Adventure Lantern

issue #32 july 2012

Reviews:

• • • • • •

Botanicula Metal Dead Lume Scratches: Director’s Cut Adam’s Venture ~ Episode 3: Revelations The Walking Dead ~ Episode 2: Starved for Help

July 2012

Editorial

This last month Ugur Sener has been extremely busy with other parts of his life so has asked me, Jonathon, to temporarily step in and write this editorial. The following is my attempt to do so, and while I do not expect to succeed in filling his shoes, I can promise the rest of the magazine remains or transcends our usual quality.

have a few unique elements. While I might be biased, being the designer and all (the initial idea came from Constantin), I am particularly pleased with the somewhat unique contents page and AGS section, with its timeline. This timeline is somewhat restrictive, but ultimately a very nice looking and easy reading design that adds a distinctive look to the page.

I want to start off with apologizing for our late delivery, an extra busy month for Adventure Lantern and a few of its members has made this unavoidable. But we are counting this issue as a delayed July issue and fully intend to release another issue late this month.

Taking some inspiration from the visual changes we also decided to do a few tweaks to the content. We no longer show the entire list of System Requirements, and instead list only the Platform. And in a belated acknowledgment of how important the web has gotten to gaming, we have included the game website URL in all reviews. We also added a new subsection to the News, for stories that previously did not really fit anywhere.

In addition to all these changes, and a huge news section, we are serving up a decent handful of reviews; It is really no wonder we are so late in delivering it to you. From Nick we finish off the puzzle, platformer, adventure trilogy Adam’s Venture with its third entry, Revelations. He also contributed the second episode of Telltale’s The Walking Dead series of adventure games, Starved for Help. I contributed three reviews, two very small ones for Lume and Metal Dead, as well as the Director’s Cut of Scratches. We had previously reviewed Scratches, but this Director’s Cut is is a substantial addition to the game with upgraded both graphics and added some additional hours of gameplay, to name a few of its features.

For this, delayed, issue we have some BIG announcements. Constantin Starodub, a very talented magazine layout designer, has joined our team and working mostly alone has completely revitalized our design.

While, Adventure Lantern retains all of its regular content and Adventure Gaming theme, the layout of this content has been reimagined from the groundup. There are far too many changes to mention here, but I will go through the list of changes that I thought were most needed. The aspect of AL most needing an update, in my mind, was all the whitespace. We simply had way too much of it, and it was all white, some background was clearly needed. We also needed a way to differentiate the sections of AL (Adventurer’s Ravine, Bandit’s Cove, etc.). All of this and much more was addressed with this makeover.

I think this redesign was a huge success, and I am sure that all of you will also. It is strictly better and while it mostly sticks to a simple minimalistic design we do

adventure lantern

– Jonathon Wisnoski

2

July 2012

Contents

Cover Image: ROBO Quest (p.17)

0

News

Announcements

Jack Houston and the Necronauts is the clear winner here. It is a pulp sci-fi adventure, which puts you on the first rocket to a savage alien world.

5

Upcoming Releases

Against the Wall really caught me eye last month. It has a very interest world concept, where instead of being horizontal, the ground is a huge vertical wall, which trees and entire cities clinging to.

10

New Releases Updated Releases 15 News From the Big Blue Cup

Botanicula

Metal Dead

20

Metal Dead is the successful attempt to combine heavy metal, the zombie apocalypse, comedy, and retro point and click gaming.

Scratches: Director’s Cut

3

Botanicula is Amanita Design style incarnate, it is Samorost taken to a whole new level.

Lume

The graphics are what really define Lume. In Lume, beautiful 3D scaled sets are constructed out of paper, cardboard, and a few other building materials and props.

These sets are then filmed in HD. The minimalistic characters are then superimposed on-top of these scenes.

The result is quite visually striking and very tactile.

25

30

The Walking Dead Episode 2: Starved for Help 35 The Walking Dead. Episode Two: Starved for Help is less about zombies and more about human relations in the wake of an inhuman apocalypse. Set three months after the conclusion of Episode One: A New Day, Lee Everett and his band of survivors have taken up residence and barricaded the Travalier Motel. The problems start when they run low on food.

In the world of classic game series, we have a remake for Abe’s Oddysee, a demake for The Curse of Monkey Island, and a sequel to the Broken Sword series announced. The two biggest projects on Kickstarter got funded last minute: Project Fedora, and SpaceVenture.

And a few completely new projects come into the light; Including Necronauts, the pulp sci-fi adventure, Against the Wall, and Nicalas Eymerich, Inquisitor: The Plague, the game based on real life history. But perhaps, the biggest mainstream news his month is the release of Deponia and The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav.

Adventurer’s Ravine

Sleeper hit, the unofficial Black Sect Remake retains the originals graphics while making the game easier.

Scratches is a horror title rapped up in a mystery and filled with suspense and tension. It is a point and click adventure game released in 2006 by the small Argentinian company Nucleosys. This team went on to release a director’s cut of Scratches the following year. Nucleosys has since shut its doors, but one if its co-founders, Agustin Cordes, has gone on to found Senscape, which is currently working on Asylum, an adventure game with a similar style.

