Riven: The Sequel to Myst

The follow up to Myst was Riven, eagerly anticipated by many and then they played it and it was hard. Clear goal this time, you must imprison Ghen, Atrus father and rescue Catherine,  his wife from the age of Riven which is near destruction as its decay. You are sent in alone since Atrus must work on keeping Riven stable long enough for you to accomplish this. And why is it harder? Because there is no direction at all. In the last game all puzzles were hinted at in the bookshelf, in this game no such thing. You must memories animal sounds, shapes, geographical locations and more stretching five islands. You can't even write sounds down and if you suck at drawing good luck deciphering what the hell you doodled down. 

On the other hand, the game feels shorter in turns of puzzles. The world is larger, but there is less things to figure out. I finished this now, and the things that made me stuck back the last time I played was that I didn't close a door and walked to some side rooms and that is hardly a puzzle. Also, playing the first game also takes away the ending puzzle to capture Ghen. The thing is that you have a prison book that you will capture him with, but he forces you to go through first. For someone never played the series that is a gamble since you think you are trapped forever. If you played the original you know that you can be released if someone takes your place in the book, which is what ultimately happens in Riven... and the bad endings of Myst. Also, spoilers, when finishing it, I can't but help think that Atrus is a rather bad friend since he leaves me falling through a star fissure that destroys Riven when he and Catherine teleports out with a linking book that falls through the fissure before me. Thanks for that Atrus, and for some reason I still helps him in the third game. 

Remembering Golden Sun: The Broken Seal (2)

The best JRPG ever made!

So after going through the leveling for the game let's talk about other aspects of the game, why do I like it? Let's begin with the story since that is what I get from most RPG's, an interesting story. And this one is simple to follow. One night a storm hits the village of Vale and as the towns people evacuate a boulder from Mt Aleph falls and kills Isaac's father and Jenna's brother and parents (Isaac being the main protagonist and Jenna, confirmed as of Dark Dawn, is his girlfriend).  You as the player knows that the storm was conjured somehow by Saturos and Menardi as they entered Sol Sanctum, the most holy place on Weyward, but Isaac and Garret (Isaacs best friend) are mind wiped by the fiends as they stumble upon the duo. 

How beating you to an inch of your life causes amnesia the game doesn't tell

Three years later the duo returns and Isaac, Garret and Jenna race toward Sol Sanctum with their mentor Kraden to uncover it's secret. All it does is getting Jenna and Kraden taken hostages as they reach the inner chamber, finding the Elemental Stars, gems so powerful that with one you could rule the world... not that they ever used that in the story sine Isaac dragged along the Mars star for two games while Felix dragged the Jupiter star. Oh, and during the capture it is revealed that Jenna's brother Felix survived and has joined forces with this dangerous duo. All in the first half-hour of game. Removing the stars creates the dormant volcano to erupt and awakens the guardian of Vale, the Wise One. This forces your foes to flee without the Mars star and leaves you at the mercy of the Wise One. Fear not as He gives you the quest to stop the intruders and return the Elemental Stars to Mt Aleph before they releases the forces of Alchemy that threatens to destroy the world. A clear goal with great motivation.

The All-Seeing Eye!

And that is probably why I enjoy the first game more than the sequel. Clear goals and motivations. Isaac wants to stop Saturos and Menardi for kidnapping Jenna and Kraden (as well as getting answers from Felix) and you as the player knows that they indirectly killed Isaacs father. Add the epic quest of saving the world above that and it's a relatable experience. I will go in a bit more detail why I don't like the Lost Age as much when I finish that game... whenever that is. You continue the journey and meet Ivan that needs your help and finding his masters rod and since he can read minds he knows of your quest and since he can't give it to his master he follows you to save the world as you would help him even though you had an more urgent quest (and not that I needed Ivan's powers to enter the next area). You catch up to your enemies at the top of Mercury Lighthouse with the help of the healer Mia that is the last guardian of the Lighthouse after she was left by Alex, another of Saturos followers. They fail stopping Saturos and Mia joins you to stop this from repeating itself and get answers from Alex (which also have learned stronger synergy abilities since leaving). The party is complete and all has one goal, to stop Saturos and save the world.

