This is the worst game that I’ve totally enjoyed. It’s a traditional
third-person point-and-click adventure in which our hero, a dippy journalist named
Richard, is chasing all over the globe to find a scientist who went missing in
his search for Atlantis. The game starts with a wonderfully retro-cheesy cutscene
of the scientist and his obviously evil sidekicks searching underwater for Atlantis.

Been
Here, Done this … Haven’t I?

Atlantis. What a shock. Now there’s
a theme you don’t see in adventure games very often! Honestly, the hackneyed
subject matter is only the beginning of this hilarious game’s problems. First
of all, it seems to have been originally written in Italian, and the subsequent
bad dubbing of the very wooden characters adds to the general merriment.

I
Guess it Really Is a Small World After All

Second, the story has your
character bouncing back and forth from the Caribbean to Algeria to Easter Island–I
mean, bouncing back multiple times, as if you’re going to different rooms in the
same hotel. In fact, when you return to a place from the other side of the globe,
the characters you left are usually doing the same exact thing they were doing
when you left! This caused more than one chuckle as I was playing the game.

What
Am I Supposed to Do with All this Stuff?

The game pretends that its
about the search for Atlantis, but it’s really an exercise in creative inventory
management. It’s actually quite challenging in many areas, and it’s necessary
to listen very carefully to what every character tells you. Important hints to
solving many of the game’s stickier puzzles are contained in what sound like “toss-off”
comments by the characters. For example, if you forget that a museum manager you
meet in the Caribbean is extremely proud of his car, you’ll come to a complete
standstill in the game.

Much of the graphic work is pleasing, though the
characters are pretty wooden-looking. I enjoyed the different looks of the game’s
widely disparate locations.

And
the Award Goes to …

Some of the voice acting is actually decent and
amusing. However, I must say that the “actor” voicing the main character
is the most incompetent I’ve ever heard in a computer game. Now think about that
for a minute. This is a very rich category–Bad Voiceover Acting in Games. And
I’m not handing out this honor lightly. But the actor voicing Richard is so stunningly
clueless that it adds an entire new camp level of enjoyment to the game.

Is
this Really Happening, or Is it the Hash?

I’m sure this is a game that
could annoy the tar about of many a gamer. However, I found myself rather enjoying
its deranged logic and story. Would you expect to find Atlantis by catching a
crab, building a fake snake to scare a camel, solving a tribal murder mystery,
or sabotaging a hot-air balloon? Well, welcome to the daffy world of Ark of
Time. I expect it’ll be a very long time indeed before I play a game in which
I have to solve a problem by capturing termites on Easter Island, taking them
to a Berber village butcher shop in Northern Africa, distracting the poor butcher,
and then pouring the insects on an exposed slab of raw camel meat! Maybe I haven’t
played enough games yet, but I just haven’t had to do this particular task before.

This
Makes Jonny Quest Look Classy

When the game finally actually
gets to Atlantis, things get even crazier. At last you meet up with the motley
group of characters from the introductory cinematic. For the first time in the
game, the other characters are now as badly performed as Richard! It feels like
an old Thunderbirds or Clutch Cargo episode … only with even worse
acting. There are a couple of interesting puzzles to solve in this sequence before
the inevitably disappointing conclusion.

Despite all the fun I’m making
of it, I really had a good time with this crazy game. The interface was easy,
the inventory management wasn’t bad, and the puzzles were many and entertaining.

If
you can get your mitts on this game, don’t expect Zork Nemesis. But if
you’re in the right frame of mind, expect to have a great time.

The strong
points are the wide variety of locations, colorful and appealing graphics, and
fun (if oddball) puzzles. On the other hand, it breaks new ground in bad voice
acting and story construction. In conclusion, this game is a must for any adventure
game completist (like me) or anyone looking for a loony, offbeat game experience.

Final
Grade: B

If you liked Ark of Time:
Watch: Thunderbirds
are GO Read: Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
Play: Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy

System
Requirements:

486/66
8 MB RAM
2X CD-ROM

SVGA
Mouse
Sound board
DOS;
Windows 95