This is a retro gaming adventure, declared, interestingly enough, to
be “state of the art” by The New York Times upon its release.
A game made and released by a small garage-game company out of San Francisco on
the eve of the release of Myst, it is also one of the rare graphic adventures
based on Greek, not Roman, history and mythology.

The story is a mishmash
of historical Greek mythology and characters that the player runs across and interacts
with. There is an incredible amount of Greek mythology packed into a compact package
here. It’s set in a time when the gods of Olympus walked the earth. You play as
a child born of a princess and unknown father who is left in the wilderness after
the king is told by an oracle that his future replacement is this same child.
The character is raised by a centaur, and the story begins as he, now a young
man, sets off to discover who his parents really are.

The game itself has
instructions available for the player regarding whatever particular myth he/she
has encountered, which also provides clues as to how the characters will respond.
This function would be particularly good for kids, and the whole game overall
is encyclopedic in its coverage of Greek mythology.

Graphics are an interesting
and slightly disconcerting blend of live actors pasted onto what looks suspiciously
like pictures cut out and cobbled together from travel magazines, painted in sometimes
perplexing hues. There’s a nice mapping system included in the game that pieces
together screens that contain small pictures of all the gameplay areas that must
be explored to complete the game, and looking at these tells the player right
away where he/she is and how much progress has been made.

Music and sound
are mostly minute and inconsequential. Almost all of the storyline and plot forwarding
is delivered by actors, and, surprisingly, they actually are costumed fairly appropriately–in
some cases quite cleverly–and deliver the dialog well.

Puzzles are for
the most part inventory-based, and they are very logical as regards the gaming
environment and progression of the story. The player cannot, unfortunately, drop
or discard inventory; in fact, when an item is used and the action with it completed,
it is sometimes returned to inventory to take up space.

There are, I am
sad to report, two of that terminal illness of adventure games–mazes–in Wrath
of the Gods. And one is underwater, where a wrong move can cause your character
to become a sandwich for a shark. Oh fun. As if mazes weren’t painful enough all
by themselves. Actually, in retrospect, maybe sharks should be incorporated into
all game mazes. It would certainly tell you if you’d made a wrong turn, something
certainly precious, despite the game-saving this would entail.

The game
has a point system with a perfect score of 500. The player is also provided with
an in-game “oracle,” which provides solutions at a cost of 5 points
each. There are certain conquests to be made in the gaming environment that provide
points; these usually involve some slight arcade sequences that are easily conquerable.
Saving is important, as it is sometimes necessary to lose and go back and try
again after a hint or two to succeed while still not losing any points. Some of
the arcade-like sequences include bull and Minotaur hopping, as well as shooting
small animals (I kid you not) and a dragon with a bow and arrow that only moves
back and forth–the animals just keep running in front of you until you finally
nail them, my kinda arcade sequence.

There’s a nice and simple save game
feature, with unlimited saves to hard drive, although the game plays from the
CD. The endgame was simple but thorough and not dissatisfying. There’s a site
with info for teachers and buyers available here.

This
was an enjoyable little game, good for a couple of evenings or the kids. If you
can pick it up inexpensively, go for it, but don’t lay down a lot of cash.

Final
Grade: C+

If you liked Wrath of the Gods:
Read: Medea
by Euripides
Watch: Zorba the Greek
Play: SPQR

System
Requirements:

Mac:

Performa 450 and above
256 colors
640×480 resolution
8 MB
RAM
2X CD-ROM drive
System 7x

PC:

Win 95/98/NT, Win 3.1
386, 25 MHz and up
VGA, SVGA, 256 Colors, 640×480

CD-ROM
8 MB RAM recommended