There sure was a lot of awesome happening over the last month, both for Adventure Lantern and Adventure gaming in general. Kickstarter, and other crowd funding sites, continue to draw out some great looking adventure game concepts; And even outside of the crowd funding scene there are numerous exciting new IPs and sequels in the works. And Adventure Lantern continues to acquire new talent and undergo improvements.

40

Adam’s Venture Episode 3: Revelations

The third and final episode in the Adam’s Venture trilogy, Revelations, brings closure to Adam’s quest of uncovering the secret of the Garden of Eden and putting a stop to the Clairvaux Corporation’s evil schemes. Left for dead in the crumbling tomb of King Solomon, Adam loses consciousness and experiences a flashback of how he met his partner, Evelyn, and how they came to be involved with the Clairvaux Corporation. When he comes to, he feels reinvigorated in his promise to protect Evelyn, and sets out to rescue her from the clutches of the Clairvaux leader. adventure lantern

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�� 17 RW

A D V E N T U R E R ' S R AV I N E

BOTANICULA

REVIEW

Botanicula Genre: adventure Developer: Amanita Design Publisher: Amanita Design Release date: April 19, 2012 Platforms: Windows XP, Mac OS 10.6 or newer, Linux Website: http://www.botanicula.net/

Review by Jonathon Wisnoski Botanicula is Amanita Design style incarnate, it is Samorost taken to a whole new level. It was released into a Humble Indie Bundle just a few months ago and is currently available through the Humble Indie Store for only $10.

In Botanicula you control a group of five creatures best described as little tree friends. Most of the time that it is a group does not matter, you do not often use the characters and they do not ever really separate. But there are times where the individuals come into play; During some scenes the solution to the puzzle is to pick the correct playable character to solve the current predicament. These five tree creatures are on a mission to escape their home tree which is being attacked by evil parasites, and bring a tree seed with them to start anew and grow a new home.

Much of the charm of the game comes from none of it being boiler plate. There is no "that does not work" response or any generic behaviour at al l in the game.

So players are encouraged to explore the world and much of the gameplay is actually optional bonus

18 ďż˝

material that you uncover as you explore this unique environment.

This bonus material that I speak of is mostly interesting objects and NPCs that you uncover though interacting with the environment, usually requiring a specific series of interactions.

After you uncover these bonuses you are given a card as an indicator of the achievement.

The graphics are all very unique and beautiful. Botanicula uses a mix of cut-out style graphics and drawn artwork, which include a mix of very abstract with very realistic and detailed. This is all seamlessly combined with really the only similar features being the constant use of nature as a guide and inspiration.

One "problem" with the game is that it is so removed from reality.

In Botanicula there is no, or very little, concrete logic. Most puzzles are solved by clicking everything on the screen a few times; It does not matter if you have great insight or have ever played the game before, there is no logic (convoluted or otherwise) to ascertain. Some of ADVENTURE LANTERN

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the more logical puzzles give you a hint of logic, by giving you a concrete goal and a way to work towards it, but they almost always have some kind of random physics that mean that you have no real way to understand what any move will do until you do it. Puzzles are often (but far from always) put together logically, but since there is little to no logic for the user interaction it is at best an abstract logic that required far more experimentation than thought. The puzzles are still fun and rewarding, at lease up to a point; And you get a great exploration vibe from them specifically because of this abstract logic. It is not for everyone, but at the same time I believe it makes the game very user friendly.

Most of all I would call Botanicula a charming and endearing game.

You are probably not going to be excited by the gameplay, intrigued by the puzzles, or spend too long admiring the artwork; the story will likely not engross you, or the characters interest you all that much; But, every single one of these elements is saturated with charm and extremely endearing. I would not want every adventure game to be like this, I would not even want this to become a new sub-genre, but at least for this one game it does work and is very unique.

BRIGHT MOMENTS: Its overall charm, which drips from the endearing characters and fantastical environments.

FUMBLES IN THE DARK:

The lack of concrete logic could turn off some people.

VERDICT:

A fantastic casual game dripping with charm.

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METAL DEAD

REVIEW

Metal Dead

Genre: adventure Developer: Walk Thru Walls Publisher: Walk Thru Walls Release date: December 19, 2011 Platform: Windows Website: http://www.walkthruwalls.com/

Review by Jonathon Wisnoski Metal Dead is the successful attempt to combine heavy metal, the zombie apocalypse, comedy, and retro point and click gaming.

I think it is safe to assume that it is also the first and only such game. It was released during the end of 2011, and was good enough to get nominated into two Adventure Gamers categories: "Best Writing - Comedy" and "Best Independent Adventure Game".

In Metal Dead you play Malcolm who, with his ever present friend Ronnie, is a metal-head. They love heavy metal, and in particular Ronnie believes that the zombie apocalypse is the most metal thing to ever happen. During the opening sequence you crash your

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car, in front of a large medical research building that is attracting the attention of all the zombies in the area, and he is killed. You then embark on a short puzzle solving and exploration sequence which concludes with you carrying around your friends head, which acts as a hint system, and occasionally advances the storyline. The story evolves moderately naturally from there as you attempt to survive and escape the aforementioned medical research center; While meeting, working with, and rescuing a variety of interesting, comedic, and exaggerated characters. There is a rather strange twist at the very end, but it does not get weird until then.