Confrontation atop Mercury Lighthouse

Really, after this the story is just chasing the group towards Venus Lighthouse. You see how the eruption of Mt Aleph created new adepts and monsters, changed environment and Saturos groups mischief as they try to delay your advance upon them by destroying roads and causing destruction on those standing in their way. The world building is also rather subtle in that a lot of ruins appear, only traversable by Adepts and not until Tolbi does another important player enter the game, in Babi, the 150 year old ruler of the empire of Tolbi. He sent out Kraden to study Alchemy, he enslaved Laviero and forced them to build a Lighthouse so that he could reach Lemuria, and he give Isaac and co another quest, to find Lemuria and give him more lemurian draught so he can live even longer. The end game lies in his shadow really as you have to amend his wrong, like saving Sheba who he took hostage and lost as he was releasing her. At the top of Venus Lighthouse the party defeats Saturos and Menardi, but Felix wants to continue their quest. But disaster strike as the lighting of the beacon causes the Lighthouse to split and Sheba and Felix falling to the ocean. Isaac and co regroup and after getting Lord Babi's ship set sail towards Lemuria. 

That's the ending? It's 2 more Lighthouses god dammit!

A good story, and then you add wonderful music, eye-popping graphics and enjoyable gameplay elements. A big plus was that magic you had could be used outside of battle by manipulating the environment. Like move rocks or stones, make yourself invisible, reveal the invisible or reading the minds of the NPC's for hints or just learn more of the game world. Of course that took me 2 play-throughs before I learned you could equip artefacts for psynergies like Catch or Douse. Especially douse since you need it at Suhalla desert were I had to change class in order to get that psynergy. The effect was a greatly weakened party. Saddest part I should have known since I got both Force and Carry and you need them. The reason I didn't get douse was that I got it as a drop from a boss and catch was given in the beginning in the game which I didn't register first time playing.

This is me figuring out one of the easiest RPG's created

And I even read the manual over and over. Well, it at least forced me to learn the class system. If I wasn't so stupid that I believed that the growth psynergy would come by levelling up. So I went the whole game without realising you had to change class in order to get growth.... which I think they showed in the Djinn tutorial or at least in the manual which is where I got the douse class change tip from. And really, even the developers knew it was kinda backward to have a class change to get growth which sounds so f***ing basic for an earth adept that they fixed it in Dark Dawn. Of course, giving me an artefact wouldn't have helped since I clearly wouldn't have guessed you could do it. A bit hard to explain why I carried all that ¨junk¨ around without any obvious purpose.

It was a beginners RPG you said? Could have fooled me!

The last parts of the game is the class system and djinn which I mentioned above. And as you guessed I hardly used it. The djinn I captured I set to respective adept and got their standard classes. No problem, I researched the best classes, but with the last bosses of the Lost Age that became rather unimportant since the ability to put all djinn in wait status screwed up the usefulness and could even hinder you since you wouldn't know the effects of each djinn resetting. Better a simple one element approach as the differences is 4 or 6 djinn. 4 gives the mass-healing psynergies while 6 gives the ultimate attack psynergies for the fighter adepts. Simple. At least the choice is there if you want to experiment or try new combinations and get new experiences through each play-through. What is a djinni then? Small elemental creatures that boost your stats and abilities. Changing around gives you different classes and setting them gives you the ability to summon some great attacks. Also each djinni is unique and can support you with stat bonuses, healing, attacks or various effects. Also, by killing each monster with a corresponding elemental attack djinn you get bonus exp and gold and a higher chance for item drops and such, called the Dark Panther Method in the community (named after the user who found out about it. That is pretty much it for this game, we shall see when I finish the Lost Age... if I ever gets out of the grinding.

