Inventory 21 - January 2005

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

1/32

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

2/32

Contents:

Prologue 1

Previews 2The Legend of Crystal Valley 2

Gossip 4

Adventure Comics 6The Legend of Crystal Valley 6 Tony Tough Stories 8

Lounge 9

Frogwares 9

Reviews 17

Clever & Smart 17 Dark Side of the Moon 22

Extra 26

Bits And Bytes 26 Invento-mail 28

Epilogue 29

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

3/32

First of all I would like to talk about the co-opera-tion between The Inventory and the leadinggaming site of Portugal, PTgamers . TheInventory and PTGamers agreed in January to

work together so that adventure games receive better promotion in Portugal. We will achieve that by sharingcontents with PTGamers. Sometimes they will publisharticles from The Inventory in Portuguese on their site andsometimes we will publish adventure-related articles fromtheir site in The Inventory, translated in English of course.

Now lets move on to the contents of this issue. Weare revealing yet another new adventure game for thefirst time through the pages of The Inventory. The nameof the game is The Legend of The Crystal Valley and youcan learn all about it in our exclusive preview. We alsofeature a fantastic 2-page comic based on the game, pro-vided to us by Razbor Studios. We are proud to also fea-ture one more comic based on an adventure game. TonyTough makes us smile in one more of this stories, createdby Pippo from www.adventure-corner.de

Frogwares, the developers of Sherlock Holmes:

Case of the Silver Earring are talking about their upco-ming titles in our Lounge. Head over there if you want tolearn about their 3D bet (and also prepare to be surprisedby the graphics quality of the first screenshots fromAround the World in 80 Days).

Oliver Gruener is giving us his take on the Germanversion of Clever and Smart in the reviews section. Didthis funny duo make Oliver happy? Find out on page 17.Ben Keeney tells us why is Dark Side of the Moon one of the most underrated adventures ever. Oliver again writes

everything you need to know about RAM in his Bits andBytes article.Well that is all until next month, when we have

even more surprises for you our dear adventure fans.Now lets see who Eve is and what is she doing in CrystalValley.

Dimitris M anos

CreditsEditor:Dimitris ManosAuthors/Contributors:Ben KeeneyDimitris ManosOliver Gruener

Hosts:www.theinventory.orgwww.justadventure.comLayout:Dimitris ManosCover Art:The Legend of Crystal Valley

Contact InformationAddress:The Inventory MagazineGrankottevgen 55 Arebro 702 82SwedenE-mail address:[email protected]

[email protected] No:+46702053444

Other EditionsFrench:http://www.planete-aventure.netItalian:http://www.adventuresplanet.it/Russian:

www.questzone.ruKorean:www.postadventure.com

Copyright Note:The Inventory is copyright Dimitris Manos andmay not be reprinted elsewhere without theexpress written consent of the owner. If anyone

sees The Inventory or portions of The Inventoryposted someplace without express written con-sent, then please contact us at:[email protected]

Prologue

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

4/32

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

5/32

Legend of the Crystal Valley

3January 2005

being hunted by some other evil splanches and Evehelps him get away. Now, together with Splanch shewill explore the mysterious world outside of the cave.Eve will realize that this new world has many differen-ces to our own. There are strange creatures around,animals can talk and some people can use magicwhile there are even mechanical creatures! Eve hasno clue what is going on but her search for her father must go on.

The features of Legacy that most playerswere not satisfied with were mainly the poor anima-tion and the amatuerish voice-overs. Although it is notabsolutely confirmed yet, our sources said that thistime there will be professional actors hired for thegames purposes. As far as the graphics are concer-ned, Razbor is incorporating some new features such

as bones blend animation, vertex blend animation,particle system based on point sprite, use of HLSLShaders, Bump/Specular mapping, dynamic lighting,Emotion/Lipsync engine and Stencil shadows. Thedevelopers will also take great care so that the back-grounds dont look static by incorporating weather effects with real shading (rain, snow, smoke, dynamicsky etc). Animals will be very animated as well(birds/butterflies will fly around and fish will swim onthe background while you go on playing).

Gameplay was something that Razbor Studios got right with their first shot! Nevertheless,they will try to make it even better in TLOCV. Thegame will feature over 80 challenges and if some of them are hard, no need to worry, cause in TLOCVyou will have access to a full hint system. As far asthe interface is concerned, the developers promisethat it will be a simple and intuitive point and clickinterface, just like Legacys (which won our BestInterface award for the year 2004).

Well, if Razbor manages to improve on their games animation and voice-overs, we are in for atreat. If you enjoy stories like The Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland or games like The LongestJourney this is a game to keep your eye on. Makesure to read the excellent 2-page comic strip basedon the game that was provided to us by Razbor Studios, in order to get a feeling of the games story.We will have more news on The Legend of CrystalValley as the development proceeds. Finally, wewould like to thank Razbor Studios for choosing The

Inventory to reveal their upcoming title to the public.- Dimitris Manos

PREVIEWS

Her fathers farm seems deserted

Razbor promises much better animation in TLOTCV than inLegacy: Dark Shadows

Parents always advice their children not to play withknives, but children never listen

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

6/32

GOSSIP

4 January 2005

Jerry Orbach, the famous actor who has starred in all the Law and Order adventuresreleased so far, passed away on the 28th of December 2004 at the age of 69. Thecause of his death was prostate cancer.Jerry Orbach will stay in our memories as one of the most noteworthy actors to havelent his voice to an adventure game character. Although some well known actors oftenlook down on adventure games and give mediocre performances cause they just dontcare that much, Jerry Orbach gave his best at every line he worked on.He was born on the 20th of October 1935 in New York. His film debute was Cop Hater, acting the roleSanchez, a street gang leader. Later on he worked for several TV series and movies, with his performaDetective Lennie Briscoe in the Law & Order TV series being the most popular ones. Jerry Orbach wilmissed by adventure and TV fans alike. May he rest in peace.

Source: www.imdb.com

Jerry O rbach p assed a way

Star H erritage T railerThe Step Creative Group, released a trailer for their upcoming 1st person adventure Star Heritage. Tolearn more about Star Heritage read the preview inour 20th issue. It has to be noted that although thetrailer runs in 320x200 resolution (for size issues) thefinal game will run in resolutions as high as 1024x768.The trailer is 30 MB big and it is available atwww.stepgames.ru/Trailer/Trailer_SH.mpg

Still Life o nline g amesMicroids and MC2 have developed a number of webbased mystery games for the fans of their upcomingmurder mystery adventure game: Still Life. Startingsometime in February, on the game's official website ,you can slip into the role of FBI agent VictoriaMcPherson -the game's heroine- and solve numerousweb based mysteries before the game is published.Still Life will be in stores on April 14th.

Source: www.krawall.de

Lucasarts s topped t alking,now it is u p t o P urcellWolfgang Kierdorf, CEO of Bad Brain Entertainment, announ-ced recently that the negotiations with Lucasarts for the Samand Max 2 rights hit rock bottom. This is what Wolfgang had tosay about the negotiations:

It was so degrading! We tried everything to bring you the game you all wanted. But it seems all hope has gone. They

broke of negotiations. But you truly have to believe that it wasn't our fault and it sure wasn't the money. We just don't know and they don't tell. But we don't give up that easy. There is still a glimpse of hope and Steve Purcell is the one who isin charge now. We are talking ... and we are hoping ... again. Here is what you can do: tell Steve P. to give usSam & Max and we, at bad brain promise you the best and boldest Sam & Max 3D Point&Click-Adventure ever.Support us and we will give you what you want! Enough said. I have to go and have a drink now. Kids: don't dothis at home!