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The art is simple hand-drawn and crude, but charming and very good accompaniment to the rest of the game. Its one unique aspect is the level of blood and gore, of which there is no shortage. You are shown everything, from the shambling dead, dismemberment, piles of corpses, zombies feeding, guts, and brain matter. None of it is particularly «graphic» because of the art style, and it is not overly mature in any other area, so I do not think that the

While the story of Metal Dead i s s u p e r b i n my o p i n i o n , t h e gameplay/puzzles are far less so.

They are really just the standard inventory fare, though they do have you doing some interesting things at times, namely killing zombies. The one proper logic puzzle in the entire game is one of the worse examples of its kind, and the detective, clue finding and code breaking, puzzle was not much better. But for the most part the puzzles are fine, they are simply not the focus of the game.

One feature I was mildly surprised by was the use of a multiple cursor system, with the standard: interact, look , talk , and walk cursors. I cannot say that I agree with their decision concerning this feature; It is not that I dislike this type of interface, though in general I do, but that it is never taken advantage of. Other than requiring you to spend time clicking through your options between interacting with the environment (interact), moving about (walk), and talking to people (talk) you never use the system; You simply never «interact» with a person, «talk» to a object or room, or «walk» (kick) an undead. t oD VcEoNnTtUeRnEt sL A N T E R N A

game should really be considered objectionable to any age that is OK with the concept of a zombie.

I think any classic adventure fan will love Metal Dead. It is a great recreation of the traditional adventure model with a modern and very unique concept. To be honest, I believe that the gameplay dropped the ball a little bit, and was quite drab in it implementation, but this is easily overlooked and hardly noticeable while playing.

BRIGHT MOMENTS:

The zombie subject matter is so well done and well integrated into the retro styled adventure model.

FUMBLES IN THE DARK:

The multiple cursor system is never utilised enough to justify having it.

VERDICT:

A retro style adventure with a modern, undead, twist.

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LUME

REVIEW

Lume

Genre: puzzle, adventure Developer: State of Play Publisher: State of Play Release date: May 9, 2011 Platforms: Windows, Mac OS Website: http://www.lumegame.com/

Review by Jonathon Wisnoski The graphics are what really define Lume. In Lume, beautiful 3D scaled sets are constructed out of paper, cardboard, and a few other building materials and props. These sets are then filmed, with some panning and the like for entering and exiting a scene; But really there is very little movement, which is my only real complaint; They just do not put the 3D set to much use. The minimalistic characters are then superimposed on-top of these scenes. The result is quite visually striking and very tactile.

This first chapter in the paper and cardboard adventure was released in 2011. It is currently going for $6.99 on Steam, which considering its length of 1 to 1.5 hours is a little (or a lot) on the

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expensive side. Comparing the game to The Dream Machine, the only other modern adventure game with tactile graphics, that I know of, it comes off as very expensive as you can get

a chapter from it for $4.99 and that is with significantly more gameplay per chapter and with the initial short chapter being offered for free.

The game has you in control of Lumi, a bright young girl visiting her grandfather's house. He has gone to town to investigate a recent power outage and left you a note asking you to finish setting up the alternative power generators for his house. As such, you must construct a wind turbine, finish setting up a solar panel system, and connect them both to the house to restore power (but first you are going to have to figure out the combination to the lock on the door).

That is pretty much how the game goes. Your grandfather has filled his ADVENTURE LANTERN

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house with an array of interesting and imaginative locks and puzzles.

This gameplay is enjoyable but not of a very consistent difficulty. Some puzzles are straight forward and very easy, others require the use of some ambiguous clues. In particular, there is this one puzzle that is very ambiguous

compared to the others. The game otherwise comes off as casual, but if you are not paying close enough attention and are ready for some lateral thinking then I could see many simply never getting this one. Not that I would warn the casual crowd away; I think in this particular case a casual adventurer has just as much chance with the puzzle as anyone, as it can be easy given the right thinking.

I love Lume's graphics, I liked its gameplay, and its plot was surprisingly enjoyable; It is a charming game from top to bottom. But it is really short, and does not contain anything all that substantial. I am eagerly awaiting its sequel, and particularly if you can find Lume on sale, it is worth your time.

BRIGHT MOMENTS: The great tactile graphics, and endearing storyline.

FUMBLES IN THE DARK:

The price. By any metric, it is too expensive, and this effected the rating.

VERDICT:

A great little adventure, more of a proof of concept than a full game.

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SCRATCHES: DIRECTOR'S CUT

REVIEW

Scratches: Director's Cut Genre: adventure Developer: Nucleosys Digital Studio Publisher: Got Game Entertainment Release date: May 23, 2007 Platform: Windows Website: none

Review by Jonathon Wisnoski Scratches is a horror title rapped up in a mystery and filled with suspense and tension. It is a point and click adventure game released in 2006 by the small Argentinian company Nucleosys. This team went on to release a director's cut of Scratches the following year. Nucleosys has since shut its doors, but one if its co-founders, Agustin Cordes, has gone on to found Senscape, which is currently working on Asylum, an adventure game with a similar style.

The director's cut, named simply Scratches: Director's Cut, is pretty much what you would expect from a director's cut. With it you get an alternative ending to the story; The

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original ending I believe, before they remade it to be more ambiguous.

