French comic-book artist Benoit Sokal has been very, very good
for fans of graphic adventures. His Amerzone (1998), Syberia (2002)
and Syberia II (2004) were absolute feasts for the imagination. Sokal
seems to have a real instinct for what adventure players crave: Mysterious,
beautiful worlds, exotic and beautiful images, strong stories and
intriguing characters populate his games.

In addition to those qualities,
two other features regularly make Sokal’s games stand
out from the pack. First is an emphasis on atmosphere and mood.
This
is one of the trickiest elements to
pull off in any game, and Sokal’s games have it in spades.
Remember the eerie funeral procession that begins Syberia?

Second, the games have a delightful emphasis on fantastic, impossible
and beautiful creatures. Who can forget the water giraffes in Amerzone or the majestic mammoths in Syberia
II?

In short, in a genre where
gamers can get weary of trudging over the same Egyptian temples
and Mayan ruins, Sokal games consistently
takes us to places we’ve never been before.

With this rich legacy,
it’s natural for adventure fans to
be excited by the prospect of a new Benoit Sokal game. I’ve
recently had the chance to spend some time with a beta build of one
chunk of the new game, and here are my impressions.

The first thing I can
say is that the game has my favorite main menu screen since Faust.
You appear to be looking into a dark, empty
crate. As you’re mulling over your choices on the bottom of
the screen (the traditional set of New, Load, Options, etc.) you
are startled by the head of a black leopard which lunges at you from
the inky blackness. The cat is truly stunning, with fur you feel
you could reach out and touch, emerald eyes blazing and intimidating
teeth flashing.

The prologue of the game
begins with two parallel scenes taking place. One is a small airplane
in trouble, and the other takes place
on an outlandish water vehicle. On the boat, an old man, addressed
as “Your Highness” by a servant, worries about his daughter.
The daughter, you presume, is in the plane, and after she crashes
she wakes up in the harem of mysterious African prince.

The game takes place in four different environments. The beta preview
included a partial build of one of these four environments.

Graphics: The cut scenes are predictably gorgeous, suggesting a
steamy sub-Saharan jungle. The in-game graphics are prerendered and
absolutely beautiful. The environments I saw were in and around the
harem, and the colors and detail were exotic and intriguing. As in
the Syberia games, the game is presented in third-person, and the
various screens have nice little touches of animation.

Particularly good is the use of light and shadow. As the heroine
stands by the window, you can see beautiful details like dust motes
caught in the sunlight from the window. On the grounds of the harem,
you can see dancing clouds of white butterflies. Dynamic shadows
add to the sense of atmosphere and place. Also, the game makes use
of some daring, cinematic angles on some of the scenes, which add
to the sense of drama.

As the heroine begins
exploring the large harem complex she’s
found herself in, I was reminded of the opening scenes of The
Longest Journey, as the game does a good job of conveying the games architectural
environments.

The animation is still
pretty rough in this build. Characters sit down on thin air, take
awkward hops before descending staircases,
dither before responding to a move instruction, etc. In one notable
instance of clipping, our heroine was able to actually walk through the bars of the leopard’s cage.

Interface: The game uses
pre-rendered backgrounds in a third-person environment. All character
movement and game interaction is done
with the mouse. It’s very much the familiar point-and-click
interface used in the Syberia games. The mouse pointer is context-sensitive,
indicating the ability to go in for a close-up, take an object, interact
with an object, talk to a character, etc.

The inventory is brought
up with a right-click of the mouse. In the inventory screen you
can get a closer look at an item or select
is to use in the environment. One tiny gripe we had was the fact
that the “interact” symbol doesn’t change to indicate
that an inventory object is necessary to successfully complete the
interaction. But you get used to this quickly, and it’s not
a big problem.

Sound: The rich, vibrant score is complemented by a nice set of
sound effects, with particularly nice ambient bird calls.

Story: Remember, we didn’t see a large portion of the story
or a large portion of the total game world. But the initial setup
is compelling. The nameless heroine finds herself a prisoner in the
harem of some exotic, forgotten central African kingdom called Maurania.
We have reason to believe the girl is a princess, but she certainly
doesn’t know that yet, as she is afflicted with the standard
Computer Game Amnesia.

The voice acting is pretty
good, but the dialog itself is pretty lame. It’s definitely not up to the high standards set by the
Syberia games. At least, not in the early scenes we were able to
see. Also, the game is missing the heady, quirky atmosphere of the
earlier Sokal games. It’s a little harder to care about our
amnesiac cipher of a heroine than it was about the dynamic Kate Walker.

Another odd thing about
the game’s setting is that it doesn’t
feel African at all, particularly not sub-Saharan African. It feels
Indian or Persian, and as we met the parade of very Caucasian characters
(one with a deeply puzzling Russian accent) we wondered where all
the real Africans were.

Puzzles: Alas, this is
where the mostly good impression the game was making began to crumble.
The first set of challenges in the game
has to do with our nameless heroine attempting to escape from the
harem. In order to do that, she needs to impersonate the Prince’s “Favorite.” The
very first puzzle in this sequence is frankly illogical, as it involves
throwing water on sandbags to make teacakes magically appear (don’t
ask). The next major step, preparing a steam bath for the Favorite,
is a little better, but both of the puzzles are severely hampered
by the requirement of finding an object that’s almost completely
hidden in the environment. There’s a dirty rag that’s
all-but-invisible on a boiler, and a jar completely obscured by an
odalisque’s lovely foot.

There’s also a brutal bit of illogical gameplay when the heroine
puts on the Favorite’s dress. Though the plot now depends on
her being mistaken for the Favorite herself, as she walks around
the harem the characters continue to speak to her as if she were
the heroine! Oops.

Let’s talk just a little about he parts of the game we didn’t see. There are three more major environments in addition to the harem,
and they will presumably also be beautiful and exotic. A book the
heroine finds in the harem provides the tantalizing possibility that
there are a bevy of wild Sokal creatures to be found later in the
game. (I’m keeping my fingers crossed on that one!)

Also, there’s a
real-time 3D action minigame in which the player will take control
of the leopard while the heroine is dreaming.
This element was not functional in the preview build I saw, but it
sounds like fun.

Conclusion: I’m
cautiously optimistic about Paradise,
despite the flaws evident in the preview build. The graphics and
sound are
luscious and the setting is intriguing. There are problems with the
dialog and puzzle design, but considering Sokal’s track
record I want to believe that these elements will be more polished
in the
completed game.