Wolfgang Kierdorf opened a thread at the Bad Brain forum where you can tell Steve Purcell howyoud like to see a sequel to Sam and Max 2. Unfortunately a foreign adventure site spred rumours oveInternet that Wolfgang Kierdorf told them on the phone that he had acquired the rights of Sam and Mahing that Wolfgang Kierdorf denied later on. The misconduct of the foreign site, forced Bad Brain Entechange their PR strategies and from now on all official news about Sam and Max 2 will be released thrBrains pressroom. Visit the thread for Steve Purcellhere.

Apprentice Deluxe

Herculean Effort, the developers behind theApprentice (winner of our Best Indie Runner-UpAward), announced that they will be releasing aDeluxe version of The Apprentice 1, with impro

ved music, tweaked graphics and full voice(!).The Deluxe Version will be available within amonth. Find out more at the official website:

http://herculeaneffort.adventuredevelopers.com

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

7/32

5January 2005

Razbor Studios, released a demo for their 3rd personpoint and click adventure Legacy: Dark Shadows. Youcan download the 120 MB demo at the following link:http://razbor.gamer.hr/LegacyDemo.zipand you can read the games review in the 18th issueof The Inventory.

Legacy d emo The Italian InventoryThe Italian version of The

Inventory returns from a differenthost this time. The website

www.adventuresplanet.itwill bringour Italian fans adventure news in

their native language. So if you speak Italian headover there and check out the news in your own lan-guage. Big thank you goes to the editor of the siteCarlo de Caesaris and the Italian translation team.

The Awards booklet is already available.

Well, not exactly... but as mentio-ned in the prologue, since thisJanuary, we are cooperating withthe biggest Portuguese websitefor games, PTGamers, that you

can visit atwww.ptgamers.com. PTGamers and TheInventory will proceed in joint interviews (such as theinterview with Frogwares this month) and articlesexchange. Big thanks to Bruno Fonseca for his help,and to the staff and readers of PTGamers for their warm welcome. We were surprised that many of their forum visitors already knew of The Inventory!

The Inventory g oes t oPortugal!

GOSSIP

Announcements and Opportunities:

The Inventory has helped lots of developers already toget in touch with publishers so that their titles willreach as many adventurers as possible. In the long listof publishers that co-operate with us, we now addeven one more. The name of the publisher is Helltechand they publish games in Greece and Germany. If you are interested, send us a mail at:[email protected] we will bring you in touch with them.

Looking f or p ublishers?We want to open a PR department for the magazine andwe are looking for people that will create advertiseme

deals for us and that will build new relationships widevelopers & publishers inside the adventure industry an

with members of the press (both adventure and non-adventure related). Good skills in English is a must. P

experience is an advantage but not a requirement. Salaryto be given in form of commission. More than one posit

available. Apply by sending an email to:[email protected]

We n eed P R Staff

Cooperation w ith T he Inventory?As you see, we are interested in all sorts of cooperation endeavours. There are a lot of magazines and npers out there whose focus is computer games, story-telling mediums (movies, books etc) or technologters, graphics etc). It would be possible to co-operate with any magazine, newspaper or website that cothe above subjects, wherever it might be published around the world. Cooperation methods could inclu

the PDF magazine, printing it out and including it in a bundle offer with a magazine or a newspaper, msome articles exchange or whatever else possible. One thing is for sure, only the sky is the limit! [email protected]

The Inventory in H ellas The Inventory made several bre-

akthroughs in Hellas (and no thename is not Greece) this month.The biggest PC gaming magazi-ne, calledPC-master,featured a4-page interview with the editor of The Inventory. Wwould like to thank Andreas Tsourinakis for the nic

gesture and the kind comments in his article. We alsoagreed with the Hellenicwww.adventure-advocate.gr

website that we will proceed in some co-operative features once the site relaunches in February.

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

8/32

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

9/32

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

10/32

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

11/32

Frogwares

9January 2005

Around the World in 80 Days

- How similar will the game's story be to JulesVerne's novel?

We wanted to have a game exploring Jules Verne uni-verse while doing a fantastic adventure. Some key ele-ments are to be found in it: the travel, the power of sci-ence, the imperfect human nature. Ingredients to manyJules Verne successful novels. The book "Around theworld in 80 days" is a very well known adventure,human creations (boat, train, and more generallyhuman social organization) are used to fulfil one of theoldest human dreams: to travel around (with all the pos-sible meaning this word can have) the world. JulesVerne uses realistic 1872 transportation means to per-form this particular trip.

It was very important for us, as we did with"Journey to the centre of the Earth", to show a worldnot far from ours, slightly parallel, where Jules Vernesphilosophy could take place, where human techniquecreations goes together with slow dehumanization

(Paris at the 20th century). Human will for progress hadand has different steps, the period we now call "indust-rial revolution", was the one in which Jules Verne wrote,and at that time, the machines were incarnating humanstrength of creation, the biggest machines were built(as the titanic), the biggest monuments (Eiffel tower),and everybody was convinced of human supremacyuntil the depths of philosophy (Nietzsche).

The fall was to happen, so much vanity put intosteel and progress could only bring destruction (twonice wars ravaging the world, the first in the name of the old empires, the second in the name of superior human beings). The link with Verne doesn't seem

obvious at a first glance but he clearly presaged thosetechniques evolution were going together with lessrespect for the human kind as well as suspicion for artand culture.

It was interesting, when we started to conceivethe game how we could render this story as a game, anadventure one, keeping the challenging dynamism of the original story, having a fresh breathe of Jules Vernestory, and few references to his deep philosophy. We

took the decision not to incarnate Fogg himself: Fogg ia robot, an instrument of precision, he fired Passpartoupredecessor because he made a mistake in the tempe-

LOUNGE

Interview w ith

FrogwaresFrogwares has evolved in the last 3 years from a small newcomer to one of the most respected developers of adventure games. Their last adventure, Sherlock Holmes: Case of the Silver Earring was far better than their pre-vious products and won good review grades from the majority of the press. Now prepare to embark on a new Frogwares journey, this time around the world!

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

12/32

Frogwares

10 January 2005

rature of his master saving water.He believes only in technique, ashis bet is based on the ideal sche-dule of worldwide transports. Hehas no passion. Only love withAouda saved him from his completetransformation into a machine. JulesVerne describe him as a satellitedoing a rotation around the globe,watching nothing, interested in not-hing, visiting nothing, not evenspeaking. He succeeded his turnaround the globe not because of theboat and train schedule previsionbut because of deep human nature,extraordinary strong and weak atthe same time.

But today we all know this,

when at that time Verne needed todemonstrate it to break human self confidence in steam and iron. Sowe took the decision to work with ahuman character, knowing thattechnique is a tool and not an end,and anyway he'll have to adapt tothe world variety, to finish his trip ontime. The same ingredients are gat-hered, slightly in a different way.

Oliver is our hero; he fol-lows Fogg's tracks without knowingit. Oliver is sent on a bet by his old

uncle Matthew, who asks him to wina bet: coming back to London in 80days or less after visiting 4 cities:Cairo, Bombay, Yokohama, and SanFrancisco and bring back four patents of his inventor uncle.As we follow the tracks of Fogg, but27 years later (Fogg started in1872, Oliver starts in 1899) we willmeet some of the people Fogg'steam met previously. Fogg is alwayshere, as Passpartout, every citybears their remembrance. Duringhis entire trip Oliver has a flag for his position and one for Fogg posi-tion at that time.