This ending no longer quite fits into the story, and is of course non-canonical, but interesting to

experience nonetheless. We also get a whole new mini-sequel called «The Last Visit»; Which has you playing as a journalist who has stuck into Blackwood Manor, ten years after your fateful stay there. But, perhaps more importantly than all these little additions, are all of the improvements made to the main game. We get completely overhauled graphics, with higher supported resolutions, and improved detail and lighting; A, similarly, remastered soundtrack and sound effects; And a much improved interface.

There has also been work done on the Hint System, and Michael has gotten a Journal in which he shares his innermost thoughts and which acts to remind you of objectives at times.

The 7-8 hour game takes place in Blackwood Manor, an old Victorian house, and on the surrounding grounds. Blackwood Manor is an old abandoned house with a dark and mysterious past. Originally, a pillar of the community and a prominent engineer, Mr. Blackwood, lived there ADVENTURE LANTERN

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SCRATCHES: DIRECTOR'S CUT

with his wife and maid, and even had a son on the way; But a series of horrible and unexplained events have left a dark cloud hanging over the entire region, the house abandoned, and fuelled rumours and myths of every variety. It all started with what should of been a happy occasion, the birth of their son, but this quickly turned into a tragedy when they announced that he had died. Latter, Mr. Blackwood is accused of murdering his wife and burying her on the premises; The police wanted to investigate but with the help of his best friend and doctor Christopher Milton, their combined esteem and the suicide of their only suspect, Mr. Blackwood,

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put the case permanently on hold.

Christopher Milton then inherited the estate and moved in, but soon became a hermit and eventually disappeared entirely.

This is where you, Michael Arthate, come in. You are a horror writer looking for some inspiration to help you finish your latest book. You have acquired the house, and moved in immediately, with only a few hours

for a cleaning crew to get the worst of the dirt cleaned up before you moved in. The electricity and water do not even work yet, and you are all alone, with only a telephone and the post service to connect you to the outside world. In the following three days Michael explores the manor and gets more and more obsessed with the mysterious events in its past. But is he the only one here? His dreams are filled with nightmares and shattered by a mysterious scratching noise. Can you uncover what really happened here all those years ago? Is something or someone from its dark past still lurking in the house? What is causing those Scratching noises at night?

This story is beautifully told and uses the classic element of ambiguity. You are encouraged to think about what you see, hear, and read and come up with your own explanations. You need to explore and pay attention to uncover the truth; It is possible to entirely miss very important clues and sources of information while plaything through the game, so there is a

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A D V E N T U R E R ' S R AV I N E big emphasis on exploration. The game's atmosphere is great for this, it inspires a sense of exploration, and I needed no more incentive than that to explore every inch of the manor. Most of the game is open and fully explorable from the very beginning, but as you progress through the game what you are doing is slowing opening up new sections and uncovering new parts of the mystery.

Scratches: Director's Cut adds to this story with «The Last Visit», a new sequel chapter that takes place ten years after you originally explored Blackwood Manor. This, approximately one hour long, minisequel has you play a journalist gone to the house to dig up a story and uncover the mystery before it is demolished. What he encounters is a scene of ruin, of vandalism, graffiti, and of looting. Much of the grounds and house are not even accessible. It is a short addition, with only two disappointing simple multi-step puzzles, and is overall rather disappointing in how little is revealed. You get a few explanations to previously ambiguous questions; But if anything the added precision only hurts the story, ruining the open ended interpretable aspect of it. It also does not do any better at ending the story of Scratches; Nothing is resolved, in fact it has very much a similar ending to the original story.

One saving grace is that it answers the only real complaint I had with the original game; The game is now 100% narrated, and while there is far less reading in this chapter, all of it is voiced.

The world of Scratches is node based and allows your choice of slideshow or 360 degree view. In my opinion, the 360 degree view is obviously the better view and

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SCRATCHES: DIRECTOR'S CUT

the one you should use. It works fabulously, being easy to use and a great way to show off the beautiful game. Also, you really do not have to worry about making it harder to spot items. There is no pixel hunting; All, hotspots are quite big, and useful items very easy to spot. There is one exception to this, in my opinion, but the item is so close to where it is needed that I would not expect it to cause much trouble.

The gameplay of Scratches takes second stage to the story and atmosphere. All of the puzzles are obvious extensions of the storyline and are incorporated because of the story. This makes for very logical and simple puzzles; most of which are inventory based. The game does not really even use any inventory combination puzzles, with the few times that you do combine items in the inventory being so obvious that I would not consider them puzzles.

Unfortunately, the game does get off on a rather bad start where the puzzles are concerned; The very first challenge you have is trying to figure out where to put your suitcase, with

REVIEW

absolutely no direction. It does not go on the bed, it does not go on the desk, there are no interactable areas on the ground. Eventually, I figured out where to put it, but I could not help thinking that in no sense should this puzzle exist. Another feature of the game worth mentioning is how much the inventory builds up overs time; Most items are not used more than once, but unless using an item logically destroys or leaves it then it is kept in the inventory long past its last use. On the one hand this seemed unnecessary, but on the other it did not ever cause me any problems because the puzzles are always so logical. You never have to ADVENTURE LANTERN

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try all your items on this one elusive challenge, if you see a problem you pretty much know what you need to solve it, and either have to look for the item or simply take it out of your inventory. Even the keys had pretty obvious doors to which they belonged, and just by looking at their icons and you could tell which door they would unlock. One thing that Scratches does well is mixing a linear storyline with non-linear gameplay. Yes, the game is linear, but at the same time you have multiple avenues to explore, almost all of the time; There is enough give

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that I was never stuck behind this one tiny roadblock that needed to be cleared before the story could progress.

