Played through two of the "paths" in "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis"

Typical Indy-travel view

When I first played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, I spent hours on figuring out all the puzzles. Mostly the dialogue ones gave me trouble, not being as fluent in English back in the day, and of course not as experienced in adventure gaming. This replay, however, is going very smoothly, even after so many years.

Follow the little red dot...

After the first part of my replay, I continued onto the Wits Path. This took me to Algiers and Monte Carlo, getting in touch with Sophia's contacts. I had to find a way to follow Omar Al-Jabbar's assistent to the home of his boss, locate a dig site deep in the desert on camelback, then save Alain Trottier from his kidnappers in a chase sequence you'd actually expect for the Fists Path.

High speed chase through the streets of Monte Carlo...

Finally I ended up in the Greek isles, first on Thera - or Santorini - and then on Crete and the labyrinth of Knossos. I think this is one of the rare in-game labyrinths I actually enjoy. It's been so long since I played this game, most of it I still remembered but navigating the labyrinth felt like it was the first time again, and it took some searching around.

Finish him!

Finally I found my way into Atlantis, and that's when I reloaded my game to the point where I get to choose which path to take, and this time I continued onto the Fists path. At first this felt like some kind of Easy Mode, visiting all of the same locations, but a bit further on the path's difference became very much apparent when I had to fight some soldiers and actually met up with Sophia again, which you'd only expect on the Team Path.

Did this inspire that Dial of Destiny scene?

After two hours and forty-five minutes of total playing time, I had completed both the Wits and Fists path up to the point where I reached Atlantis. Now it's time to reload again and finish the game following the Team Path!

You can find Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on Steam and on GOG!

Classic Replay: "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis"

Replay time!

When I bought a copy of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis when I was fourteen years old, a whole new world opened up to me. I was already a fan of point 'n click adventure games, but never before did I lose myself so truly in an interactive story. To be honest, I wasn't even that big of an Indy fan yet; this game changed it all.

Gorgeous close-ups in this game!

I've actually bought this game twice: first I had the floppy version. I believe it came on five disks. Then later on, I bought the LucasArts Archives box to get a copy of Sam 'n Max Hit the Road, and it also contained the CD-ROM version of Fate of Atlantis; the exact same game, only fully voiced this time, with Doug Lee doing quite a good Indy impression.

I actually started keeping an "Atlantis Diary" after this game...

When I first played it, I loved this game's hilarious, slapstick opening sequence, with Indy searching through the Barnett College collections for a rare Atlantean artefact Marcus Brody stashed away somewhere. Only afterwards, I thought this part wasn't very dignified for a hero of Indy's calibre. And I also didn't know why Marcus would hide it away for Indy to find, nor why Indy would need to whip his way inside, breaking an attic window in the process. It just didn't make much sense anymore. Then again, knowing scatterbrained Marcus, perhaps it's not so surprising... 

Always wanted such a necklace of my own...

After that opening sequence, Indy travels to New York to meet up with Sophia Hapgood, who he worked with on a previous archeological expedition and is basically an expert on everything Atlantis. After that, they travel to Iceland, Central America and the Azores in order to find enough information about The Lost Dialogue of Plato, a book the philosopher presumably wrote filled with details about Atlantis.

Jungles and temples, that's so Indy...

Forty-five minutes into this replay, I saved my game at a key spot: choosing your path! Depending on how you solved the first puzzles, Indy's sidekick Sophia Hapgood will do a reading and advise a course of action: either fight his way through (the Fists Path), puzzle his way through (the Wits Path), or take Sophia herself along as backup (the Teams Path). I'm going to follow the path Sophia has suggested for this playthrough: the Wits Path. After I reach Atlantis - the place where all three paths converge again - I will reload and play the other paths.

Always hated Ubermann's voice...

Sophia gave me a couple of leads to start my first search for Atlantis. So now I'll have to decide where to try my luck: Monte Carlo or Algiers.

You can find Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on Steam and on GOG!

My "Dispatch" job is done...

I had this weird "bad girl" fascination with Invisigal...

Dispatch is a tough game to take screenshots from. Since it's basically an interactive animation series, every scene has the potential to spoil stuff. And usually I was also too busy actually playing the game to hit the screenshot button. So I stopped taking screenshots after episode four. And now that I finished the game, I won't comment too much on the story, either.