Many of the adventureswhich arrived to the Fogg team are

used for reference in the game, buta lot of new more are added,"Around the world in 80 days" is ahuge game, bigger than an thethree previous we did all together.Going in the jungle in India, Help acircus director, burn everythingwhich could burn on a boat to finishthe race and so on We also meetmany characters present in thebook.

- Could you describe to us Oliver,

the main character, as well assome of the most interestingsecondary characters we will getto meet in the game?

Oliver is an English youngman, grew in the States and hasthis wild, fearless behaviour. He is akind of adventurer and his familywant to marry him to an unknowngirl (they used to arrange weddingbefore, strange people indeed!). Atthis very moment, his uncle Mathewpropose him to go around world andwin a bet for him, so the old mancould keep his title of Pulsativeengineer at the London's ReformClub. Oliver chooses to escapeLondon and win the bet.

Mathew is an importantcharacter, we see him at the begin-ning and at some moments in thegame, he stays in contact with hisnephew and we hear his voiceoften. Steward fix is the son of theinspector fix, he is working as aninternational detective and has avery peculiar disease called

"Foggophobia", he will hate Oliver from the very beginning and will doeverything on earth to stop our

We took the deci-sion to work wi th a

human character,k nowing tha t tech-nique is a tool and

not an end.

LOUNGE

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

13/32

Frogwares

11January 2005

hero. We will meet the GPK, theGuild for the Promotion of the Kilt,an international organization of Scottish guys, tartan lovers, sprea-ding their square pattern on theglobe surface; they'll be everywheresometimes bugging, sometimes hel-ping Oliver. Kiouni the elephant(remember the book?) will helpOliver to go through the Indian jung-le, we will meet a knives thrower, ex-passpartout girlfriend. Batulcar thecircus director, John Bunsby, thedespaired play boy son of theBunsby that fogg met. ColonelProctor, the impetuous secession

war veteran. the count Dracula,Cowboys, Sikhs, grave diggers,samurais,

- Approximately how long will thegame be? How many characterswill we meet in total and howmany locations will we get tovisit?

Are you in a hurry to finish it?There are 7 levels, four cities and 3giant means of transportation. Thecities are real cities (not one streetand two balconies), you'll have totake some transportation to movefaster into them (camel, tricycle car,cable train, etc).

Every city has around 10

main places to visit and few secon-dary (restaurant, hotel, tailor,...).Every city is like a square of 800meters for each side. We went inevery of the cities present in thegame to take a lot of photos and getinspired by the local assets.

We will soon make a reportof the comparison between gameand reality, and the way we changeit. The game will have some mainmissions and some secondary ones.Depending on the level of difficultychosen by the player, some missionswill be necessary and some othersnot. There are 100 characters in

total, very colourful and very funny,spite inspired by reality. There are 3hours of dialogs and we are workingon them hard enough so the transla-tion in English will be as funny asthe French one.

- The most groundbreaking diffe-rence to your previous titles willbe the real time 3D environment.

What led you to this decision?What are the advantages of 3Dcompared to 2D?

The story itself, Hardware evolution,and few other games like Doom 3(yes, Doom 3). The story of "Aroundthe world in 80 days" is a racearound the globe, and a race in point

and click, it's not the funniest thingyou could do. Real time 3D is provi-ding the exact immersion and dyna-mism necessary for our game. As anAddition to time, money and tired-ness management was just a logicalfollowing to add the feeling of a realtime story.

Hardware evolution played agreat part, between 97 and 2002 thedifference in performances of stan-dard computer changed terribly, asthe players in the adventure genreare usually not keen on computer investment (70% of women and acti-ve for most of them, they have other

things to do that buying computer spare parts), we had to makegames, with 3 years old standard,which were pretty low.

But since 2001 the differen-ces in hardware decrease, especial-ly concerning the video cards. 3Dbecomes possible for our target, sowe thought we could do it. I playedDoom 2 ten years ago, I went to LA

at E3 in 2002 and saw the Doom 3presentation, played some demo in2003, the game was released in2004, but I was disappointed. Thegameplay of 1995 which was per-fect, wasn't good enough for todaystandards, even Far Cry was moreinteresting (sigh), even Half Life 2with this deaf dumb blind hero (eve-rybody congratulates Gordon like

LOUNGE

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

14/32

Frogwares

12 January 2005

god from the beginning to the end,and he doesn't say a word of thewhole game), was more interesting.Gameplay didn't change while play-ers changed. What adventuregamers know, gamers of everygenre knows it: changing and adap-ting is necessary. The hack'n'slashgenre is not popular as it was befo-re, the rally games neither, the stre-et racing genre is stuck with 2 bigtitles, the simulation games don't dothe same numbers as in 96.

Instead of starting a gamewith a plan of the puzzles, we star-ted to check what were our resour-ces, what were the possibilities andthen what could be fun for the play-ers. Then we deduce that 3D wasgood, full cities was good, mainmissions and secondary missionswas good, vehicles driving wasgood, day/night cycle was good,

3D is very interesting for our genre; HL2 has very nice enig-mas that many adventure develo-pers dream about. 3D really opensthe gameplay compared to theusual still scripted action in 2D (take

the screwdriver, break the lock, goto the still frame, open thechest,).

- Would you like to discuss someof the new difficulties you willface in development due to this jump to 3D?

The difference in production ishuge, at all levels, conception, reali-

sation, testing and polishing, it'ssimply another world. But I believethat the strong titles (I mean suc-cessful ones, not self esteem of theadventure community), will take thisway. Problem being that you haveto increase the cost of the produc-tion greatly and time of develop-ment too, without necessarily a bigaddition to the sales numbers, itmeans less companies will be ableto afford it.

You have to pay a lot of attention to the details, rationalizeyour production process, and workmore the technical aspects of thetechnology. It's also very interestingbecause it's leaving the genre tosomething more in accordance totoday's standard and expectationsfrom the gamers.

I know the look from publis-hers really change with the 3D tech-nology. The game reach immediate-

ly another potential, to begin withyou are able to please a wider range of gamers, this is a first stepbut it make us feel we are right tofollow this way.

In the creation process, it'smore interesting and excitingbecause the gameplay is more flex-ible, for example we have moresuggestions from the team doingthe models because they feel theycan intervene in the gameplay, andbefore with point and click we hadalmost no proposal from them.

- One of the most important fea-tures in 3D adventures is thecamera use. Will the camerachange angles automatically or will the players get to control thecamera themselves? Will thecamera follow the main character from behind his back or will therebe different camera angles withineach scene?

3rd person and 1st person are avai-lable; the camera is in the place of the character so you can look eve-rywhere (think Splinter Cell or Mafiais a good example).

- What kind of music are yougoing to use for the purposes of the game?

We have a mix a disco style fromthe '70 and '80, plus few referencesto some great classical music. Thepeople from 25 to 50 years old willrecognize the references easily.We will have some animationsequence with dancing and singing,for example we have a boat andlove stories, what kind of musicalreference we could take from afamous TV show of the seventies? Ilet you guess.

LOUNGE

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

15/32

Frogwares

13January 2005

- Will Around the World in 80Days feature a point and clickinterface? Would you like todescribe to us how is the interfa-ce going to work?

The interface is not point and click,

you drive the character with themouse and keyboard, actions aredone automatically, inventory is onthe main screen and you select anitem with arrows. All keys are custo-mizable. It is simple, efficient andintuitive.