The two features of Scratches: Director's Cut that I never really explored are the Hint System and Journal/Diary. I played with the Hint System off, but apparently, the hints are seamlessly integrated into the comments and Journal; It does not seem to be the type of Hint System that you can use for a particular puzzle that is causing you trouble, so much as just generally making the game easier while you play. The

Journal, in my opinion, works mostly as an objectives list. And in this way, it is good to make the game easier to come back to after enough time has passed to forget what you were doing. The problem I have with it is that, if you want to read it on an ongoing basis, it is not made easy.

I read it a few times at the very beginning of the game, but soon got wrapped up in the story and completely forgot about my Journal.

The game really should inform you of added entries, and provide a quick and easy way to read these new entries when they are written.

Additionally, the game often gets the timing of entries a little off; There were a few occasions where I was given a Journal entry for something that had not yet happened, or in fact never happened.

The sound of Scratches is one of its more advertised features. It has a great unique, eerie, and solemn soundtrack from Cellar of Rats, that fits into the atmosphere perfectly. It also offers a limited amount of voice; For all dialog and cutscenes, you have voice from the few characters in the game. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the game does not contain dialogue, but instead writing, and does requires loads of reading.

There are numerous journals and

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A D V E N T U R E R ' S R AV I N E letters spread around the house to find and read, only available as text, and object descriptions and other text narration. All of these would of benefited from voice, but worked well without it.

The visuals are just superb. They are not ultra detailed, breathtakingly beautiful, fantastically unique, or anything like that; But as part of the greater story I do not think you could ask for better. The visuals show a brooding environment, and they show it well, both indoors, where most of your time will be spent, and outdoors. It is dark, it is eerie, and, at least for specific locations, scary.

You even get rather good foliage, a difficult graphical area to get correct; In-fact some of my favorite locations were outdoors. These visuals are just another aspect of the wonderful and menacing atmosphere permeating the entire game.

So lets talk about the horror aspect of Scratches. I am normally not at all a fan of horror, but in this case I made an exception and have not regretted it for a second; And therefore think there is a something here for every type of adventure or story lover.

Scratches is primarily a game about suspense, atmosphere, and storing telling; You are NOT going to be jumping out of your seat because something just jumped out at you.

The suspense and scare slowly builds over the course of the game, as you undercover new details and get closer to solving the mystery. In fact I was most scared after the game was over, simply from thinking about the creepy and demented story.

Scratches: Director's Cut is primarily a great story. Taken individually any of its elements are only average, mediocre, or pretty good. None of the puzzles are particularly fun, in and of themselves; If there were

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SCRATCHES: DIRECTOR'S CUT

not visuals and a story to go along with them, they simply would not be worth doing. The visuals are nice, but without a backstory to flesh them out they would still be forgettable.

And even the story, while the

REVIEW

primary focus of the game, would not be this memorable or enjoyable if not told well; The magic comes from having all these elements compliment each other. Together these elements create a great game, ADVENTURE LANTERN

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with memorable locations and story, and a great atmosphere. I was riveted from the very start, ready and willing to explore every nook and corner of Blackwood Manor, read every letter and diary found within, and contemplate its story long after the credits rolled. And if you are looking for a story driven classic adventure, then there is not a single one I would recommend higher than Scratches: Director's Cut. That said, it is not a game for everyone; There is a lot of reading, and the game relies completely on its story, both of which cut down its potential audience.

For Adventure Lantern's review of the original Scratches, look in our April 2006 issue.

BRIGHT MOMENTS:

The story is fantastic, and keeps you guessing.

FUMBLES IN THE DARK:

More voicework would of been nice, and cut down on the large amount of reading you have to do.

VERDICT:

A great story focused adventure, that really gets nothing wrong, and a lot right.

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A D A M ' S V E N T U R E . E P I S O D E ďż˝ : R E V E L AT I O N S

REVIEW

Adam's Venture

Episode 3: Revelations Genre: adventure Developer: Vertigo Digital Entertainment Publisher: Iceberg Interactive Release date: March 9, 2012 Platforms: Windows Cloud (OnLive) Website: http://www.adams-venture.com/

Review by Nick Burgener The third and final episode in the Adam's Venture trilogy, Revelations, brings closure to Adam's quest of uncovering the secret of the Garden of Eden and putting a stop to the Clairvaux Corporation's evil schemes.

Left for dead in the crumbling tomb of King Solomon, Adam loses consciousness and experiences a flashback of how he met his partner, Evelyn, and how they came to be involved with the Clairvaux Corporation.

When he comes to, he feels reinvigorated in his promise to protect Evelyn, and sets out to rescue her from the clutches of the Clairvaux leader.

