By Ilmari
Last time Atahualpa was caught sneaking to beat some conquistadors by his papa, Eldorado. The conquistadors were still pissed and started an all out attack.
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| The WWI flying ace is also here |
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| Papa don’t preach |
So, the goggle guy took his fighter and Eldorado took my ship and they left me waiting in the main ship. With nothing else to do, I tried to access the ship controls.
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| Caught red-handed |
The Han Solo wannabe wasn’t angry, although I was meddling with his ship and had even disarmed all the alarms, but he also asked me to be careful with his precious cargo. I still couldn’t help in the fight since the gun turret were broken and some joints were frozen.
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| Even the control lever is not doing anything |
Checking more of Kelt Cartier’s ship, I entered the cargo bay. I found some crates, a conspicuous hose and near it, a crowbar. Time to check what the old smuggler is carrying.
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| Souvenirs from Space Russia |
What do you do with a bottle of vodka – or indeed, any liquid – in an adventure game? Pour it in every orifice you find.
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| I guess the vodka is melting the ice in the joints? Or then the ship flies with ethanol |
With booze in the engines, the control lever started to heat up, and soon the guns were operational. Time for another battle sequence.
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| I hit something! |
I was doing surprisingly fine, until one fighter hit me and it was death for Atahualpa.
It wasn’t game over for me yet, but just part of the plot. My controls switched to Eldorado, who vowed to avenge the death of his son.
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| And I have to save this clown |
Mr. Cartier’s fighter was afloat in space. This was evidently the time I had to use the grapnel to save him.
These old interactive movies were clearly made for people with the attention span of the Tiktok generation. It’s just a few minutes of clicking things on things and then a cutscene and then another small bit to click more things… This time, I had to play a cartographer.
And then it’s instantly time for a new cutscene!
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| I think there’s a more definite name for that occupation |
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| You couldn’t place a few puzzles here? |
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| Just to show you some of the advertised breathtaking landscapes |
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| And here’s the astronomer |
My next task was to use antennas to triangulate the position of the conquistador asteroid.
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| Why didn’t the professional star-person do this task? |
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| You took the words right out of my mouth |
Somehow [insert you favourite string of pseudoscience technobabble here], the triangulation process allowed Yuna to determine that the asteroid was in a rapid evolution phase during which it stored an enormous amount of energy that the Spanish could use to do something evil (wonky physics is wonky). To destroy the death st… asteroid I had to lay down three great sources of energy on three planets.
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| Whatever you say, bootlegger |
Apparently it would take two weeks for the computer to calculate which planets I had to choose. In the meantime, I was supposed to get my ship here with a locomotive.
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| Lucky these rails go near my ship |
As was to be expected, the train controls were not working. Same was true of the tower, apparently filled with train fuel, since its pulley was completely frozen. Checking my surroundings, I found a crowbar lying on the ground and a lubricator with some oil in the train. The oil was obviously useful for moving the pulley and releasing some fuel in the train, while the crowbar allowed me to free the main lever of the controls. Few clicks away I was ready to rumble.
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And it’s time for another action scene!
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It took me just two tries to get through this sequence, and I could have done it the first time, if I had just read the manual. The trick was to look at where the bright red-coloured spot on the radar was (front, back, left or right) and go to the corresponding part of the train and press the shoot button like hell. If I managed to do that and the clock reached zero, before the train shields were completely down, I passed.
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| Success! |
This seems like a suitable place to stop. I really have to say the game seems to go by really fast. So far, neither the adventure nor the action scenes have been that challenging, which is a delightful change from the first game.
Session time: 1 h
Total time: 2 h
I barely remember anything from this post, that map puzzle rings a bell, but it has been at least 3 decades since I played it. I still think it's a fine game.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if we could also add to the analysis/reviews the price the games were sold when they were released. At least on a known market like USA. A game score and appreciation should also be affected by price, imagine having to pick between a couple of AAA games back then (Monkey Island 2 for example), and having another adventure like Amazon guardians of eden with similar price.
That is something that happened a lot, having friends with really good games, and you were the one playing this unknown games like Inca 1.
To be fair, around 99% of our games were pirated, and the situation havent improved in the last 30 years, but still
I guess the vodka is melting the ice in the joints?
ReplyDeleteThat could work; alcohol has a lower freezing temperature than water. Although really you'd want alcohol as pure as possible and not a 40-50% solution in water as vodka is likely to be... but hey, adventure game logic. (I've used isopropyl alcohol to melt ice off my car windows.)
I've added isopropol alcohol to the windshield washer reservoir in particularly cold winters. And, just once, gin. It worked though the juniper oils left the windshield streaky.
DeleteIt made for a VERY NERVOUS traffic stop for a bad tail light.
If it was a self-driving car, could it have been issued a drunk driving ticket?
DeleteSo, Atahualpa is shoved out of the council, steals a spaceship, provokes a war, generally makes a big mess of things, and then straight up dies?
ReplyDeleteIs he the most useless adventure game protagonist ever or what?
Is this a place for a new award, perhaps?
DeleteWell without him we wouldn't have a plot, so he's got that going for him.
DeleteIn Atahualpa's defense, he shouldn't have been on the council to begin with since he's just passed the test of manhood. He's really too young for the role he's been placed in. On the other token, Aguirre is clearly plotting an attack, and Atahualpa's actions forced his hand before his plan was put into place. So, no, not really, despite some negative effects, his actions have overall worked to the benefit of the plot.
DeleteI just checked out some of the gameplay on YouTube and I was not expecting the voice acting to be... like THAT.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the voice acting does not fit at all with...anyone outside of Kelt. Eldorado gets hit the hardest, since it's clear nobody there had an idea as to how he should be reacting to his son getting killed, but at least whenever he's just telling us what he has to do it makes sense for the lifeless performance the voice director was getting out of him.
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