- During our birthday party, whenyou talked about the game you

talked about several gameplayfeatures, i.e. the player will haveto manage time in an efficientway, he will have to eat, sleep,make money etc. Would you liketo elaborate on that? These featu-res bring to mind two previousadventures, namely Quest for Glory and The Westerner. Will thegameplay of Around the World in80 days be similar to those?

First, I'd like to say that the time

management depends on difficultylevel, we know that a part of our customer have less time than othersfor challenges and just want to playthe funny part of the game, for those people, time constraint won'treally exist. For the others, time is afull component of the game, youhave 80 days or less to realize thegame (means around 40 hours of playing), some missions to accomp-lish, some others you possibly canaccomplish, depending on your challenge will, financial situationand tiredness of Oliver in the game.

In the game, you have topay for accommodation, food, trip,transportation, andbribes. The

actions you are doing and time youare spending makes you tired, soyou'll have to rest and find a bedfrom time to time. Eating will help torecover energy as well. I don't knowabout the game you named, Questfor glory is too old and TheWesterner is not released here. Idon't know if there is a comparisonto do with another adventure game,

a RPG like Daggerfall maybe.- Will the game feature inventory-

based tasks, mechanical/logicalpuzzles or a mixture of both?

There are traditional adventure mis-sions (puzzles, inventory, dialogs,interacting with the environment)and also some taken to the 3Dworld, specifically in the secondarymissions.

- Could you give us an exampleof the game's tasks/puzzles?

Open the sails of the Colossus, thegiant WTO boat (WTO being WorldTransport Organization); crack door codes; organize a SM contest; wina camel race; drive a solar sloop;recover the seven chalices of theseven cursed kings; trap bandits for the reward; repair the train engine;win an American Indian cook con-test; help the Big Billy Bob Burger Boss to find her fake fur coat. Etc,etc,

- What is the release date of ATWI8D and when should weexpect the first demo?

In the game, youhave to pay for accommoda tion,food, trip, transpor-

ta tion, andbribes.The ac tions you aredoing and time youare spending makesyou tired, so you' llhave to rest andfind a bed from timeto time. Ea ting willhelp to recover

energy as well.

LOUNGE

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

16/32

Frogwares

14 January 2005

Different ones for different coun-tries, demo depends on publishers.I guess somewhere between Juneand September depending on our beloved publishers.

Sherlock Holmes III

- Could you tell us what the storyof your third Sherlock Holmesgame will be about? What is thename of the case going to be thistime?

It will be a story about supernaturalevents, taking place in differentcountries and continents. Sherlockwill travel that time, on different con-tinents. The story tends more to theextraordinary, while the Silver ear-ring is more a classical Londoninvestigation, Sherlock 3 is go to theunexplained.

- Will we get to control Watson inthis game like we did in Case of The Silver Earring?

Yes and more than that, our doctor will do some things he would never think about, like betraying his friendSherlock Holmes, for his own goodobviously. Watson will take also abigger place in the deduction part,we really liked the idea of the quizin the Silver Earring, but we wouldlike to go further this time, and letthe player choose.

- You said in our birthday party,when you first announced thegame, that you will be using full3D graphics for this title as well.

Will you use the same engine andthe same graphics style as inAround the World in 80 Days?

I don't have enough money to deve-lop an engine for every game I do,but the graphic styles are different,80 days is slightly cartoon, Sherlockis darker.

- Do you plan to use the samevoice actors as you did in theprevious Sherlock Holmes game?

It's too early to say. English voiceswere very good, we were lucky notto work with a localization studio butdirectly with independent actors. Itreally helps to find the good peopleand to increase the quality.

- You said during our birthdayparty that the gameplay will haveto be adapted to the fact that thegame will be in 3D. Would youlike to elaborate a little on that?

I would repeat what I wrote upper,3D is opening perspectives, insteadof being in a room, and have twocamera angles, you can look eve-rywhere, atmosphere can be consi-derably heavier than in a point andclick game (the asylum in Thief 3 for example, I was really in a hurry tofinish this bloody level as it was oneof the most scariest game experien-ce I had).

- Most players enjoyed tho-roughly Case of The Silver Earring, but one of the most com-mon complaints was the dogsequence. Will you avoid suchsequences in the new Sherlockgame?

Toby, his name is Toby, suffered agreat injustice and it is a big lessonwe learned at Frogwares with Toby.A tiny piece of code changed some-

how the appreciation of this gamefor many players.

Toby and his master Martywere able to see Sherlock, exceptthat we forgot to say in the scriptthat the first one who sees Sherlockshould say something, and Toby isthe first to bark even if his master his seeing Sherlock first.So some players conclude, the doghas supernatural powers, what ashame and adventure game with astealth sequence, it doesn't work,let's all go back to play "beaver quest 12" in 320*240 and 8 colors,gnagnagna gnagnagna.

It's pretty hard because youspend one year and a half to workon a game, give the best of your-self, create the longest ending ani-mation of the video game history,use the best Sherlock story ever ina game, don't sleep for four months,and every time somebody speakabout Toby, I think about this line of code among the 20000 others. But I

can't help it, you are right, attentionto details, even for a product selling10000 copies and bringing lessmoney than a hair cut shop in aKansas village. We made a mistakeforgetting the logical sequence inthis particular sequence, and it costus a lot.

Our German players arebuying the game massively (Tobyand Marty are barking normallythere, we corrected this mistake for the German version). And we haveno complaints from the Germancustomers. I fear more commonlythat the question is misplaced, it'snot about the place of a stealthsequence in an adventure game, it'sabout its realization in this specialgame. If Toby sequence was good,nobody would have rise up the flag

of virtue of adventure games fromthe '90, it's just that the mistake inthe code spoiled the effect.

LOUNGE

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

17/32

Frogwares

15January 2005

I believe adventure gamesdon't need an identity as you aretrying to give them, games remaingames, the emotions you can getfrom them are different following thegenre (intellectual challenge in thepuzzles game, power feeling in stra-tegy, adrenaline in FPS,) but theyare not exclusive and don't need to.Movie industry went beyond thegenre border a long time ago alrea-dy.

- What kind of interface will youuse for the new Sherlock Holmesgame?

When you have eliminated theimpossible, whatever remains,however improbable, must be thetruth.

- In terms of difficulty will thenew Sherlock Holmes game beeasier or more difficult than Caseof the Silver Earring?

I think it will be equivalent, after "journey to the centre of the earth"we were surprised by the difficultyof some riddles, and we had toreconsider that for the next game.For the "silver earring" The gamedesigner choose some riddles for 10 years old school pupils, like theJester with the cards and the oneabout Noah's ark. Still it causedmany problems to some players,but I guess we can't go in the tooeasy category, that wouldn't beSherlock anymore.

- What is the release date of thenew Sherlock Holmes game andwhen should we expect to seethe first demo?

I think early 2006.

General

- How many copies has Case of

the Silver Earring sold worldwideso far?

I don't know, I'll know by the end of January, but it should be around 50000 copies worldwide. For thegenre, I think we are in a good posi-tion, better than many games relea-sed in 2004.

- Are you satisfied with that num-ber?

No.

- It has been some years nowsince you first started makingadventures. After all those yearsdo you see any differences in theadventure scene? Do you think

that the state of adventure gamesis now better than what it was 4or 5 years ago?