T he ma jority of Revelations takes place during the flashback, as Adam explores the hidden depths of the University of Oxford, the French town of Luz , and a Templar mausoleum. While the flashback offers some backstory to the game's premise, it doesn't offer much newfound depth to any of the characters. Interactions with Evelyn, Adam's father, and Professor Saint-Omair scarcely go beyond the mechanical necessities

30 ďż˝

of what needs to be said or done to advance to the next puzzle or location. Learning how Adam met Evelyn doesn't prove to be all that interesting because their depictions remain as f lat and shallow as cardboard cutouts.

Once the flashback has concluded, the rest of the game is over with so quickly that it leaves the entire experience feeling abrupt and underwhelming. After regaining consciousness, you watch a few cutscenes while solving the same two puzzles over and over again, and follow extremely linear paths to the next cutscene or puzzle. At one point the villain just flat-out tells you his evil plan in a matter of just a few sentences. Nothing in

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this episode really builds towards this big revelation – it just comes out of nowhere for one fleeting moment, so it feels cursory and unsatisfying. To top things off, once you solve the final puzzle, the game's practically over with no real resolution to everything that has happened.

The puzzles, meanwhile, feel too detached from everything else.

Most of the time you're staring at a close-up view of some abstract interface with an entirely selfcontained logic puzzle, typically

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t h e k i n d w h e re yo u h ave t o deduce some type of pattern on a grid for some ultimate effect.

These puzzles can be somewhat satisfying within their own rights, but they just don't integrate with the flow of the gameplay. You could completely remove them from the context of the game and they'd make as much sense without it, because they're not tied to the environment (or even the story) in any significant way. It's kind of like exploring a cave and then having to solve a Rubik's Cube to advance.

They just feel obligatorily mashed into the game.

To make matters worse, many of these puzzles get repeated ad nauseam. During the flashback, one puzzle gets repeated five times, and another gets repeated three times. Once you're back in the present, reawakening in Solomon's tomb, two different puzzles are repeated three times, each. They don't seem to be designed with i n c rea s i n g t i e r s o f d i f f i c u l t y, expanding and becoming more complex with each rendition; they just seem to be the exact same puzzle, but with a slightly different solution. It was so tedious to me that I immediately consulted a walkthrough for later renditions of certain puzzles, because I just did not care to do them over again.

When the puzzles aren't coming off as random, abstract challenges, they feel really contrived. You're tasked with getting a book from a library, but the door is locked; instead of going back and asking for a key, you have to solve a series of obscure puzzles to open it. You're driving through France, and your path gets blocked by a

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A D V E N T U R E R ' S R AV I N E broken-down automobile; instead of just pushing it out of the way, you have to solve a puzzle to get it working again. Someone tasks you with getting a delivery package up onto his roof, and instead of

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him having a practical elevator system, it's the most complicated and inconvenient thing ever. These puzzles are awkwardly forced into the game and don't always feel natural, so it's pretty exasperating at times.

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Some of the puzzles can be pretty frustrating, too. In some cases, the directions are vague and unclear, so it becomes a two-step process of first figuring out what you're even supposed to be trying to accomplish, and then figuring out the specific solution. It's too easy to feel stuck relying on brute force trial-and-error to deduce the game's intended logic, because it doesn't always provide feedback for why your intended solution didn't work.

There's one area in particular that's intentionally cryptic; it drops several dead-end, unsolvable "puzzles" solely to distract you from the actual puzzle, which is discreetly hidden in a separate screen. If you're not fortunate enough to stumble into that screen, you can be left totally clueless about how to proceed.

Besides the puzzles and the dialogue cutscenes, you spend the

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rest of the game navigating Adam through dangerous environments by jumping, climbing, and crawling around obstacles. With the game's emphasis on non-violent gameplay and being accessible to all audiences, these platforming sequences are pretty easy-going.

Most of the time there's an invisible barrier preventing Adam from falling to his death, which makes the platforming a simple matter of pressing the jump or crouch key in the appropriate hot spots. Although not very challenging, these actions provide a nice opportunity to feel more tangibly involved with the environment and to lend you a feeling of greater control over your character.

U n fo r t u n a t e l y, t h i s e p i s o d e doesn't allow you to explore, which is a missed opportunity to immerse yourself further in the character, setting, and environments. You visit a lot of really interesting locations in the f lashback , al l beautifully rendered with exquisite detail, but it's a little harder to feel part of these environments when you're always stuck on linear paths that only exist to lead you to the next puzzle. You just mindlessly

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go forward, instead of getting to actually explore these wonderful locations. Furthermore, all of the game's best puzzles leave you in full control of Adam, moving about and performing different actions, so it would've been nice to have more puzzles emphasizing movement and exploration.

Revelations presents several interesting locations, maintains a good atmosphere throughout the entire game, and also provides a nice hands-on approach to the gameplay – all of which is held

back by tedious puzzle designs and a lackluster story. As the final episode in the trilogy, it almost feels like it was rushed, ending too quickly without any development in the plot or even a worthwhile resolution to the story. Rather than being a strong, climactic finale to the series, Revelations just kind of peters out at the end. It's not a bad game by any means, but the overall experience feels a little too shallow, repetitive, and underwhelming to recommend unless you're dying to know how the series ends.

BRIGHT MOMENTS:

Great graphics and interesting locations with a nice hands-on feel to gameplay.

FUMBLES IN THE DARK:

Shallow, repetitive puz zles and a lack of proper stor y development or resolution.

