HMH Interactive Genre

by admin 16 April 2010

Review

Treasure Island

	Radon Labs
	Dreamcatcher Interactive HMH Interactive
Genre:	Adventure
	December 2009
Platform:	PC

Review by Eric McConnell
April 16, 2010

Avast! Time to set sail on a pirate adventure…and what better adventure than the one that started them all?

Treasure Island is the adventure game version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale. Here you’ll play the part of young Jim Hawkins, who acquires a map to Treasure Island from a drunken patron at the Inn he tends. Unfortunately for you, there are others looking for the map and treasure as well…namely Long John Silver and his henchmen. I was very impressed with just how closely the developers managed to follow the classic storyline and keep it intact.

A beautiful game, just begging to be explored…

I was a bit taken aback by the beauty for the opening screens and attention to detail. They are all rendered in realtime 3D and the camera pans through the scenes as you navigate your character in 3rd person. While I was thrilled with this aspect of the game, I also found it a bit of a let down. My first reaction was to go into the options and crank things up.

Quality – low…high….best….BEST Check!

Resolution – 800×600….1024×768… 1280×1024… 1280×1024 Check!

Wait, that’s it? What about anti-alias? No option there. Hmmmmm….

So while we have a game here that has done a great job graphically, we are left with jagged edges causing those same scenes to suffer by not being able to view them to their full potential. Why this was omitted or why the game engine was incapable of doing so seems like a major oversight. While this might seem like it’s not a big deal, the jagged edges become glaringly obvious when on the deck of the ship and having ropes all over the place. The scenes actually looked pixilated.

Argh…What’s that you say Flint?

The sound in the game is high quality orchestral music and the voice acting is professionally done. Some are a bit over the top, but nothing annoying. There is quite a bit of dialog in this game, but it never seemed to drag on, at least not until towards the end of the game.

Too much rum, I can’t seem to walk straight.

You navigate thru the scenes by getting some footprint icon and clicking. The nice things is that you can walk almost everywhere, the not so nice thing is that you frequently have to take baby steps to get there. Evidently there are some issues with your character being able to determine a path to take you where you want to go. Many times I would click on the other side of the screen only to have to Mr. Hawkins stop in front of an object along the way because he wasn’t smart enough to walk around it. For the most part this wasn’t a major issue, but that was probably because I got used to taking short steps and guiding him through the scene.

Well puzzle me timbers

The puzzles in this game go from completely logical to clueless. Fortunately the vast majority fell into the logical category. Most are inventory based with maybe two or three logic-based puzzles. I found them enjoyable as I managed to make my way to the island, but well, let’s face it, the entire game is about getting to the island and searching for the buried treasure! So as the anticipation grows and you finally get there, you expect to roll up your sleeves and get down to some serious puzzling. Unfortunately that is not to be, which is probably the biggest flaw in what is a pretty enjoyable game. Actually, as the game progressed, I found myself having fewer and fewer puzzles to solve – all the way to the ending which felt as though I were being led by the hand to end the game. Disappointing? Yes, very much so. As with so many adventure games, you can’t help but feel like most of the effort was put in early on. As you get further along it seemed like things were rushed to get it out the door.

Seems a cannonball has ripped thru our waterline…

Glitches. Having no choice but to CNTL/ALT/DELETE… not cool. Not fun. It happened to me twice in this game. Once while observing a dice game, all hotspots seemed to disappear. I couldn’t get out of the scene or interact with it. Couldn’t even get out to the menu to try a save. Another time in an abandoned fort, I went to go upstairs and ended up staring at the rafters. Very strange. No hotspots. Same routine as before. Cntl/alt/delete time…

We tried to sail the seven seas, but only managed six

There was so much that could be great about this game, but it just seemed to keep falling short. From the graphics being pushed to the edge of perfection, but coming up short by not having an anti-alias option, to a potential puzzle-fest searching for buried treasure and never being able to do so, to great music that stutters during the loading of levels. So much potential, yet it just seemed to constantly come up short.

I think the fact that the game still remained an enjoyable experience despite some frustrating shortcomings is a testament to how much talent the developers have and just how great they could be if they can tighten things up. I look forward to whatever they might have in the works in the future.