Just Adventure is proud to present a review of the
French version of The Amerzone. We will also review the English version of The
Amerzone when it is released later this spring. Many thanks to our French correspondent,
Christian C. Fischer, for his excellent review!

Once, for a change, let’s talk
about French adventure games, especially when they are worth a chronicle.
You probably already know the brilliant Atlantis 1 from Cryo Interactive.
This time it’s about an adventure game called The Amerzone/The Explorer’s Will,
developed by Microids. The game, which takes place mainly in the Amazonian
( I am sorry, I mean “Amerzonian”) rain forest, comes from the imagination
of a very talented and creative Belgian comic strip writer, Benoît Sokal,
who wanted to try his hand at multimedia format. And what a graphical success
indeed for his first attempt!

You play as a journalist who came to interview
Mr. Valembois (an old explorer) about the legendary “white bird” that
he discovered in Amerzone in the early 1930s. Indeed these rare birds are said
to keep flying in the air from birth to death and to bring prosperity to the local
Indians. The explorer’s discovery was ridiculed by the scientific community on
his return. The problem is that you arrive at the Explorer’s lighthouse minutes
before he dies. He has enough time to ask you to return an egg, which he had brought
back from his travels, to the Indians. It is up to you to find where the egg is
stored on the premises, start the multipurpose aircraft designed by the explorer
himself, find your way to Amerzone, fight the mosquitoes in the swamps and return
the egg to the right place (an Indian village and finally a volcano) so it can
be hatched. Lot of work ahead in perspective … I guess a good sequel would be
to … oops, we don’t want to give away the surprise ending! Of course, one of
the first objects you find is the original logbook of the explorer, made up of
beautiful sketches from Benoît Sokal himself. It will be very helpful throughout
your journey. I rate the plot A thanks to its originality and the environmental
aspects of the scenarios.

The graphics are really a masterpiece. Benoît
Sokal probably saw Myst or Riven and told himself that he had to
do the same. Indeed, the game has already won an official award for its graphics.
Actually, the game graphics are amazing for several different reasons.

First,
they all come out of Benoît Sokal’s imagination and are in some sections
reminiscent of Myst’s Channelwood world. Benoît Sokal imagined a
whole new flora and fauna for the swampy world. For instance, you will encounter
the pechausaurus, some kind of a three-horn buffalo that will block you from sailing
back upstream on the river, or the aquatic giraffe tamed by the Indians. Needless
to say, mosquitoes (which unfortunately also exist even in real life) abound in
this luxuriant vegetation. The variety of the locations is also worth noticing:
apart from the rain forest, there is an isolated island and a Mexican village
to discover.

Second, there is the quality of the 3D engine made by Lightwave.
It is close to Cryo’s Omni 3D, and it really gives an impression of fluidity and
natural movement (at least on a Celeron 300A). It makes the old slide-show games
really obsolete.

Third is the quality of the details: one thing is for sure,
the graphics of this game have not been botched, contrary to lots of games these
days. Objects have been aged to make them more real, the luxuriant vegetation
pictures are very realistic. Even the cursor, the menu interface, and the “save”
menu were very nicely designed. Sound effects blend with the general atmosphere
(insects and animal noises, waterfalls, mechanisms). Therefore, I rate the
graphics and sound effects A+, as the rendering is close to perfection.

The
puzzles are the weak point of the game. For his first attempt, Benoît Sokal
tried to appeal to a broad public. The puzzles are somewhat too easy to solve
for an experienced adventure gamer. It took me eight hours to reach the fourth
and last CD. Most puzzles (about 50) consist in finding miscellaneous objects
and manipulating them within the environment (including levers and some dials).
Besides, the game is too linear. For this reason, I rate the puzzles B-.

Overall,
I hesitated to rate the game B+ or A-. Because of the ” French touch”
and because it’s Benoît Sokal’s first attempt, I finally give Amerzone
an A-. It misses the A because of the puzzles, which are too easy and too
short. It is very much suitable for new adventure gamers or for addicted gamers
who can’t wait until The Riddle of the Sphinx is out. Mr. Sokal, please
next time make it a bit longer!

Another particularity of this game is the
fact that it is in French! This can artificially add to the difficulty of the
puzzles, at least for those for whom English is their mother tongue. It can be
interesting and challenging to improve one’s French through this kind of multimedia
format. There is indeed some reading and talking involved. Conversation cannot
be replayed, so you’d better concentrate or save. Nevertheless, it is not critical
to puzzle solving.

System Requirements:
166 MHz PC
16X CD-ROM Drive
100 MB free hard disk space
32 MB RAM