VERDICT:

A pretty underwhelming finale that's perhaps only worth playing if you need closure to the series.

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THE WALKING DEAD. EPISODE �: STARVED FOR HELP

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The Walking Dead Episode 2: Starved for Help Genre: adventure, action, role-playing Developer: Telltale Games Publisher: Telltale Games Release date: June, 2012 Platforms: iOS, Mac OS X, Windows, PS3, Xbox 360 Website: http://www.telltalegames.com/walkingdead

Review by Nick Burgener Much like its source material, The Walking Dead. Episode Two: Starved for Help is less about zombies and more about human relations in the wake of an inhuman apocalypse. Set three months after the conclusion of Episode One: A New Day, Lee Everett and his band of survivors have taken up residence in the Travalier Motel. With the walls barricaded, they seem set to survive until things blow over – until they start running low on food. Forced to hunt the local wildlife, tensions mount on how to ration their remaining food supplies and whether or not to set out for a new location. As the group becomes more restless and malcontent with their situation, they meet a pair of brothers who own a dairy farm, and offer to trade gasoline for food.

The rest of Episode Two plays out like a suspense thriller as you try to gauge whether the St John family is trustworthy, and whether their farm (with its gasoline-powered electric fence) is really as safe from the zombies (and bandit raiders) as they claim it is. On the walk

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to their farm, the brothers ask oddly specific questions about your group, and once you arrive at the farm, they're rather selective of where you're allowed to roam. Are the St Johns up to no good, or are they just being overly cautious around a large group of heavily-armed strangers?

Besides trying to assess the potential for new living arrangements with the St Johns, with your group desperate for food and a safer shelter, you also have to contend with occasional zombie encounters as well

as the mutual threat of bandit raiders. Human conflict takes center stage in this episode w i t h e ve n m o re t e n s i o n dividing the group. All of your decisions from the previous episode carry over into this episode, meaning that characters will hold different opinions of you based on your prior actions within t h e g r o u p, a n d these tempered relationships get pushed to their limits in some of m o st te n s e a n d dramatic moments the series has offered thus far.

The story makes a few twists along the way to keep things i nte re st i n g . E ve n though I had a feeling right from the beginning ADVENTURE LANTERN

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THE WALKING DEAD. EPISODE �: STARVED FOR HELP

where everything would go, which ultimately proved pretty close to being correct, I was pleased with how subtle the build-up was. There was a lot of room for different interpretations as I went along, which kept me thinking hard about what I was choosing to do.

A few unknown variables got thrown into the mix, one of which almost pulled a bait and switch and had me second-guessing my prediction of the plot.

Several new characters are introduced, including a few new group members. The most prominent new face is M ark , whom Lee and company rescued from a nearby air force base. The food he supplied from the air force commissary is what the group has been getting by on, but it's starting

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to run out. I was kind of annoyed at how they introduced a new main character completely off screen.

The first few minutes of dialogue in the woods, as Lee and Mark hunt for food, suffice to fill in the gaps of what happened in the three month interim between episodes. But it's clearly just there to tell the audience how the characters and situation have developed, rather than letting you see, feel, and experience it for yourself. It's not a big deal, but it stood out as the weakest moment in the story-telling – everything else was engaging.

Gameplay-wise, Episode Two plays identically to Episode One: you move around the screen with the WASD keys and you click with the mouse to use or observe things in the environment. During more action-heavy sequences, the game uses quasi quick-time events to let you perform more cinematic actions. Like Episode One, these quick-time events are very wellimplemented, because your input controls almost always reflect the actions your character is performing.

You're usually clicking on plausible spaces of the screen to interact with things, or using movement keys to move at a one-to-one ratio. It does a pretty good job of making you feel part of the action, even though you're basically only clicking to advance a cutscene.

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With Episode Two's greater emphasis on its story, there's a m i n o r fe e l i n g o f l e s s interactivity. Compared to the previous episode, it feels like there are fewer o p p o r t u n i t i e s w h e re you're really in control of Lee, because you're often just watching cinematic cutscenes, occasionally selecting something from a list of options. There are even fewer puzzles this time around, so most of your actions end up being relegated purely to

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dialogue or story decisions, with more direct actions being e nt i re l y s t ra i g ht fo r wa rd and devoid of satisfying problem-solving.

Starved For Help ultimately feels more like you're watching an interactive movie than playing a video game. Some people may be turned off by this, but for what it is, this episode manages to be engaging and engrossing despite its relative lack of interactivity. It feels kind of like watching an episode of the Wa l k i n g D e a d television series, except with better pacing, more interesting plotlines, and a greater feeling of impact because there is, in fact , interactivity.

There are moments when I feel they could've done a better job of leaving you more in control of Lee, but it never took me out of the experience.

A large part of what makes Episode Two so engaging is

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the fact that your decisions feel so much more grave than they were in Episode One, and even those decisions felt pretty grave at the time. In retrospect, a lot of your decisions in Episode One were sort of arbitrary; Do you side with this person or that person in an argument? Do you save this person or that person when they're both about to die? There was a lot of weight to your decisions because people often lived and died by your actions. This is still true of Episode Two, but this time the options appear far less clear-cut and give the implication of far deeper consequences.