I think that Egypt 1&2 sold 200 000in France only, Egypt 3 sold around10000. I know that I was veryimpressed by the graphics of Landsof Lore in '95 or '96 in still frames,today they make me laugh. I believe

that adventure games are not deador dying or whatever, but the titles indevelopment are lacking or new ele-ments and new gameplay to conti-nue to seduce widely the players.Where did the players of Egypt 1and 2 go? To play far cry? I don'tthink so.

Video games are not massmarket at all, in the best of the case

you can sell 5 millions of the halocrap in the us (it is a bad game,boring, stupid, not fun, and I like

FPS). ATV show as CSI has 25 mil-lions of watchers every week. Agood PC game in the US is selling100 000 copies, which 5 adventuresgames reach every year, among thelist of 50 titles of the NPD (companywhich gather sells numbers). Gameplayers are more specialist than thegame marketing people themselvesin the PC area, and they want tohave good products according totodays standards.

Adventure games are notgood enough to continue to performas well as before, technology impro-vement widens gameplay to many

dimensions, as Charles Cecils toldme not a long time ago, "the player need to feel in the game that theworld is not waiting for them, theworld has its own schedule" and if you think to what it does implicatesfor a game today, you can see thatno adventure games offer that levelof immersion.

- We have witnessed some politi-cal uproar in Ukraine (where youcompany is based). During our birthday party it was not evencertain if you would attend butfortunately you finally made it.Have these political events hadany influence on your companysomehow?

Yes, we had some problems, in thebuilding where we are working, aYanukovitch delegation was workingfor the election on our floor and wewere all for Yushenko, as you cansee Oliver's scarf colour. Theseguys blocked our floor with the poli-ce, because they thought our team(wearing orange colours, Ukrainianflags) were here to be provocative

(we were but nicely). But out of theusual stupid stubborn parliamentdelegate who reminded us Joseph

LOUNGE

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

18/32

Frogwares

16 January 2005

Goebbels in his clever languageabout culture and foreigners (beingFrench, I'm a foreigner in Ukraine),everything went well. All these guysleft fast after the "third turn" deci-sion.

We were sharing our timebetween the independence squareand work. It was very interesting tosee the whole city acting like onesingle person, sure of its rights andwill, in a country where usually indi-vidualism is among the most wellknown social values.

- Do you plan to continue develo-ping 2 adventures simultaneous-ly? Do you have even moreadventures in the works apartfrom these two?

Yes, we are working on some nicetitles and our work in the adventuregenre has led to some interesting

proposals from various adventuregames actors. Too early to saymore now, but we hope to speakabout them soon.

- Where do you see adventuregames 4 or 5 years from now?

It just depends on the developers, if developers continue to makegames with 10 people, saying that just the story counts; games will beout of range of any possible suc-cess, if developers succeed to gothrough the technical/gameplaygap, we can recover a part of thepast audience.

-Thank you very much for thisinterview. We wish you the best

of luck with your future titles.

We are work ing onsome nice ti tles andour work in theadven ture genre ledus to some in teres-ting proposals fromvarious adven turegames actors. Tooearly to say more

now, bu t we hopeto speak abou tthem soon.

LOUNGE

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

19/32

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

20/32

REVIEWSClever & Smart | Dark Side of the Moon

18 January 2005

rundsmart-game.de/play.zip .When looking at some discus-sion boards I found out that thegame had some troubles withinstalled audio codecs like theLame MP3 codec. After apply-ing the patch the game didindeed start on my computer,however the cut-scenes werecompletely without sound. For the games benefit I must addthat the in-game sound wasquite alright, only some rare,wrong loops gave the impres-sion that the programmers hadlots of troubles implementing

sound and music. A big plus of the game is that it didn't crashonce after the patch was instal-led. It was just sad that I reallycouldn't enjoy watching the fre-quent cartoons without thesound so the atmosphere lost abit. Also when taking a look atonline forums, there seems tobe quite a lot of people who

have had similar problems withthe game. By the way, a PCwith Windows from version 9xup, a 200 MHz processor, 64MB RAM, any CD-ROM drive, asimple 3D card with 16 MB anda soundcard will do.Story: The weakening econo-mic situation has thrown its darkshadow over a certain secretservice organisation calledT.I.A.. Money needs to be savedand the government officialsdecided it is a good idea to cutthe funds of the chaotic Dr.Bakterius. A "crisis meeting" isheld at the T.I.A. headquarters,to avoid the loss of money andit is plotted that the doctor hasto make a real sensationalinvention that will not only pre-vent the reduction of the fundsbut also bring in loads of cash.Not really surprising, Bakterius

has something in store, the"Teledingens" a machine thatcan teleport persons and itemsfrom movies into the real worldand vice versa. After Fred andJeff recover the energy sourcefor the "Teledingens" the machi-ne can be tested and - who hadguessed - everything goeswrong and the result: The lostark of the old pharaohs a 3000years old mummy, "Impoteh",appears ready to conquer thereal world and seek revenge.Since Brandon Frasier is tooexpensive our two heroes Fred

and Jeff have no choice but tobeam themselves into themovie and search for the "Bookof the Dead" to ban Impoteh.But as always Dr. Bakterius'sinvention has another will andour two heroes find themselveson a tour de force through seve-ral famous movie themes.

The game is pretty

story heavy with tons of thetypical slapstick, sledgehammer humour and Fred and Jeff stum-bling from one catastrophe intoanother. Luckily the two are car-toon characters and can't dieFred and Jeff meet so manycolourful characters, often clas-sic actors like John Wayne or Humphrey Bogart or famousfigures from movie history.Especially the horror world isfull of them. There is Jason whoonly works on Friday the 13th(hint), Freddy who works asbarkeeper, Dracula who hasmore or less retired andNorman Bates who rents outrooms with showers.Graphics: So Clever andSmart is based on a comicbook, naturally the 2D graphicsdisplays exactly that with boldoutlines filled sometimes with

From top to bottom: 1.The little one of course2.SPOILER: Suck for the key3.This scientist looks familiar. Isn't it Ibezhimself!?4.Sheriff John Wayne has put the bad boy in

jail

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

21/32

Clever & Smart | Dark Side of the Moon

19January 2005

simple gradients in some back-ground scenes and sometimes justplain colours similar to most car-toons. Only a few times, especiallyinside the pyramid, some walls fea-ture nice garnishments as adorn-ment textures. The advantage isthat this style is almost identical toits roots; the disadvantage is that itlooks very simple even ugly at timesbut there are some highlights, too.Obviously the developers took morecare for some rooms than for

others. Since the resolution of thegame is 1024 x 768, at least itdoesn't look blocky even on 19 inchscreens however sometimes thecamera moves into the scene andthe pixels become very visible, thisalso happens to Fred and Jeff whenthey come close towards the lower border. Actually the character models are painted exactly like inthe original artworks and are prettymuch as simplistic as it can get.Despite that it is after all a comic

adventure and so this graphics stylefits its needs perfectly. Unecessaryon the other hand is the lack of ani-mations. Yes a cartoon series issometimes shot in only about 10frames a second but real cartoonmovies often provide 50 or 60 fra-mes and this is a full feature movie- pardon game - only that it looksand feels like a TV-series. In other words very little items, like a fan or something similar, are poorly anima-ted and even some of the non play-

er characters just stand still on thespot and don't move at all until Fredor Jeff talk to them. The two spiesitself also stand motionless untilcommanded to move and even their walk looks a bit jerky. While spea-king, the characters move their lipsbut it really can't be called lip-sync.This makes the whole game lookvery static and lifeless. Another issue are the subtitles, when theyare turned on they often hide almostthe whole screen. The developers

put them roughly into the centreinstead positioning them at the bot-tom.Sound: Many pieces of the in gamemusic are homages to well knownmovie soundtracks, simplified tomatch their cartoon style and playedby a real big band and are true ear candy even though they could havebeen recorded at a higher bit rate or with lower compression becausewith good headphones or speakersthere is some noticeably back-ground noise. Easily recognisable isthe Mission Impossible theme at theT.I.A. HQ. Each movie world has itsown fitting theme. While some tunesare repeated at times, the soundt-rack overall can be enjoyed throug-hout the whole game without beco-ming boring. Crimson Cow /Flashpoint, the German publishers,didn't try to save money when it

comes to voice acting and hiredsome real pro's known from moviesin Germany. At first it was a bit unu-