Eh, close enough!

Myst

Myst, the game that ended the adventure game genre... or so they say. We got it back in the early 90's, then I wasn't able to finish it until I was in high-school and that was without going through a walkthrough. One of my prouder gaming moment I must say. So what is this game? Really just a puzzle game. One day you stumble through a book that you read about an island. At the end is an picture that start moving and when you touch it you enter the island. That's the set up and you have to discover what happened and get yourselves out of there. What makes this game rather memorable is the ambiance and feeling of loneliness. Sometimes even of horror. And in some locations I can't stop thinking of the Scarecrow from Batman the Animated Series. Mostly due to the first episode he appears in (update: well, more correctly the first episode I saw with him) have a location in a stable with wooden planks all over, the same as many tunnels in the main island. This made it more scarier than the game actually was.

And they say cartoons are for kids

Another reason why it took some time would be the lack of my english vocabulary, which is rather important for this game, since all answers to the puzzles lies in a bookshelf. The last problem is that it can be rather tricky reading the text at places. Really, just use pen and paper, spend one or two hours at the bookshelf by writing down codes, schematics and hints and of you go.

Now onto the spoiler area, what happened is that you took a D'ni book by mistake. The D'ni seems to be either some demigod race or technical wizards that can create worlds by writing so called linking books that can teleport you to their location. The island Myst was created by Atrus who has imprisoned his two sons who basically are psychopaths that destroys everything he builds. The story follows you trying to release one or both by finding their color-coded book pages scattered across several ages (worlds that is) to set them free from their prison books. Releasing them gives you a game over so at the same time you need to gather clues to find Atrus. And I solved all the puzzles, I amazes myself some time.

Even Atrus have a hard time believing I could do it.

Remembering Golden Sun: The Broken Seal (1)

It's Back, my Golden Sun ramblings post, enjoy all ye gamers or despair!

My God have mercy on our souls!

All right hopefully I won't ramble on for ever as I did building up my own hype for Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, which incidentally just felt flat. Heck, I didn't even try to review it just saying it was good and that I would play it again (which I did). So maybe I should go back, try the series again and see if it still holds up, like 13 years after release. So I bought the first game again at the same time I could upgrade my newly bought Wii U. Started playing and somewhere at the end I stopped playing until this Friday. At that moment I was level 28 and standing outside Suhalla desert trying to get the droppable armour Aura Gloves. Probably did something wrong with the RNG-method as this time it worked without a hitch. First a little explanation, the RNG-method is a way to fool the game into letting it give you droppable items and equipment as if you hard reset the games it goes back to zero and doing certain actions you can hit the desired RNG-value over and over again, giving you the best equipment in the games. Now, is this cheating? In a sense yes, as you exploit something in the games to make it easier for you to win the game (or in some cases be more fun, as grinding for certain weapons and items can take forever, especially since they only exist as droppable). Then again, they should have made it so simple to exploit that even I could figure the system down and replicate it over and over again for favourable results.

Well, that sounds just like me!

Really, without that exploit getting the best weapons, which incidentally I didn't know about until I researched the games in forums back in the day, you can hardly get them. Doesn't help that certain items like the prophet's hat disappears after certain event (interestingly they don't mention that in the link so did that ever happen?). Interestingly, while grinding my level 28 to 42 that I did for 10-12 hours, I actually received the best weapons and armours completely legit for the first time playing this game. Also, I was originally gonna grind my level up to level 56 since that is as I got on my cartridge. Luckily I can't check how many hours I wasted grinding since the problem is that at the most the encounter in the final dungeon gives around 1000-1500 (with some going as 2000) exp. So in a bout 20 encounters for a single level at level 42. Now, back in the days I used to battle the first phase of the final boss over and over again which gives 6000 exp (with possibilities of over 7000 exp). The trick being that if you get defeated at the second phase (which doesn't give you any exp) you are transported to the nearest sanctum and could do it again. Sounds profitable... until I did the calculation yesterday. Now, the exp isn't bad... if it wasn't a very story crucial moment which drags on with plot and characters in which I could fight smaller encounters and earn more than the 7000 exp I could at best get. And I did that up to level 56, that is 14 more levels. So I said screw that and finished the game.