The hacking mini-games could be quite tricky

But what an amazing story experience it was! The first two episodes were chill, but after that I was bombarded with several difficult choices, even some I regretted later on and I'm of a mind to restart those respective chapters to see what the different outcomes would be. I let myself be influenced by the events too much, I think. I had a clear goal in my head, but then I got tempted to go the other way. Which is often the case in real life, as well...

The dispatching jobs still hold some mysteries to me...

I was sorry to notice there weren't that many QTE's after the first episode. There was one scene about halfway through but it didn't have the same feel to it. I did feel like I got better at the dispatching job itself, even though lots of missions still failed because I had a hard time matching their descriptions and criteria to the correct hero characteristic, and the hacking mini-games could get tough as well. I also noticed that I was so busy concentrating on the dispatching that I missed tons of dialogue; looks like I really can't do two things at once... 

There's no "I" in Team!

Each episode follow the same formula: first a couple of scenes where you make dialogue choices, then a dispatching session, a mid-scene with dialogues, a second dispatching shift, and then a final scene with dialogue choices. There's an overarching story which is great, but sometimes I wished the dispatching game would last longer, but then again perhaps it's a good enough balance because who knows, it might get boring if you do it for too long. Thankfully, the final episode had a lot more dispatching jobs to get through. It suddenly brought back the QTE's in full force as well, which without decent training throughout the rest of the game, went a bit rough...

The cool hero shot...

So while Dispatch isn't a regular adventure game, and definitely nothing like a classic point 'n click, the sheer amount of fun I had with it grants it a place in my top ten.

And now it's finally time, after four recent releases, to go back to a replay of one of those classics point 'n clicks! Just let me grab my fedora...

"Scott Whiskers in: The Search of the Golden Cat", my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "Scott Whiskers in: The Search for the Golden Cat is everything a sequel is supposed to be, keeping what already worked while improving on the first game’s weaknesses. Scott is a fun, well-voiced character who perhaps sticks his nose into other people’s business a little too much, but that’s precisely what gets him into positions where you need to use your wits to overcome all kinds of adventure gamey obstacles. The jungle is a fairly typical sort of setting for pulpy adventure stories, but developer Funny Factory cleverly fuses it with the modern world, turning it into a vacation resort of sorts without being over-the-top touristy. There’s no fortune and glory in it, but whether or not you believe the Golden Cat really has supernatural powers, some good fun is reward enough to search for solutions to help a downtrodden Guatemalan community become prosperous once again."

New game: "Dispatch"!

New game!

I've heard so many good things about Dispatch, but even if I hadn't, I was definitely going to play this game. I'm a Marvel fan, and Dispatch is basically an interactive animated superhero series. Just a couple of seconds into the trailer I knew this would be great, and preferably to be played on a big screen, so cinematic are the scenes.

This guy's in for a beating!

And two hours into it, having finished two of eight episodes or chapters, the game has proven itself. I just love it. Can you really call it a game? Well, there's definitely gameplay to it, though most of it feels more like a visual novel. You play as Robert Robertson, former superhero Mecha Man, who has retired after losing a fight with a villain which led to his suit to be destroyed, and who gets recruited by the SDN, the Superhero Dispatch Network, where he becomes the man in the chair, dividing up heroic jobs amongst the available superheroes and sending them around the city, sometimes needing to hack something to help them out of a bend.

I'm calling bullshit!

During the cutscenes, you also have to make dialogue choices, which shapes Robert's personality and steers the narrative into a certain direction, and perform QTE's during action scenes which give the game a bit more interactivity (though you can choose to simply watch those scenes without needing any player input). 

My hero!

Of course there's an obvious love interest in the form of one Blonde Blazer, who actually recruits you for the SDN. But this isn't the only relationship which is fun to watch develop. There are also Roberts co-workers, and of course all the villains-turned-heroes he needs to get on his side so they'll listen to him better and successfully complete their missions.

The dispatching part will take some getting used to...

Personally I have a hard time looking at Dispatch as a real game, let alone a point 'n click game (I've actually traded in the mouse for a controller, since it still required the WASD-keys for some sequences, which are counter-intuitive on my Azerty-keyboard) but I'm simply enjoying the heck out of this animated series. And so far, the dispatching sections (I've only done two of them at this point, though) are less difficult than I had imagined. So far there aren't any real puzzles: there's the hacking mini-game, and of course which hero is best suited for which job. It's more about the story, and with each episode about an hour long, is a great chance from passively watching some television show.

On to episode three, now!

The Séance of Blake Manor is over!

Nothing says gothic horror more than an dreary graveyard...