REVIEWS

Billy is sucha bad boy

The pretty womanwon't let us through

without the right pass-word. Hint: It is not

"Open Sesame

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

22/32

REVIEWSClever & Smart | Dark Side of the Moon

20 January 2005

sual because I had imagined thevoices of Fred and Jeff some-how different but they do fit andthe actors deliver the lines verywell.Gameplay: Let's come to thecore of what makes a game eit-her good or bad, the game play.Clever and Smart - A MovieAdventure is using a traditionalpoint and click interface. Thetwo secret agent wannabesreact immediately when clickingon a hot spot. Also a doubleclick on an exit directly changesinto the new screen. Items areclearly visible and easy to pickup, there was no pixel huntingduring the whole game unlessonce but more about that portionlater. The inventory covers thewhole screen and is reached bymoving the mouse cursor intothe upper left corner. It took mequite a while to figure out how toleave it; the cursor must be

moved into the lower right cor-ner. Taken as a whole, itemhandling worked perfectly after Ihad gotten used to that invento-ry even though it isn't as stylishas a classic drop down one.On their quest to get the Book of the Dead Clever and Smart tra-vel around three major movieworlds and several, sometimesreal small ones. The first moviethey are teleported to consist of just one screen featuring CharlieChaplin, who not only is blackand white but "talks" via cut sce-nes only. The whole look andfeel of the game is that of a realcomic book or even cartoon andsometimes I almost forgot that Iwas playing a game becausethe sceneries fit so well. Another strong issue of the game are thetwo main characters. And notonly that, but the game features

also a network mode where onecan play Fred and a friend Jeff -the network mode has someflaws, though. The game can'tbe saved, if both players aren'tat the same location one player misses the dialogue and accor-ding to some internet forumsthere seem to be some bugs likedead ends, something I can'tconfirm since I didn't try the net-work mode myself. The game isquite genuine when it comes tosome puzzles that can either besolved by Fred or Jeff but not byboth. Same counts for interac-

ting with NPC's, both Fred andJeff sometimes get different ans-wers so it is essential to talk withall people at least twice. I won'ttalk much about the puzzles tonot spoil the fun but they areclassic inventory based ones.They are mostly pretty easy andthere aren't that much items toget at one world. Often the

puzzles consist of getting item A,B and C and take it to Person Xto get item D or some help.Habitually it is rather trial anderror to figure out some thingsbecause there often are no hintsat the "belonging" dialogues of what to do. At the "JurassicPark" however, one of the smallmovie worlds, there were onlytwo puzzles and both were hor-rible.Minor Spoilers: After tele-porting into this world the wholescreen is black. Alas after moving the cursor around aim-lessly there are some items tobe discovered and collected, thisis quite annoying. Even worse,when minutes later Fred andJeff are in the light every action(mouse click) gets them back

into the black and the whole pro-cedure has to be repeated. Theonly way to get out of the

International Titles of Clever and Smart

Spain: Mortadelo y FilemnNorway, Czech Republic and

Germany: Clever & SmartSweden: Flink och Fummel

Serbia and Croatia: Zriki Svargla &Sule Globus

Finland: Nopsa & Nps and lli &Tlli

Netherlands: Paling en KoPortugal: Salamao e Mortadela

Denmark: Flip & FlopGreece: Antirix & SimphonixTurkey: Drtgz & Dazlak

French Switzerland: Futt et FilFrance: Mortadel et Filmon

Brazil: Mortadelo e SalaminhoItaly: Fortune & Fortuni and Mortadella

& FilmoneEngland: Mort & Phil

Is there really no adventure game withoutsewers?

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

23/32

Clever & Smart | Dark Side of the Moon

21January 2005

"Jurassic Park" is to simply leavethe PC alone for some minutesand get a cup of coffee -Spoiler End . The whole sequence couldhave easily been left out.

The last world in old Egyptis split into two parts, the secondtaking place in a huge pyramid thatconsists of a colossal maze. Sinceall rooms look very identical it isadvisable to draw a map but becautious some parts of the mazewhen walking only into one direc-tion end up in a circle.

The first big world thattakes about a third of the game, Iguess, and took me the longest isthe Wild, Wild West followed by

the Horror world and the ancientEgypt with references to IndianaJones and The Mummy. The sce-nes with private eye Sam Spade,Charlie Chaplin and the dinosaur only take up between 2 to 20minutes to play. But before Fredand Jeff return to their real worldthere is a lot to discover and the15 to 20 playing hours are very

amusing and not wasted.In a few words: The uncomplica-ted cartoon graphics is fitting but a

tad too lifeless and simple. Thattakes away a bit from theatmosphere. The soundtrack fitsthe mood perfectly. The voiceacting is superb and the jokes in"Tom and Jerry" fashion are plainbut make for many good laughs.Puzzles on the other hand arediverse, some are well balancedand well designed and they arenever unfair, yet often a bit easy,others just look like the designerswere out of ideas but had tostretch the game a bit to not makeit look too short. After all I got onlystuck a few times but could solve itafter a little break to rethink andonly the maze got on my nerves

after a while. In general I wouldrecommend the game for fans of the comic books, adventure gamebeginners, teenagers and peopleyoung at heart. And I hope therewill be another patch available whofixes the last sound bugs. As usualwhen it comes to a final as objecti-ve as possible rating, huge fans of the franchise can add ten points to

the story.- Oliver Gruener

REVIEWS

The Verdict

Story: 75Graphics: 45Sound: 78Gameplay: 72

Overall: 70

In general I would recom-

mend the game for fans of the comic books, adven- ture game beginners,teenagers and peopleyoung at heart.

Highs: Funny jokes, fittinggraphic style, soundtrack, loyalto the Clever & Smart comicsLows: Some puzzles are there

just for the sake of prolonginggameplay, maze, graphics arelifeless and static, bugs

*Overall = ( Story x 2 + Graphics + Music + Gameplay x 2 ) / 6

Top: Thanks to his ability tochange into so many different out-fits Fred is the one who is diving.

Left: Imprisoned inside a blackand white movie with CharlieChaplin who speaks in cut-scenes.

