just rehashed above, he
learns that it is to be the last one. So he gets even more depressed,
falls asleep and has a disturbing dream where Succubus – one of
Darksheer’s foes – attacks him.

Fortunately a doorbell
rings and Peter wakes up. He has just gotten a package – he is
the Cygnus Comics sweepstakes winner. One of the prizes is a brand
new issue of “Darksheer” and Peter starts reading immediately.
Something is dreadfully wrong in Noctropolis. A new master villain
called Flux has appeared seemingly from nowhere and has started
breaking Darksheer’s old enemies out of prison. Dr. Macabre, the
sadistic surgeon. Greenthumb, strange mutant who can bend plants
to his will. Dreamer, a strangley deformed humanoid who attacks
his victims through their dreams. And others.

After finishing this new
issue of “Darksheer”, Peter is naturally confused. Also included
with the sweepstakes prizes he received are two odd coins, one
silver and one gold. When he flips the silver coin, a strange monolith
suddenly springs up in the middle of his bookstore. Besides ruining
Peter’s carpet, the monolith also opens up and sucks Peter in.

When Peter recovers, he
finds himself in the middle of a strange city – “strange” as in
both “odd” and “unknown”. Actually, something about the city does
look familiar. Yep, you guessed it – it’s Noctropolis. Confused
and lost, Peter decides to find Father Desmond, one of Darksheer’s
old allies. Unfortunately the Noctropolis cathedral is being guarded
by a stone gargoyle which has mysteriously sprung to life, apparently
at the bidding of the demon Succubus. But through an ingenious
application of high voltage electric current, Peter dispatches
the gargoyle and gains entrance to the cathedral.

When he tells Father Desmond
that he, Peter Grey, is the new Darksheer, the good Father is naturally
incredulous. But after a bit of convincing he agrees to give Peter
the address of Stiletto. Unfortunately she has been nursing a bottle
since Darksheer left her and is not in the least interested in
anything Peter has to say. What a letdown! So Peter starts adventuring
on his own. After a while he is attacked by the demon Succubus
again, this time for real (if the comic book reality is “real” that
is), but he is not killed – apparently Succubus wouldn’t mind killing
him but her new master Flux is against it because he has other
plans for Peter. But Flux’s plans say nothing about Father Desmond,
so Succubus tries to take her revenge on the clergyman. Trying
to be a good hero, Peter goes to help Father Desmond. The battle
with Succubus is unexpectedly joined by Stiletto who apparently
threw away the bottle, donned her tightly fitting black suit and
pulled out her knives, as vicious as ever. And boy, does she look
good!

The demon is banished
(hmm, you’re fighting a demon in a cathedral… what would you
do?) but Peter passes out from exhaustion caused by his wounds.
Stiletto carries him to Shadowlair, Darksheer’s secret hideout.
She submerges Peter in a pool of Liquidark, mysterious dark liquid
(duh) with healing powers. Afterwards Peter just needs to pick
up Darksheer’s gear and ha can become a full-time superhero. Then
he only has five or so super villains to kill and a final confrontation
with Flux on his to-do list. He might even convince Stiletto to
help him.

While the new Darksheer
is busy doing hero stuff, we can examine how the game works. Noctropolis is
a classical point and click adventure. The right mouse button pops
up a stylish menu with a list of actions and access to inventory.
Using inventory items works in a simplified way, if you “use” an
item in the right room, Peter will generally do whatever is needed
to use that particular object. Looking at the scenery will give
you textual descriptions of it.

Conversations, however,
are a bit more colorful because they are all accompanied by video
sequences (in little windows, not fullscreen), complete with digitized
audio. All with live actors, sometimes with added digital effects
(in the case of certain monsters). The dialogs can be a little
annoying because you have to follow the exact right path to get
where you want and if you “miss”, the dialog starts over from scratch.
Which is a problem with conversation trees that branch a lot.

The graphics are high-res
(for 1994 anyway) Super VGA. Unfortunately the game makers chose
the 640×400 resolution at 256 colors, which tends to display a
bit off on most monitors. Noctropolis is also a very dark
game – literally, with the default brightness you probably won’t
see a whole lot. The backgrounds are all hand drawn in comic book
style and they do look nice. Some locations also look really weird,
especially Peter’s dream sequence – but then dreams are supposed
to look weird. I think.

Digitized audio in Noctropolis is
clear, which is unfortunately not always the rule with the games
of that era. The music is nothing special but then it’s hard to
do anything special with AdLib. There is however a sound track
on the game CD (about 20 minutes of music) which is quite good
– it is unfortunate that it cannot be played during the game (because
the game needs to access its data on the CD).

The puzzles are almost
exclusively inventory-based, unless you count the dialogs as puzzles.
They are usually not very difficult and most objects need to be
used close to where they had been found. The biggest problem is
finding those widdle things scattered here and there, usually dark
against a dark background and only several square pixels large.
Some of them are incredibly easy to miss. This is only alleviated
by the fact that the game is often confined to relatively small
areas consisting of just a few screens.

The story is very linear
and most locations must be visited in a more or less fixed order
– but that is always the problem (if it is considered a problem
at all) if you want to have a tight story. The story is also not
in the least credible but then again, this is supposed to
be a comic book-style adventure. And I should also mention that
for once, the “Mature” rating is spot on. There are a couple of
violent scenes (though not too violent) and some “suggestive
themes” (if that’s what I think it means). After all, the box says
that Noctropolis is an “adult graphic adventure”, so there
better be some.

If I were a professional
writer, at this point I’d probably say something silly like “Noctropolis successfully
captures the spirit of a comic book adventure and translates it
to the digital game medium” but I’m not, so I won’t. I don’t have
the schools. Still, I liked the game even though I’m not a comic
book junkie. It has style, and that’s not something you
get out of a game just by throwing more money or technology at
it. But before I start ranting about how the gaming industry is
going downhill (which is only half true anyway), let me just say
that I rate Nocropolis A- for flair, solid execution and
a wonderfully silly comic book-style story with an unexpected ending.

Final Grade: A-

System Requirements:

• 386/33 (486/33 recommended)
• 4MB
  RAM
• DOS 5.0
• CD-ROM