When I first started playing The Séance of Blake Manor, I wasn't sure I would be able to do the job well. The time limit really bothered me. You can't play this game like you would any regular point 'n click adventure game, both regarding dialogue options and examining hotspots. Everything costs time. It's an investigation game, a deduction game, but also a time management game.

I bet the Ark of the Covenant is in here somewhere...

After I finished the second in-game day, however, and I started to experience a kind of snowballing effect, finally putting things together succesfully, solving mysteries and "saving" people from harm during the eponymous séance, nervousness made place for elation and the accompanying adrenaline rush, causing the game to become quite addictive.

Fill in the blanks!

I was astounded by the amount of detail in this game. Not only graphically; the manor is indeed an amazing setting to roam around in, the characters are very recognizable, and each dialogue topic has its own little icon. But that dialogue as well; you can talk to almost everybody about almost each topic. Not everything is voiced, though: only the important bits show some great acting talent from the entire cast.

A whole lot a lecturing going on...

I started Sunday morning at 11 am, which was pretty late thinking of all the things I still wanted to do that day. So I went about my business, at first much more smoothly than on the Saturday, but then right after lunch I found myself once more standing in the middle of the manor's atrium thinking where I was supposed to go next. While a moment before I was never lost for leads, and more importantly, clear ideas on how to actually follow up on them, with everything starting to make sense to me, there were still a couple of not-so-obvious secrets to uncover, which took some extra snooping and questioning and peering a bit closer in a couple of dark corners of the manor.

We're all in the red now!

Then suddenly I had about three in-game hours to kill, because after I finally succeeded in figuring out each character's backstory, for the last mysteries I needed special access to a location that would only be opened up to me at a designated time. I was scared that I might have missed something earlier, so I went around asking people all the questions I thought weren't important and would only suck up precious time. But in the end that didn't really provide me with any new info, except for some extra topics I could read up on in the library but weren't essential for the investigation.

Great job, Spooky Doorway!

The game's final in-game hours blew me away, once again going smoothly. And as the credits rolled after an astounding 25 hours of gaming, I sat staring at my screen feeling sad, because the game was over. The investigation was done. I had figured it all out. And even though it was a tough job in places, and kind of stressfull as well keeping an eye on the time, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. This was an amazing game with captivating gameplay, and if Declan Ward ever goes on another investigation, a new mystery but in the same style as this one, it will be an immediate buy for me!

Sunday morning at "The Séance of Blake Manor"

When in doubt...

After the quick Friday evening arrival, I woke up Saturday morning at The Séance of Blake Manor, surrounded by a coachload of suspects, one of whom is supposedly responsible for the disappearance of Evelyn Deane. So I went around questioning them. Until I found a key. And then another. And suddenly I had access to a whole bunch of rooms of the other guests. And people who read my blog and reviews probably know how much I love snooping around in places I shouldn't be.

Yay, maps!

I felt a bit like Grace Nakimura sneaking into each and every Rennes-le-Château hotel room in Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. I found lots of documents and clues, but I didn't feel like I was making much progress. After "saving" the first two people, nothing much happened, for a very long time. The game did urge me to investigate rooms and suspects even further, but I didn't know where to go, what to do or who to talk to in order to succesfully complete those tasks. It is indeed one big investigation game where you have to make those deductions and decisions and choose how to spend your time. And I had this constant feeling that I wasn't very good at it. Probably because all other mystery games often hold your hand and guide you along a bit too much.

I often feel so lost in this game...

Then finally, I made some headway near the end of Saturday when I could connect some dots and uncovered some secrets. With five people "saved", either by them chosen not to attend the séance or protected from its evil effects one way or another, and with a bunch of mysteries solved, I feel like I'm getting the hang of this game. I even "cracked" some codes, but still not enough to my liking; there are at least two more locked places which I hope contain the final clues I need to wrap up some of the mysteries.

Lots of stuff hidden in and around this mansion...

Right when I was finally able to search Evelyn Deane's room, the clock struck 9 pm and the game automatically transported me to the masked ball. I was kinda bummed out by that, and seemed once again proof that I was being too slow. I had hoped to skip out on the ball and burgle some more rooms instead, but at least the whole scene took a Lynchian turn, and I saw some of my assumptions about the supernatural goings-on in this manor confirmed. 

Things are getting kinda weird here...

So after 14,5 hours of gaming, it's now 11 am on Sunday morning, a brand new day, and I got lots of new leads to follow. I also know one extra location will upon up to me soon, so I hope I can finally go "save" the majority of the guests now!