S Club 7 never tried to grind for the end levels of an JRPG

The sickest part of this? I read somewhere that one person actually grinded up to level 99 in this game (which given the 1 1/2 year until the sequel hit the store is probably a good time frame). So why is it such a chore? The split game that continues in the sequel. This wasn't meant to be the end game of the story and therefore the enemies reflect on it. Also, there is hardly any reward for leveling beyond 56. With reward, beside the stat increase, I mean getting new psynergies to devastate your enemies with. At level 54 you run that well dry so all you grind for is numbers... that still are above the final bosses of the Lost Age (of course, there I grinned up to level 89, but you could play a New Game + with intact levels if you restarted). Really, the game is fun and I should probably talk more about the story and other gameplay elements in a forthcoming post, but the level system is a bit flawed and took a bit longer to talk through... and incidentally I just learned that the lizard at Crossbones Island gives over 1700 exp per encounter and it is triggered meaning it is guaranteed. Damn, be back later!

17, 18, 19... level up!... 1, 2, 3,

Reflections

Been reading through the blog from when I restarted it back in 2009 and maybe a year forward or so. It's rather interesting to see how I have developed, not only my writing style that was rather much ramblings, but also my political leanings and beliefs. For example, one of the recurring ideas I had was that my own party and the Social Democrats should join forces to break the bloc politics and do the best for Sweden, and if we had to accept the Centre party and the green party in to a coalition. The centre party and christian democratic parties I really seemed to despise for some reason (maybe hyperbole) and I seemed to tolerate the greens.

So who was I back in 2009?

That is particularly interesting since today I find the christian democrats and centre party actually be the heart and soul of the Alliance, the christian democrats being the ones that speaks of the bourgeoisie values and actually holds the liberal idea of limiting governmental interference in every day life while the centre party lies closer to the more liberal utopian ideas of free market and open borders. Compare for example with my own party, the Liberals that are discussing quotas in parental support instead of families choosing themselves. The only thing we seem to have is a more realistic view on the military, joining NATO, support the EU, pro-nuclear power. Real concrete ideas that we fight for and I agree on... but where is the ideological vision to tie this all together? The latest Almedal's speech our party leader held had some of those ideas, the free market, limited interference of the unions and de-regulation, but where is the proposals. It's a pity (according to me) that it would be more liberal to vote for the christian democrats in the next election. Really, back in '09 I would have jumped on the idea of kicking both parties out of the Riksdag, so what happened?

Well, obviously someone played the change of heart card!

So what happened? It could be that as I was studying more and more of social contract theories (which incidentally was spoken by the first liberal movements) I become more purist and strayed from earlier social liberal roots toward a more pure liberal identity (or neoliberal... or conservative liberal... I'm not entirely sure yet). This might have accelerated in 2010 when adding the economic ideas on growth to my D-essay taking an even more liberal stand. So I moved toward the Swedish political right, firmly fast in my believes. At the same time the Social Democrats plummeted in the polls, and my awe for them to strong arm smaller parties disappeared as they grew weaker and the coalition between the left party and the utopian greens left me questioning if they could handle this new landscape in order to work for Sweden's best interest (and with the answer today looking at the current red-green government, no, they can't). Not only was the social democrats going down, they went toward the left as well as the left party dragged them there and when the greens went even further left I cut the ties to that side for the time being (who knows, maybe the social democrats will do a blue or new labour). So my trust in the social democrats was damaged, didn't help that by studying economics I began to understand what had happen in the 90's. What caused the economic crash and what the social democrats did to hide the fact and blame the centre-right parties for something they themselves caused. 

