Ahh, the days of FMV being the future of gaming. I was introduced to this game a long time ago by a friend and I'm glad to finally get this off my 'games to finish' list. It's a fun game, with the performance of Chris Jones really holding everything together. The graphics were- for their time- really impressive, and the way you could walk through the environments really pushed the genre forwards. It looks terrible by today's standards, but they did a good job with what they had to work with.

The controls are terrible. Your movement is controlled by the mouse with the arrow keys letting you look up or down. Even with sensitivity turned way down it gets difficult to control movement at times. The menus and interaction system was good though, and dealing with solving puzzles was straightforward. I have two sequels on my GOG account and I've made a start on both and the controls are greatly improved on both so it looks like they learned from this one.

The story was well executed, and was more than an excuse to get you from one puzzle to the next. It is an FMV game after all, and the use of live action sequences to tell story and get exposition was executed well. I remember everyone going nuts about FMV at the time, and it spawned systems like the Sega CD and the 3DO, which tried to capitalise on what was seen as where gaming was going. Then Half Life came out and set the course for more in game and environmental story telling. I'd say the right choice was made, even though I do to a point enjoy these sorts of games.

A hearty recommend, though mostly out of nostalgia sake. If you like puzzle games I'd point to Overseer or Pandora Directive as ones to do instead of this one, mainly due to their better graphics and more intuitive controls.

Ahh, the days of FMV being the future of gaming. I was introduced to this game a long time ago by a friend and I'm glad to finally get this off my 'games to finish' list. It's a fun game, with the performance of Chris Jones really holding everything together. The graphics were- for their time- really impressive, and the way you could walk through the environments really pushed the genre forwards. It looks terrible by today's standards, but they did a good job with what they had to work with. The controls are terrible. Your movement is controlled by the mouse with the arrow keys letting you look up or down. Even with sensitivity turned way down it gets difficult to control movement at times. The menus and interaction system was good though, and dealing with solving puzzles was straightforward. I have two sequels on my GOG account and I've made a start on both and the controls are greatly improved on both so it looks like they learned from this one. The story was well executed, and was more than an excuse to get you from one puzzle to the next. It is an FMV game after all, and the use of live action sequences to tell story and get exposition was executed well. I remember everyone going nuts about FMV at the time, and it spawned systems like the Sega CD and the 3DO, which tried to capitalise on what was seen as where gaming was going. Then Half Life came out and set the course for more in game and environmental story telling. I'd say the right choice was made, even though I do to a point enjoy these sorts of games. A hearty recommend, though mostly out of nostalgia sake. If you like puzzle games I'd point to Overseer or Pandora Directive as ones to do instead of this one, mainly due to their better graphics and more intuitive controls.