One of the first decisions you have to make in the game is whether to rescue someone caught in a bear trap when you already have too many hungry mouths to feed. In any other game I would've been on the spot trying to disarm t h at t ra p, b u t i n t h i s g a m e I found myself hesitating, actually considering leaving him there to die just because I didn't think we could afford taking even more people under our roof. Once the zombies showed, I started panicking and decided I would try to rescue him.

The game immediately suggested I'd have to chop his leg off, but I wasted so much time trying every other option that, by the time I'd made it halfway through his leg, ADVENTURE LANTERN

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THE WALKING DEAD. EPISODE �: STARVED FOR HELP

we were overrun and had to flee.

I left him there to be eaten by zombies after putting him through excruciating pain.

In the aftermath, I found myself feeling extremely guilty about what I'd done. I hadn't been able to save him, and I made his death even worse. I wondered what I could've done differently, if maybe I'd been quicker or tried something else, and if it was even possible to save him at all. Then part of me thought that maybe it was for the best, since we couldn't afford to feed one extra person, anyway.

This decision weighed on my chest so much more than any previous d e c i s i o n I ' d m a d e w i t h ot h e r characters' lives, because there was so much more involved than just making one arbitrary click of a button.

Other situations are far less graphic, but carry equally serious consequences. Rather than just being decisions about whose life to save, or whose side to take in an argument, your decisions are inf l uenced m o re by wh at kind of example you want to set for Clementine, your «adopted

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daughter,» and how far you'd be willing to go in order to survive.

When you have to dole out four pieces of food to ten hungry people, how do you decide who gets what?

When you find a deserted car loaded with food, do you take it for yourself, even though it's possible the owner is still alive searching for gas? Do you try to be as open and helpful as possible with the St Johns, or keep your distance and lie about yourself?

When it comes to these kinds of decisions, there's even more railroading than in the first

episode. If you replay the game, it becomes evident that, in many cases, the same net result will occur regardless of which decision you make. There are times when

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A D V E N T U R E R ' S R AV I N E you're outright forced into doing something when the game gives you the clear choice not to, and none of your decisions have quite as much of an impact on the gameplay as, for example, the decision of saving Carley or Doug from the previous episode. None of this is really apparent when you're playing for the first time, however, because this episode is much better at masking the apparent outcomes of your decisions. No choice is easy to make, and there's rarely ever a right answer.

Finally, one of the best aspects of Episode Two is that it had me rethinking the way I was roleplaying Lee. In the first episode, I thought I had it all figured out in terms of which characters I wanted to support and how I was going to handle myself. Things become more complicated in Episode Two, and I found myself going against my previous affiliations because of the compassion I held for certain characters in certain situations.

Everyone's characterizations become deeper and more nuanced in this episode, including my own character. I had intended to play as a good guy, and watched as I unwittingly turned into a coldhearted survivalist . My own change of character ( perhaps a consequence of necessity) was one of the most dramatic elements

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of the game, making the entire experience far more tragic and poignant.

M i n o r te c h n i c a l i ss u e s s t i l l present themselves this time around. I ran into problems with cutscenes freezing in place for the odd, sporadic moment, much like they did in the first episode. I also had an unusual glitch where I was having a brawl with someone

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and watched the cutscene as I successful ly fended them off, then for some inexplicable reason, the game told me I had died and had me restart the fight. Other t h a n o cc a s i o n a l m o u s e c l i c k s not registering when I wanted to o b s e r ve s o m e t h i n g i n t h e environment , thus requiring a second click, I didn't run into any other problems, and these weren't ADVENTURE LANTERN

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THE WALKING DEAD. EPISODE ďż˝: STARVED FOR HELP

significant enough to hinder the experience.

One nice improvement Telltale have made with the game's interface is that they've now separated the story hints (which tell you exactly how your actions have affected things for the immediate moment) and the item hints (which show icons for all of the things you could interact with on screen). Previously, it was either both or none. When I played the first episode I remember wanting to see the item hints, just to save me time hunting around looking for things to interact with, but I wanted to turn the story hints off for greater immersion, so it's nice that they've now made the option to enable them separately.

And they've now added proper mouse and keyboard descriptions in the controls menu.

On the whole, Starved For Help is a definite improvement upon the first game. The writing is better, the story is more engaging, the character relations are deeper, and your decisions are even more grave. It explores the darker side of humanity that the comic series is known for; It stays very close to its source material. I wish there was

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some way to make the game even more interactive while retaining its cinematic feel; While not a big issue in practice, it's something to hope for in later episodes. Whether

you're a fan of The Walking Dead or not, anyone who enjoys a good story with serious player decisions should find plenty to enjoy with Episode Two.

BRIGHT MOMENTS:

The story is rather gripping, offering some really dramatic moments and player decisions.

FUMBLES IN THE DARK:

There are practically zero puzzles and not a whole lot of actual gameplay.

VERDICT:

Episode Two improves on each of the series' strengths. If you liked Episode One, you'll love this one.

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July 2012

Owner/Executive Editor: Ugur Sener Other Editor(s): Jonathon Wisnoski Reviews by: Nick Burgener Jonathon Wisnoski News by: Jonathon Wisnoski Layout/Design/Assembly: Constantin Starodub Jonathon Wisnoski

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