All the burning bridges that's fallen after me

All the lonely feelings and burning memories

Everyone I left behind each time I closed the door

Burning bridges lost forevermore

Mike Curb Congregation

So here I stand, the parties on the left have burnt their bridges while the parties on the right is to non-liberal in some areas while excelling in others. The only one of the four that just seems meh is interesting enough the largest of them, and that is probably cause they are scared to anger the voters, incidentally forgetting why they became the largest centre-party in the 70's. Maybe it's time for a new leading party, and sadly it will either be the centre party or the christian democratic party. If the liberals don't begin packing hard punches and actually tries to be ideological liberal I don't see how they can even compete and it becomes more a struggle for surviving the 4 % line.

Wow, that felt good getting out of the chest. How long time ago was it I actually discussed politics on this blog? Even more wow, not since December before they cancelled the extra election? Well, I've been rather apathetic when it comes to the internal politics of Sweden since the current government is making an ass of itself while everyone else licks their wounds and prepare a 2018 take over I guess. What we lack is some fighting spirit I feel, but without cash and an ideological vision to answer the societal problems it's hard to feel victorious and with that, why would we win? I say it again, dare to be controversial and attack former golden calves that we didn't dare in government. The unions, the housing market and for god sake, at least try make a decent integration program so we can start undermining the Sweden democrats. Hell, I would even go as far as attacking most of the welfare state. Break the monopolies, be the radicals that were able to tell the people that more taxes doesn't equal better welfare and do the same with the rest of the monopolies. Do what we did in the 19th century to create the fastest growing economy in the world.

FREEDOM! FREEDOM! (ok, maybe a flower makes it sound rather silly)

The Dig

This game I remembered watching comercials and discussion about when it came out, but it didn't interest me so now I just had to try it. It has Robert Patrick in the main role, playing a character that does it so much better than his cameo in the Stargate: Atlantis intro even though they feel rather the same, although Commander Boston Low doesn't come out as a bastard... at least in the beginning. The story is rather interesting and it was pitched by Steven Spielburg, the dialog was co-written by Orson Scott Card and noticable for a Lucasart game, feels rather different. Instead of the wacky humor that is in games like Monkey Island it's actually rather serious. The game begins with the asteroid Attila on a collision course to earth so NASA sends a five man team to blow it up. Sounds rather familiar. So Commander Boston Low, archeologist Luddgar Brinks and journalist Maggie Robbins are the once doing the job of planting the nuclear charges on the asteroid, but when they blow it open they discover that it's hollow and contains alien remnants. New orders happens and you explore the rock, but set off the asteroid that takes you and your crew back to its points of origin, a distant planet filled with ruins and relics of an ancient civilisation. Your mission is to get back home.

Fantastic setting and atmosphere as you explore this alien and rather dangerous world. Reminds me very much of Riven: The sequel to Myst, especially in the underwater tram sequences, As Riven some parts is hard as hell. Really, first puzzle that stopped me and made me look up a walkthrough is the damn fixing lens puzzle below the Nexus. The thing is that there is two consoles. One is just a rectangular button, the other has a lot more.buttons, five of them creates different colours on a board next to you, one takes away one dot and the last clears the whole board. Really, the puzzle is that the colours signifies an action to a little helper robot. Would be fine if the start button wasn't on the other console. Yes, I might be stupid, but I didn't know that and there is no hint that it works like that. I thought it was a colour combination that you had to find later. Another puzzle is the reconstruction of a turtle bone structure. You have at least a fossil on the screen prior so you get the geist on how it should look like, but every time you bring it back it gets eaten by the same monster. You should know that you have a bomb in your inventory and have seen the function in the museum and put it in, but the second time I tried it I had to redo the bone puzzle... several times. Now, if I used the bomb it tells me when it clears, but shifting around several bones and put them correct is rather bullshit.