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

24/32

REVIEWSClever & Smart | Dark Side of the Moon

22 January 2005

I saw an interview withLee Sheldon over at JustAdventure where he said, "I'm veryproud of Dark Side of the Moonand the talented team I workedwith on that game." Given all thebad reviews one would have towonder why a guy with his talent,witnessed in the wonderful Ripley'sBelieve It or Not: The Riddle of Master Lu, would be proud of DarkSide of the Moon. But you knowwhat? Mr. Sheldon has every rightto be proud of his creation, and I'lltake it a step further: Mr. Sheldondamn well better be proud of thisgame. Dark Side of the Moon is,hands down, the most underratedadventure game that I can think of off the top of my head. Lookingback at all of the negative criticism,one will discover two primarycomplaints: (1) The CD swappingis astronomically annoying, withone critic even claiming to haveswapped discs about ten times inthe span of half an hour, and (2)the viewing window is too small.The real flaws are simply that DarkSide of the Moon wasn't released

on DVD, where it belongs, in thefirst place, and that so many gamecritics apparently lacked a decent

sized monitor in 1998.Still, only rarely has a

game been so flooded with negati-ve rants as this one has. One thingis for certain though; none of theseexplosions of hatred targeted thestory of the game, despite itsexistence almost exclusively in fullmotion video (a favorite target of critics). And for good reasonbecause the plot is more thanworthwhile.Story: It all begins mysteriouslywith the suicide of Jacob Wright, aman with a mining claim on LunaCrysta (the "moon" of the title). Assecurity videos show, he was notalone when he chose to take hisown life with a bomb, but rather hewas talking with what appeared tobe a Cepheid (a member of thenative population of the moon).Enter Jake Wright, the player con-trolled character and nephew of Jacob, who is on-board a shuttlebound for Luna Crysta. Jacob hasleft him all of his earthly posses-sions, including his mining claim,and Jake intends explore it, as wellas all of the Brave Hope Mining

Corporation located on LunaCrysta, in an effort to find out whyhis uncle killed himself. Along the

Dark S ideof t he

Moon

Developer:Southpeak InteractivePerspective:1st personInterface:Point and clickSite:N/ADifficulty:Medium

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

25/32

Clever & Smart | Dark Side of the Moon

23January 2005

way he'll meet many charac-ters (allies and enemies,humans and Cepheids, etc.)as he deciphers the clueshis uncle has left for him.

Jake will have todecide whether or not hecan trust Kit Ferris, theBlackjack dealer at theBrave Hope Casino who hemet on the shuttle, or whet-her or not he should conductbusiness with Hunter, thebartender. He'll have to suf-fer through the abusivephone calls of his jealous

sister Corrine, while avoi-ding the slimy Oliver Whistler, who has been sentto buy the claim from Jake.Additionally, he'll get someinfo from an old friend of Jacob's, the eccentric GillyAnsidine, who doesn't trustHoward Janous, the presi-dent of Brave Hope, or the

chief of security, Einar Grice. Perhaps most impor-tantly, Jake will form an alli-ance with a young Cepheidboy named Londie, and hismother, the Cepheid queen,Aurlaessa. It's quite a jour-ney where not everything isas it seems; not even whatI've just explained will rema-in true to the end. Excitingstuff, to be sure.Gameplay: I was fortunate,perhaps, to get my hands onthe Deluxe Edition of thisgame which comes with thesingle DVD version, the sixCD-ROM version, and thePrima Strategy Guide. Beingable to explore the riches of this game as an uninterrup-ted, non-linear living world isa whole new experiencefolks, and one that gamers

who played the CD versiondid not get to enjoy. Sheldonreally succeeded in desig-ning this game to give theplayer a sense of freedom.When you first arrive onLuna Crysta you are free togo just about anywherethat's open to you, and inany order. This is a terrificfeeling in the DVD versionthat would be absolute hellon CD. Imagine having toworry about where you goand when, simply becauseyou don't want to enter a

door or elevator and beprompted to pop in a newCD only to have to switchback if you missed somet-hing from just momentsbefore. Seeing it like this,one begins to understandthe negative critical recep-tion of the CD game. As for the small viewing screen, I

personally was never bothe-red in the slightest. Mymonitor is large enough thatthe viewing window never seemed too small and frank-ly, I loved how everythingyou needed was all on asingle screen. The gameworld itself in the middle, thedialogue trees below it, theinventory on the right side,the VDA (for watching videoclips you've seen, viewingmail, storing notes, andreferring to maps) at theupper left, your body (toequip with items) at themiddle left, and the Optionsmenu (saving, restoring,quitting, etc.) at the bottomleft. Now that's some intrigu-

ing design.As for SouthpeakInteractive's Video Reality

REVIEWS

From top to bottom: 1. Looks like he really doesn't want Jacob pushing

that button.2. Do I smell love in the air?

3. O'Kale. You know the type of guy he is. I needn'tsay more.

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

26/32

REVIEWSClever & Smart | Dark Side of the Moon

24 January 2005

Engine, it certainly didn't last long. Itwas first used in Temujin, which wasa true bomb, and then put to muchbetter use in Dark Side of the Moon.I personally enjoy the engine. It hasits flaws, but for the most part it'seffective in the right hands (in other words, the hands of Lee Sheldon). Iwould have preferred the viewingfreedom of The Journeyman Project3: Legacy of Time, which is also in360-degrees with full motion videomovement from place to place, butlooking around is faster and youcan see up and down at any time.Granted, Dark Side of the Moon

adds the ability to stop whenever you wish or glance left or right whileactually traversing from point A topoint B, but honestly these featuresaren't very important. The way theVideo Reality Engine works is asimple matter of putting your mouseon the green bars at the left or rightof the screen (occasionally the topor bottom as well), which moves

your view in that direction as longas you keep the bar highlighted.

Then it's a matter of interacting withyour environment, with a single cur-sor, in the way you see fit. It works just like any other adventure game.You can open doors, activate vid-phones, talk to people, collectitems, use items, combine items,etc. It's all very well handled. Theengine may not be the best I'veseen, certainly not, but it gets the job done effectively.

One thing I really enjoyabout this game, aside from thestory it tells and the very openexploration, are the puzzles them-selves. Many of them are challen-

ging, to be sure, but the most diffic-ult ones always have ample back-ground you can uncover and they fitright into the world of the game wit-hout feeling tacked on. Plus, severalof the puzzles have multiple solu-tions, and certain items can befound in more than one place.There is a store in the game calledGeneral Outfitters where you can

not only purchase items of interest(certain items you need must be

bought here), but also stock up on awealth of knowledge about the usesof items you'll find along the way. Ifound this to be a very believableapproach. Additionally, to afforditems you're able to gamble in thecasino or sell pieces of ore andcrystal you find in your travels. Asfor equipping your character, it's asimple matter of putting certain glo-ves on if you're going to touchsomething hot, or wearing certainboots if you're going to be walkingthrough dangerous substances. Thereal surprise is that there are somealien creature encounters and a run

in with a security droid once youbegin exploring the depths of themines. Don't worry, each of theseenemies can be defeated logically(one of them in a very memorablepuzzle that involves mixing up theformula it is weak against) and fastreflexes are never required.Graphics: Another complaint I'veheard about this game is that the

exploration scenes in the VideoReality Engine are blurry. I can't

Gilly is havinga little argument

with HowardJanous

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

27/32

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

28/32

EXTRABits & Bytes | Invento-mail

26 January 2005

RIM, REM, RUM???Nooo... RAM! No, thisissue of Bits & Bytesisn't about tuning your

car wheels with polished aluminiumrims nor about the REM sleep (rapideye movement) and especially notabout alcohol from the Caribbean - itsimply tells about the volatile memo-ry that is one of the three essentialparts of a computer. The other twoare Mainboard and CPU. RAM(Random Access Memory) comes inmany sizes and formats and yetalmost looks the same, so it is very

difficult to distinguish between thedifferent memory sticks. Not onlynow with SD, DDR, and DDR2 itwas difficult also in the past. BuyingRAM used to be a dangerous game.

