Comparing Crime
Stories to Martin Mystère:
Operation Dorian Gray

Before
I begin, let me note that this article’s
purpose is only to point out the differences between the two games,
not to review Crime Stories. You will need to have played Operation
Dorian Gray or read its review to fully understand everything that
is being mentioned. You can find the link to the review at the bottom
of this page.

When I played Martin
Mystère: Operation Dorian Gray last year, one
thing that stood out was the sloppy, possibly even non-existent beta
testing. The game was ridden with translation and spelling errors,
hotspot-related and other bugs, and even two bugs that crashed the
game completely. I was pretty sure that there would be a patch released,
but that never happened. Now The Adventure Company releases the game
in North America, supposedly having worked on its negative points.
How good a job did they do though? I can sum up the answer with a
movie title: The good, the bad and the ugly!

Starting with the ugly,
the game has been renamed from the imaginative and relative to
the story title Operation Dorian Gray, to the colorless,
dull and unoriginal Crime Stories. What was wrong with the original
title? I’ve heard the argument that Martin Mystère is
not very well known in North America. That may be true, but now the
full title
is Crime Stories: From the Files of Martin Mystère. Why not Operation
Dorian Gray: From the Files of Martin Mystère? To top that, the box
cover art has also been changed to… erm… a fingerprint.
Oh, the originality! The whole package, box and title, has ended
up looking and sounding like a generic CSI knock-off, losing all
its uniqueness and personality. A true shame.

To finish with the ugly,
the manual has also been changed, from a newspaper-like booklet,
to a small notebook-like one, which contains
less than half the content of the original. On a good note though,
the Crime Stories (CS) manual also includes a short Martin Mystère
comic that slightly easies the pain caused by all the above ugly
changes.

Moving on to the good,
the game now is “Install & Forget”.
Meaning, there is no annoying copy protection anymore having you
look for the CD to put it in the drive every time you want to start
the game or looking for “other methods” to stop this
nuisance.

But the major change towards
the better in CS is the voiceovers. Some of the voices in Operation
Dorian Gray (ODG) were really bad,
especially the ones of the secondary characters, like the police
guards or the Mexican people. CS’s voiceovers are completely
redone and sound a lot better and more pleasant, and also maintain
more accurate accents. Of course, the fact that no one in CS can
pronounce Eulenberg and Uben correctly is not a big deal anyway!

When it comes to the rest
of the game’s appearance, graphics-
and sound-wise, as well as the interface of the game, everything
is exactly the same, except a little “M” icon that now
appears at the top left of the screen and is used to bring up the
save/load menu. Now everything can be done with the mouse, which
I always find preferable. The Esc and F1 keys are still there, but
for some unknown reason their functions have been switched.

Regarding all the bugs
and crashes, CS provides a mixed bag of good and bad. Some of the
hotspot problems have been corrected. So, for
example, now Martin’s and his neighbor’s houses bear
the correct hotspots, but the “boat” and “broken
boat” hotspots. still change to “crumbling column” and “hieroglyphics” when
viewed from another angle, and that poor critter in Uben’s
house still doesn’t know if it’s a lemur or a monkey!
Also, there are still hotspots that appear only under one angle,
even though the items themselves are clearly visible under different
angles. At least all spelling errors seem to have been fixed, so “Aztec” now
maintains its “c” all the way!

Other little bugs have
been eliminated, like the phone filter being lost during a phone
conversation, but some bugs are still there.
So you can still hear Martin making comments while playing as Diana,
and Diana can still put the infamous disappearing battery in her
inventory! Finally, from the two bugs that crash the game completely,
only the “carvings” one has been fixed. The “destroyed
boat” one is still there, with the cryptic “FRASE” accompanying
it. Why were both bugs not fixed is something I cannot fathom.

The major change towards
the bad though is the elimination of a certain puzzle, which I
consider one of the greatest puzzles ever
made. Actually, the puzzle itself is still there, but not in its
original form and with the clues not working like they should anymore,
which makes it more of a simple task rather than a puzzle. There
is a reason why this happened though, which I cannot explain without
spoilers. A real loss for everyone who will play CS instead
of ODG.
(If you will play CS and are perfectly
sure that you will not be playing ODG,
click
here to read why this particular puzzle was changed. SPOILER
WARNING for ODG)

To finish with the bad,
following the good old American way, CS has faced the scissor-hands
of the censors, and of course lost. So
a small cut-scene with a “certain content” has been removed,
while a dancer has now put some clothes on! You can see what the
cut-scene was about if you check the Extras/Sequences menu after
you have visited the bar, but you won’t be able to play it
there either. Let me point out that there was no sexual acts or nudity
in ODG, only clothing that borderlined nudity, but it was still censored.
I could use up all the gigabytes of JA’s server space to rant
about censorship, but I will leave things pleasant and nice…

So, time for the big question:
CS or ODG?
Considering that very few bugs have been fixed, that the title
and box have been butchered
and that the game has been censored, the choosing variables have
to be the voiceovers and spelling mistakes, as well as the omission
of that particular puzzle. If bad voiceovers don’t bother you
that much, and you can live with the spelling errors, ODG is
the only way to go. Otherwise, if the title and box are of no importance
to you, you don’t much mind missing a great puzzle and censorship
doesn’t bother you, CS should be
your choice.

Martin
Mystère: Operation
Dorian Gray Review

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

System Requirements:

• Win ME/2000/XP
• P3 866 Mhz
• 32 Mb Video Card
• 128 Mb RAM
• 700 Mb Available HD
  Space
• 32x CD-Rom
• Compatible Sound Card
• Keyboard & Mouse