So what happened here? Apparently the alien race created another dimension that took them into another plane off existence, unfortunately they couldn't go back. The same race created something called life crystals that returned anything dead back to life, but with the side effect of a huge addiction to them. The alien race seemed fine with the one you reanimate to get this story so I don't know, the only one that shown effects of it was Brink (who fell down a hole, led their by an apparition which I guess was the alien race in their other dimension. Brinks becomes more and more paranoid and begins to hoard the crystals and start working on a machine to creates more. Now, I know it's more logical and all that, but Boston Low really provoked Brink to his second death (this one isn't permanent either by the way). The story is that Low has the final piece to Brink machines as its also work for the machine to get the alien race back, but they need two life crystals to power it. Unfortunately Brinks takes all your's and you make a deal of 50/50 of the created crystals. It spawns two. Low takes them all and bring out the machine part so he can start his own machine. This sends Brink into a rage and in the struggle he tumbles down the cliff. Really Boston, you couldn't have been more diplomatic in that situation? I see your logic, but you are talking to a clearly deranged man who made you cut his hand to free him as he was trapped. I know your're military, but damn man.

Also the ending was a bit abrupt. Everyones back to life, the alien race returned and just by that creates a starship for you to get back home. Rather unfullfilling. Couldn't it have ended on a press conference back on earth where they reveal that there is intelligent life out there? That your other two crew members got back and so on? Otherwise a good game, no doubt, but the ending is as stated rather lacking.

The Good and the Bad

1959-2015

This morning the news reached me that Satoru Iwata, the CEO of Nintendo passed away this weekend. Many people were sad and so was I. Think it was last week I watched his latest E3 presentation where they had the form of muppets which was a rather fun skit together with news of the upcoming Star Fox game. 

The saddest part is you now know why he only appeared as a puppet in this years E3

I only knew him as the CEO of Nintendo that took over after the founding family stepped away and during the year was a much more humble person. Under his leadership Nintendo created the Wii and DS that become some of the best selling systems through Nintendo's history. He also changed direction for Nintendo in a communicating way by getting rid of the E3 press conference and took control by making pre-recordered shows that utilised muppets and claymation effects. What I hardly knew was how he worked as a programmer on several games (sadly I've hardly played any of those games). He also had slumps in his carer as the current generation of games shows. The initial release of the 3DS needed a lot of work before it turned around and become a respectable selling system and the Wii U sadly doesn't seem to be anything else than Nintendo's worst selling home console. I support it, so I went out and bought Splatoon today so I could paint the world in some smiling colours because he gave me and a lot of people much to smile about. Hopefully the NX can redeem his home console troubles and end his career on top as he strikes back from the grave.

Good Bye Mr Iwata!

So what is the good news then? Last week I signed a working contract and august 17 I start working for the county administrative board meaning I'm employed by the government. It's just for a small 3 months project, but it's on the right track. This will be rather fun.

The coat of arms of Södermanland

Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror

So after the first game I needed to play the sequel taking place roughly six months after the last game with an upcoming Total Eclipse of the Sun. So playing the intro it looked awfully familiar and then it hits me. I played this game as a kid when my family switched game consoles with our neighbor, we borrowed theirs Playstation 1 and they borrowed our N64. One of the game was this one. I didn't play much of it since right at the beginning it throws two things I didn't like as a kid, a rather big venomous spider and a timed event of the spider and a fire burning stressing me out. So I didn't get further than the very first screen before quiting. Nothing like that this time. And I believe that the timed event didn't exist, it gave you enough time walking around after dealing with the spider that the house would have burnt down twice. I don't know if it was due to me having a cold, but I found this game to be so damn funny at times. The mama's boy general that tries to impress Nico by putting on some softcore movie in the background and then his dictator mother shows up (no really, she is the dictator of the small south american country your in. Also the retconning that was a rather nice touch. In the original you had Inspector Moue who worked for chief Rosso that after a trip to Syria is told to you as being dead. Without telling you how. Apparently the story writers couldn't think of anything good about that so they made him go into hiding, presumably when he found out that Rosso was one of the Neo-Templars.

