Heart of China - Final Rating

Before I begin with the rating work, I'd like to say that my investigative work has proven that.. well, there wasn't actually a lot more to Heart of China. What they managed to put together at Dynamix was, pun not intended, a dynamic interactive movie. Reading the manual the first time, I more or less thought that they were trying to put together a game that had so many gameplay elements it might as well have shot for the stars.. and included some intergalactic travel while they were there. And sure enough, they did. What happened as a result of this is they put together something far too grandiose and couldn't follow through properly, so the only real 'gameplay changes' are of the 'go back and try again' variety, for the most part. Taking one path over another makes no particular difference, though it does seem as though the path I took was the only one that gave the 'best ending', with the rest all taking too long to have Eugene Lomax be willing to pay the full amount and as such not giving the 'Chi survived actually!' end. They clearly put heaps and heaps of work in, though, and this is shown nowhere better than the auxiliary supplements that come with the game.

They also give a clue as to what Almira, the 'crazy plant lady', is actually up to

EcoQuest - Seaweed and Oracle

Written by Reiko

Adam Greene Journal #2: "I thought I'd never see Delphineus again after I opened the gate, but he's back and now I get to help him with his quest! His city is SO COOL! But it's all full of garbage and oil that people have dumped. I've cleaned up some of it, but there's only so much I can do by myself. I also got to meet the Oracle, who told me a prophecy of a boy who's going to save the kingdom. Is that me? Either way, I'm gonna try!"

Days later, Adam is hanging out in the pool room again when Delphineus shows up again! He says things are worse and King Cetus is still missing. He wishes Adam could see his city, so Adam pluckily volunteers to join Delphineus.

Good thing we've got great diving equipment, then!

Missed Classic 26: Mewilo (1987) - Introduction

By Ilmari

The name “Muriel Tramis” might not ring any bells with you, but when you hear that she is the creator of the dreaded Emmanuelle, you might get a certain impression of the quality of her games. Thus, it might come as a surprise that one of her earlier games, Mewilo, won some sort of award (la médaille d’Argent de la ville de Paris or the Silver medallion of the city of Paris. Since I will play Fascination, another game by Muriel Tramis, in the future, I wanted to have a more balanced view of her earlier games, beginning with Mewilo, which was also her first game according to Mobygames.

Game 73: Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective - Introduction (1991)

Written by Joe Pranevich

The butler did it! (Again.)

I think it’s become something of a joke how excited I get when I’m about to start a game, but I am excited! I’m not sure that I’m about to play a fantastic game, but I am sure that I am about to play an influential one. Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective will be the first adventure that we’ve played that is firmly on the CD-ROM and “full-motion video” bandwagon. Other games have included a bit of video here or there or audio narration (although the latter often enough only in a subsequent update of the game), but this one is-- I believe-- video from end to end. I only know this from brief research, but we’ll be finding out soon enough.

ICOM Simulations, the game designer, has a history of making influential (but not necessarily good) adventure games and we’ve already played four: Déjà Vu (1985), Uninvited (1986), Shadowgate (1987), and Deja Vu II (1988). The clearest way to see how industry-leading these games were is to look at their numbers: Déjà Vu and Uninvited are games 4 and 9 on our blog, respectively. Will this one live up to those legacies? Or will this be a speedbump on the way to the 7th Guest (1993) and the CD-ROM adventures yet to come? I have no idea! I honestly had never heard of this game before volunteering to play it.

This is what I do know: this is a game, based on a gamebook, based on a fictional detective, and created by an influential game development house. It’s probably going to be a long introduction...

Heart of China - WON!

Written by Aperama

Heart of China is finally over! Well, I say finally – it feels like it only just started. It's pretty fair to say that I do feel a little bit like I was expecting more – but at the same time, the rather obscenely short playtime really allows the little things to stand out, good and bad. I imagine that if this were a game I'd put real money into, I might have replayed the silly tank minigame or the fight at the end a little more, perhaps? But I won't waste any more time with these thoughts. There's heaps for me to get through (not enough for two posts but almost too much for one) so straight to it!