In
2003, Anima PPD-Interactive released a futuristic adventure game called
Conspiracies.
I was lucky enough to have an exclusive interview with the makers
of the game (thanks to Randy Sluganski of Just Adventure!!). During
that interview, I learned a lot about the game from their perspective.

It took them about 7 years to release the sequel. So is it worth
the wait?

Let me tell you a bit of the game’s backstory so you’ll be able
to enjoy it despite its minor problems (at least for me). Our hero,
Nick Delios, an ex-private eye who is now a secret agent, is back
again with a new complicated case. He is known as a ‘slacker’ who
does not really care about anything except himself. His life always
has tons of problems but somehow he’s able to could overcome them
with luck and minimal effort.

This
time, he’s framed for the attempted murder of Annita Argyriou, the
president of a powerful multinational company called Detronics. Annita
is also an ex-girlfriend (how convenient!!!). This small case evolves
into complicated multiple intergalactic conspiracies within the Peripheral
Galactic Alliance. Along with facing government secret plots, Nick
now has to deal with an extraterrestrial government!!

The game takes about 20 minutes to install and requires about 8 gigabytes
of data space plus 1 gigabyte of extra space for save games. You need
to put the first DVD in your DVD drive while playing the game. I think
this is due to copy protection.

As
in the first game, Conspiracies II is played in first-person
perspective. The control and inventory systems use standard adventure
game buttons. Press spacebar to open the inventory, right-click an
item to analyze it and left-click to choose it. You can combine items
by simply selecting one and placing it on top of another. You can
use your mouse to look around and the keyboard to move. There is an
extra “C” button to crouch and “Hold Left Shift”
to run as in a standard action game.

What makes a game a good adventure game? For me, “Fun Level”
is at the top of the list. First, a game should be able to make you
feel that you’re the main character. Second, the story needs to be
intriguing enough that you can’t wait to see what will happen to the
main character when you choose an option. Third, the game should be
long enough so that it’s worth your money. You do not want to pay
$30-$45 for a game you can finish in 1-2 hours, do you? Finally, the
puzzles/tasks need to be logical enough that you don’t have to pull
your hair out just to solve them.

The
acting of the characters is one of the weakest parts of Conspiracies
II. But it’s still fair enough because most non-English based
games play better in their native languages. Remember The
Black Mirror series?? The acting in Conspiracies II
is not of Hollywood-performance quality, but hey, this is a game,
not a movie.

That’s good enough for me, as the story makes up for it. There are
lots of twists in the story to make it interesting. Of course, in
the next sequel (I hope I do not have to wait 7 more years!!) the
developer could raise the acting quality 2-3 more bars. That would
make the game a lot better.

Conspiracies
II is quite a long game. It took me about 8 hours. Some of the
difficult puzzles took quite a long time to solve, especially the
“escape from the prison” puzzle. You’re given exactly 10
minutes in real time (or 5 minutes in game time) to break out of prison.
This is enough time once you know what to do. In my opinion, this
is the best puzzle sequence in the game. The pressure of solving a
timed puzzle raises the difficulty level of the game 2-3 times.

Most of the puzzles are quite logical and well thought-out (you can
see this once you know what to do or after you solve them using a
walkthrough). Pay attention to the conversation and notes. Sometimes
you can find the answer in them. Still, it would be nice if the developer
of the game could provide more detailed information about the puzzles,
especially the more difficult ones, beforehand.

For
example (Spoiler Alert!!): in the “escape from
the prison” puzzle, how are people supposed to know that they
need to break the floor in front of the server with an iron bar, a
fire extinguisher and a heavy server? There are no clues whatsoever
prior to that action. I knew what was needed because I used the walkthrough
from my friend at gamesover.com. Without it, I don’t think I could
have known about a secret tunnel under the prison unless I had created
the game myself.

You need to save often because death comes so easily in this game
(literally speaking). There are various spots in which you can die
while just walking around. I’m not joking!! So be careful when you
navigate.

In
the first Villa, for instance, you can die if you fall from the second
floor. This is logical, but I think the game should at least give
you a warning first. Maybe a second chance option (as in many Nancy
Drew games) could be implemented in the next production. That
way, players wouldn’t have to go back to the last save point after
accidentally dying while walking around. It can be frustrating to
die in this manner and not because of a dangerous situation
that has been anticipated. By the way, the save game button
is quite different than usual. It is F4 and you’re not given
the option of choosing the slot. The game also saves automatically.

First time I played this game, I used a standard 1280 x 780 resolution.
This resulted in some big problems. Some of the items you need to
find throughout the game are very small; you can barely see them unless
you pay a lot of attention to the game’s detail.

Then
I remembered reading about a patch in the developer’s letter and some
suggestions from the board as well. First, I changed my resolution
to 1920 x 1080 (that’s the maximum my monitor could handle). My
problem suddenly went away!!! All the small items that could
have been easily missed before were then noticeable.

As for the patch: installing it will make a big difference in how
you play the game. Basically, the patch will guide you step-by-step
on how to do everything. Please read the information below before
you install the patch.

To
me, the patch will also ruin the fun level of the game. What fun is
there in playing an adventure game when the solution to everything
is right in front of you? But this hint system still is brilliantly
done and will help our fellow adventurers who don’t have the patience
to solve the puzzles. All of the problems I mentiond above (the small
items, the easy deaths and the information about the puzzle) are basically
solved by using the patch.

Here is some information about the revolutionary hint system from
the developer of the game:

Anima ppd-interactive team introduces new patch, adding a revolutionary
hint system for Conspiracies II – Lethal Networks for the
“non-hard core” adventurers.

The hint system is activated and deactivated with the TAB button.
After its activation you may see a red arrow icon above each item
that can be collected. The icon with the green circle and arrows
is the spot where the player has to combine an item from his inventory.
The four orange arrows icon represents the objects that can be moved
and the magnifying glass the spots that have to be thoroughly examined.
The compass icons are located on the spots where the player may
travel to other worlds. Another icon is the one with the photo camera.
The last icon is the one with the exclamation mark where the gamer
should carry on with extreme caution. All icons are visible in a
relatively close distance, even behind doors or walls.

You can download the patch here: http://users.forthnet.gr/ath/animappd/Patches/C2_Patch110520.msi.

Anima
PPD has made big improvements in the appearance and sound of this
game. Its quality is a lot better than the first one. The image is
sharp (even though some of the environment still looks empty) and
the FMV is blended nicely with the background. The sound also feels
nice, especially when you play the game with a 7.1 speaker system.

In the end, how do I rate this game? I think I will give Conspiracies
II a B because it is still a fun game when you play in
high resolution (using the patch if you want). If there’s another
Conspiracies game in the future, it could be excellent if the improvements
mentioned above are implemented.

System Requirements:

Minimum:

• Windows XP/Vista
• P4 1.8 Mhz
• 512 MB RAM
• 8 GB free HD space
• 128MB graphics card support for Shaders 2.0

Recommended:

• Windows 7
• Intel Core Duo 2.4 Ghz or AMD Athlon 64×2
• 2GB RAM
• 20 GB free HD space
• 512MB graphics card support of Shaders 2.0 and above