The story this time around is that Nico is looking into this South American drug smuggling ring, but she gets her hand on an ancient Mayan artifact instead. You decide to investigate by going to this professor in Mayan history and there Nico is promptly kidnapped so it's up to you to rescue her... after you rescued yourself that is. All this leads on a quest against time to collect three magic stones so that you can keep an ancient Mayan god of destruction trapped in the Smoking Mirror so that he wont end the world during the eclipse. This is also a better plot than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Another thing is that when i think back, damn, there dies people to the left and right in this series and in rather gruesome ways as well. In the first game this Indianan Jones look-alike dies of dehydration and starvation locked in a cave, people are blown up, thrown of trains and hit by cars and in this several gets shot, one Mayan Indian gets disintegrated, someone falls to their deaths and the bad guy gets stabbed by the evil god he tried to summon before you send him back into the Smoking Mirror and then the ending picture rest on the god looking out of the mirror as it wants to say "just you wait" (this game was released 15 years before the Mayan calender ended in 2012 so it could have tied in to that mythology).

Sunrise has gone, freezing up the fires.

Sunrise has gone numbing our desires.

                                      Total Eclipse by Iron Maiden

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars

So being on an Adventure game spree at the moment I just had to check out Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars and boy, I wasn't disappointed. First thing is that the game looks like an animated movie and feels like an Indiana Jones movie or the Tintin comic books (both also being referenced within the game). It begins in Paris, your avatar George Stobbart sits outside a cafe minding your own business, when an old man enters the cafe and after him a clown follows. The clown snatches the old mans briefcase, leaves his accordion while he runs away and the cafe blows up, killing the old man and throwing you into a murder mystery that will take you across Europe and the Middle East, looking for this assassin clown and avoiding conspirators while searching for the treasures of the templars. It sounds awfully familiar for some reason, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

It's a really good story and the graphics are fantastic... for the most time. I don't know why, but many games that used a more animated style in their games (like KQ 7 and LSL 7) had some problems with the character movements in close ups as it isn't very fluid, compared to say, Don Bluths Dragon's Lair. Then again, the price for making the games would be rather steep if that was the case. The voice acting for the most time works fine. Small nitpicking is that this game at times falls into the pixel hunt trap. Your stuck and begins searching the whole screen for any change in the pointer to indicate an important item or such. And George Stobbart isn't the brightest among amateur investigators. First of he shows the picture of the would be clown assassin to everyone and at every important mentions that this is a murderer. No surprise he got Georges name when he catches up with you in Syria. And if that wasn't enough, at a castle in Ireland there is this mean goat in the middle of the courtyard that head buts you if you try to enter an archeological dig or get past the goat. The thing is if Stobbart just could bother to walk over the sand bags that laid there he wouldn't have to make this timed puzzle where the goat knocks you down near the dig and you reacts by moving a discarded plow on the other side of the court-yard to trap the goat. At this moment Stobbart decides to sprint (also while reading up on the series I noticed the goat puzzle got its own wikipedia page, some of the complaints are not true I must say, especially the timed puzzle one, since there was several moments where you had to wait the right moment to do something to progress, waiting for the gendarme at the museum which I suppose came afterwards, picking up the towel from the drunkards elbow when he lift his hand for a drink and grab the wire at the Irish pub and so on).

Really, the worst moment was near the end. The treasure is located in Scotland so you and Nico (a french photographer that helped you across the adventure) take a train. In the same compartment is an old woman that seems to read a book, coincidentally written by an archeologist you searched earlier for and when you look closer the woman has the same build as the killer clown. And doesn't the voice sound a bit masculine? And the old lady doesn't have a senior citizen card? Nope, nothing suspicious at all and George decide to go to the loo without Nico. He figures out something was wrong anyway... that the conductor was another killer he had a run in with. Geez. And he survived 5 games with this clearly faulty observational skills?