Dreams can come true again
When everything old is new again.
— Peter Allen

It seems like just seven years ago when I sat down at this keyboard
to write a review of a superb puzzle-adventure game called Safecracker.

Oh. That’s because
it was. And I did.

However, I remember thinking,
upon finishing that game, “I’d
play as many sequels to this game as they cared to make!”

Well, I got my wish, sort of.

The bargain-priced Safecracker:
The Ultimate Puzzle Adventure [2007],
though published in North America by the same company that published
Safecracker [1999], and features virtually the same setup and gameplay
as that game, is technically and officially not a sequel to that
earlier game.

To be fair, the plot is
completely different. In the first game you were on a secret mission
to open all the safes in a security
company. In the current game you are trying to find an eccentric
millionaire’s missing will, which is stashed in the last of
36 puzzle-locked safes.

My response to the similarity
in the games is the same as my response to the thinness of the
new game’s plot: Who cares? The game
is absolute puzzle heaven, and that’s what matters!

This time around, instead of Swedish studios Daydream and clickBOOM,
the developers of the game are the talented team at Kheops Studios,
the folks who brought us Return to The Mysterious Island and The
Egyptian Prophecy.

Presented in 360-degree scrolling first person with lovely pre-rendered
graphics, the navigation and environmental interaction are pure classic
point-and-click. Inventory and other game interfaces are clear and
unfussy. The sound design by Todd Resnick is solid, with effective
music and crisp sound effects.

The mansion you are exploring is beautiful and enticing, and more
and more of it because accessible as you open more and more safes.

There’s nothing
to get in your way as you sink your teeth into four floors worth
of puzzle-guarded safes. The puzzles have
an admirable range in variety, including variations on sliders, Sudoku,
cryptography, marble mazes, math, pattern recognition, inventory
and more. The puzzles range in difficulty from very easy to relatively
challenging.

The resulting game is stunningly straightforward and thoroughly
enjoyable.

Don’t get me wrong,
I love thick, rich plots in adventure games. I admire the writing
in games like the Gabriel Knight and
Tex Murphy series, and I love complex stories like those found in
games like Byzantine, the Broken
Swords and many others.

But there’s a very
specific pleasure also to be found in an adventure game in which
the plot is simply a thin tissue that connects
a series of delightfully attractive and fun puzzles.

In addition to its obvious
similarities to the first Safecracker, this game is a throwback
to those pure puzzle-focused adventure from
Discis, including Jewels of the Oracle and Karma:
Curse of the Seven Caves, as well as classics like Shivers and The
7th Guest. As in
those games, part of each puzzle’s challenge is simply figuring
out what the object of the game is.

I have only a few minor quibbles with Safecracker.

The first is its silly
subtitle. “Ultimate” is one of
those very abused words, like “unprecedented” and “unique.” There’s
hardly anything in this world that’s truly “ultimate,
unprecedented” or “unique.” Using a word like “Ultimate” in
your title is simply unimaginative and cheap.

My second quibble is with
the voiceover performance of the player character. He’s one of those guys who likes to think aloud.
In the process he drops hints about the particular puzzle you’re
working on. Not only is the vocal performance a bit cloying and precious,
but it would have been nice if the game had given you the choice
to turn these automatic clues off if you wanted a slightly more challenging
game.

Finally, even with 36 puzzles, the game is still awfully short.

Those tiny gripes aside, I can wholeheartedly recommend Safecracker:
The Ultimate Puzzle Adventure to anyone who feels like spending a
few hours in graphic puzzle nirvana. Hey, and it only costs about
twenty bucks! Bring on the sequel, Kheops!!

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

System Requirements:

• WINDOWS® 98SE/ME/2000/XP
• PROCESSOR: PENTIUM® III/ATHLON™ 800
  MHz
• MEMORY: 64 MB RAM
• SOUND CARD: DIRECTX® 9.0c
  COMPATIBLE
• CD/DVD-ROM: 16x CDROM
• HARD DISK: 700 MB
  AVAILABLE
• DIRECTX® 9.0c (INCLUDED)
• GRAPHICS CARD: 64 MB DIRECTX® 9.0c COMPATIBLE

This
review is copyright Ray Ivey and Just Adventure and
may not be republished elsewhere without the express written consent
of the author. Republication of said review must also contain a link
back to Just Adventure.