Beyond Atlantis
Score: 80% ESRB: Teen Publisher: DreamCatcher Interactive Developer: Cryo Interactive Media: CD/1 Players: 1 Genre: Adventure
Graphics & Sound: Do you remember when Myst came out? I remember thinking, “finally, some of the wonderful graphics that are in the hottest movies are going to be in our PC games now, and we won’t have to have a mega computer to play them.” Now great graphics in games are expected, and Beyond Atlantis delivers. With beautiful 3D representations of China, Tibet, Ireland, the Yucatan, and the mythical world of Atlantis to explore, Beyond Atlantis will give you many hours of exploration. You will definitely have to play the game a few times to see everything that there is to see. There are more than 60 3D characters to interact with that will either help or hinder you. The sound track is great because it gives you local incidental music and sounds (meaning if you are in China, you hear Chinese music and so on) that adds to the tension and emotion of your situation, yet won’t distract you from the game.
Gameplay: Beyond Atlantis is a thinking person’s adventure. Unlike an action game where you will have to fight for your life around every corner, you will have to use your wits to move to the next level. There are many puzzles to solve that will keep your brain-matter busy. There is a puzzle involving a turtle, and if you mess it up at any time, you have to start all over again. No, I am not going to tell you how long it took me. You will also have many characters to deal with, and as I said earlier, they will either help or hinder you. One thing that I have noticed in games like this is that finishing the game not only depends on talking to certain people and asking them the right questions, but also when you speak to them. A Tibetan monk might not tell you what you need to hear unless you talk to him after you have talked to the peddler guarding the gate. Beyond Atlantis is also family friendly, so if you are concerned about how much blood and guts your kids see, this game will be a great and safe addition to your family’s collection of games.
Difficulty: The difficulty of Beyond Atlantis lies in its puzzles and the deductive reasoning you will have to use to solve them. A good thing is that the puzzles are not so difficult that they are unsolvable. You might sit there for 30 minutes trying to solve a puzzle while your 10-year-old might come along and solve it in minutes. Kids have a habit of knowing more about computers than we do nowadays.
Game Mechanics: Beyond Atlantis uses a very simple point-and-click interface to maneuver about. You have different cursors that mean different things. You will have a fancy arrow if you come to a place on the screen where can you move forward. You will have another cursor when you come across a character that you can interact with; very simple to understand after only a few minutes. One down-side to the game is that your movement in the game is very controlled. You press your mouse button to move forward and then you let the computer move you there. With so many games out now where you have complete control of your movement in the world, Beyond Atlantis can seem a little confining.
-Wickserv, GameVortex Communications AKA Eric Wickwire
Minimum System Requirements: Windows 95/98, P 200 MMX, 32 MB RAM, Minimum 70 MB Hard Drive Space, 8X CD-ROM, 16 bit sound card   Test System: GX-450xl running Windows 98, 256 RAM, Creative Sound Blaster 64CPCI with Boston Acoustic Digital Media Theater, STB Velocity 4400 with RIVA TNT chip, DirectX 7, 32 MB RAM, 6X24 DVD-ROM
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