I’ve just revisited a place I enjoyed visiting very much previously,
only this time it is the newly revamped and repackaged Isles
of Derek.
I’m not going to rehash the old review. You can see my 2003
review of the original Derek for information about that. Rather,
I wanted to do two things. One, I hope this review allows buyers
who don’t have the game to decide whether they ought to buy
it. Two, I hope people who own Derek are given enough information
to decide
whether to get the upgraded version.

For those unfamiliar with
it, Derek is a Myst-like game based on Christian principles and
utilizing the Bible to solve its puzzles.
It was created by Cheyenne Wolford of Virtue Games, a one-man company
that has since grown into a subsidiary of Thousand Mile Productions,
taking on more staff including his wife, Evie. With this enhancement
of resources, Virtue Games felt it was timely to update some of Derek’s
features. Perhaps they might consider updating Nacah, the prequel,
at some stage (hint, hint, Cheyenne!)…

So, what’s new?

Strangely, not the title,
or at least, not consistently. The title above is from the interface
screen in the game. Not a problem, obviously,
but certainly an inconsistency…

For a start, though hardly a reason to buy the game, is an elaborate
introduction for Virtue Games, which includes its philosophy, which
is pretty and very professional looking.

More importantly, the game contains a new introduction. This time
a sepia film shows the protagonist walking on his journey. Again,
high quality, and a cut above the detail in the original Derek.

People who played the
original Derek undoubtedly would have laughed riotously through
most of the game’s spoken dialog. The voice
of the captain, the game’s only significant speaker, has been
dubbed with a professional voice actor. Virtue Games is to be commended
for the excellent job they did of matching the voice to the video
footage. The voice actor is far better than the original actor is
(Cheyenne’s father, if I recall) and has a somewhat Irish lilt
to his voice. Call me strange, but I missed the old man’s voice
and laughable acting-perhaps the thought that the game was a family
affair endeared it to me in the first place. Anyone who has not played
the original Derek are going to cherish the better acting of Isles
of Derek, though, I am certain.

The team reprogrammed the sound in the game, utilizing different
codecs, and I am pleased to say I did not run into any sound problems.
With the original game, I sometimes only had voice and sound effects
and the music did not play. I am happy to announce that I was able
to hear and enjoy the immersion of all three this time around. Subtitling
is unchanged from the previous game. The majority of the speaking
is subtitled, but not all, strangely. The captain and the monk have
full subtitling and represent the majority of the speech in the game.
Despite being able to hear all the sounds as intended, there is one
shortcoming: not all sounds struck me as being recorded at the same
loudness levels. This took away from the immersion in a minor capacity
only.

I noticed that some of videos are of better quality also. Although
the pixellated QuickTime appearance is still there, many of the videos
were less smudged and crisper looking. I experienced no pixel hunts
this time-all items that needed to be interacted with were in plain
view and there was no touchiness about cursor placement to interact
with items.

Nothing has been added to the story-the original storyline is untouched
and all puzzles are exactly as they were in Derek. There are no bonus
areas, Easter eggs, or anything else that I could tell but in my
interview with the team, they mentioned the inclusion of Easter eggs.

All in all, though, one
word comes to mind about Isles of Derek: “polished”.
The whole package is one that exudes quality. The game comes on one
CD-ROM now, instead of the two partly filled disks that Derek had.
The interface is fancy and has many added features:

• A “how to
  play” adventure
  games section
• A detailed troubleshooting section with an invitation to email Virtue
  Games if your problem is not accounted for
• A video showing how the “magic inventory” works (a good
  in joke for experienced gamers-love that outfit, Cheyenne!)
• The option to turn on context-sensitive hints (these are available at
  certain points throughout the game)
• “a little adventure”-this is the superseded introduction
  from Derek, which allows players to experience how Cheyenne originally viewed
  the game ought to begin

All in all, this is a
quality product. The only significant problem I detected was that
if the disk wasn’t in the drive at the
onset of the game, the introductory Virtue Games video would hang
and subsequent videos required that I press “Esc” after
each them to return to the game. Otherwise, everything ran normally.

People who bought Derek will be disappointed not to have waited for Isles
of Derek but
I doubt the improvements, significant though
they are, would justify the expense of purchasing what is essentially
the same short game in better packaging. But for those who didn’t
get it first time around, here is the chance to get hands down the
best Christian game that has been made to date. I recommend this
game to anyone who enjoys Myst-like games, especially if interested
in a Christian bent. Undoubtedly, there will be many adventure gamers
looking forward to Mayabin, released later this year, and future
Virtue Games products. This game deserves an A.

Final Grade: A
(find out more about our
grading system)

System Requirements: