Conspiracies II: Lethal Networks Review 2

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