About seven years ago a fri-end of mine wanted to upgrade his

PC and bought a new RAM stick.When he tried to put it into the sloton the mainboard it was a tad tolong. What did he do? He got a sawand cut off the end of the stick tomake it fit! Well the expensive piece(or better pieces) of hardware weretrash and I still wonder how he gotthe shop assistant to exchange it.So, what will this real(!) story tell? If it doesn't fit it is the wrong RAMstick! Usually it's no big deal after accidentally buying the wrong kindof RAM to exchange it at the store,yet it is still an annoyance and con-

suming time and money.Another fascinating thing isthe dropping price. When I boughtan 8MB memory extension in 1993 Ihad to pay around 500 bucks! For the same amount of money I can getroundabout 4 GB of memory, nowa-

days.Before running to the next

computer store to buy one or twoRAM sticks you should make certainwhat type of mainboard you haveand what type of CPU, CPU socketand how fast the front side bus(FSB) is (mainboard manual). Thetable 1 shows the most commoncentral processing units with their sockets, in case the CPU supportsdifferent kinds of sockets, and thetype of RAM the board can bear dependent on the FSB.

If you stumble upon cryptic

RAM descriptions at your local com-puter store or on the net just take alook at the table: PC 2100 RAM for example sometimes is sold asDDR266, PC2700 as DDR333 andso on and to complicate things theyare even available with different

Bits and BytesThe Hardware Corner

In the last issue Oliver talked about digital cameras. Now in this issue Oliver talksabout hard drives and gives you some advices on what to look for if you are about tobuy one. And they spin around...

Table 1

CPU (Socket) FSB FSB frequency (MHz) Fitting Memory typeCeleron (Socket 370) 66 66 1x PC66, PC 100Pentium 3 100 100 1x PC100Pentium 3 133 133,33 1x PC133Athlon, Duron 200 100 (DDR) 1x PC 1600Athlon, Athlon XP 266 133,33 (DDR) 1x PC 2100Athlon XP, Sempron 333 166,67(DDR) 1x PC 2700Athlon XP 400 200 (DDR) 1x PC 3200Pentium 4, Celeron (Socket 478) 400 100 (QDR) 2x PC 2100Pentium 4, Celeron (Socket 478) 533 133,33 (QDR) 2x PC 2100Pentium 4 (Socket 478) 800 200 (QDR) 2x PC 3200Pentium 4, Celeron (LGA 775) 533 133,33 (QDR) 2x PC2-3200Pentium 4 (LGA 775) 800 133,33 (QDR) 2x PC2-3200Athlon 64 (Socket 754) Hyper Transport 800 MHz HT 1x PC 3200Athlon 64 (Socket 939) Hyper Transport 1000 MHz HT 2x PC 3200Athlon 64 FX / Opteron (Socket 940) Hyper Transport 800 MHz HT 2x PC 3200 Registered DIMM

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

29/32

Bits & Bytes | Invento-mail

27January 2005

clock speeds (see table)!A usual size for an affordable RAMstick would be 512 MB and themore expensive 1GB sticks are onlyrecommendable if you want toupgrade to two or more GB sincemost motherboards only offer 2 or 3slots. Since we are talking aboutX86 computers here that originallywere limited to 640 kilobytes, may itbe to some Microsoft company poli-cy or incapable programmers,Windows 9x is limited to 2 Gigabyte

of RAM and can only address thefirst 512 in an acceptable manner and Windows XP (except XPServer) is limited to 4 GByte, buyingmore RAM in other words is comp-letely useless. Also it is recommen-dable to not buy no-name RAM but

brands like Kingston, Infineon or Samsung because they have beentested and should work okay. After the purchase is done, if you haveno clue about electronics it is advi-sable to ask a friend or relative whoknows what he is doing, to trans-plant them into your PC. Next stepwould be to start the computer andenter the PC's BIOS, usually bepressing the DEL key. The CAS(Column Address Strobe) should beset to "by SPD". Some motherbo-

ards allow to tweak these settingsto make the RAM faster which is notadvisable. I myself ruined two RAMsticks so far when trying to over clock them. Instead it would be bet-ter to purchase faster RAM. In table2 there are some examples of

memory types and their timings -resulting in various CAS Latencies.

Since I don't want to get tootechnical in this article it helps tounderstand some facts. SDRAM or Single Data RAM sticks have 168pins, while Double Data Rate RAMfeatures 184 pins, naturally as thename suggests, the DDR RAM is"feeling", thanks to some improve-ments, about double as fast. In factthe memory bandwidth is increasingfrom 100 MHZ SD RAM with 800MByte per second to 400 MHz DDRRAM with 3.2 GB/s and that ismaking it 400 percent faster! Also

DDR RAM uses only 2.5 Volts whileSDRAM needs 3.3 Volts, this redu-ced voltage results in lower power consumption and an improved heatdissipation. Consumer PC's areusually equipped with unbufferedDDR modules that place all dataload on the system memory buswhile the more expensive registeredDIMM's are useful in professional

surroundings like in high end ser-vers. Some RAM modules also fea-ture ECC (error correction code)those are slower and more expensi-ve, so you don't need to bother about those.

Altogether RAM is a prettyconfusing subject with all of itstypes and variations. This articledidn't even mention Rambus or EDO-RAM nor did I give a wholeoverview about the history. We onlyhad a look of what kind of RAM isusually used nowadays to make iteasier for you to decide what youneed to get for your PC. The futurealready has DDR3 waiting to bereleased, which, for example, willonly need 1.5 Volts.

- Oliver Gruener

EXTRA

Table 2

Type Timing CAS LatencyDDR200 2-2-2 20 nsDDR266B 2,5-3-3 18,75 nsDDR266A 2-3-3 15 nsDDR333B 2,5-3-3 15 nsDDR333A 2-3-3 12 nsDDR400C 3-4-4 15 nsDDR400B 3-3-3 15 nsDDR400A 2,5-3-3 12,5 nsDDR2-400 4-4-4 20 nsDDR2-400 3-3-3 15 ns

DDR2-533 3-3-3 11,25 nsDDR2-667 4-4-4 12 ns

Memory sticks come in all kinds of sizes

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

30/32

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

31/32

We realize that this issue has been kind of short butwe also released The Inventory Awards 2004 thismonth, so its been busy at The Inventory head-quarters. Next month we will come back to our

normal amount of contents.

We hope nevertheless that you enjoyed the contents of the 21st issue. We are very proud of our comics section andwe will try to provide you with even more comics based onadventure games in the near future. If you would like to supportour efforts with The Inventory there are many ways to do it.One is to visit our sponsors in our front page www.theinvento-ry.org. There are some Google ads right now, and whenever you click on one of them we receive some money. So if youfind some link in these Google ads that you find interesting feelfree to visit them by clicking on the link. Soon we will also fea-ture more sponsors and visiting them and supporting them willbe the same as supporting us.

Another way to support us is to join our forum and helpus create a vast community of adventurers. When you join our forum you also receive all our newsletters, that are sent to allour registered members. You could also find some of the ban-ners we have posted in our forum (in this specific topic) anduse them to bring more people to The Inventory.

In the next issue of The Inventory you will be able toread a review of Agon, that unfortunately had to be postponedfor yet one more issue. We will also try to make our next issue

a special for one of the most anticipated adventures of 2005,but this also depends on the publishers.

Until next month then.

Dimitris M anos

Epilogue

8/14/2019 Inventory 21 - January 2005

32/32

www.theinventory.orgForums

Adventure RadioLatest Adventure Trailers

and more coming soon