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Jazz and Faust

Score: 40%
ESRB: Teen
Publisher: 1C Company
Developer: Saturn Plus
Media: CD/1
Players: 1
Genre: Adventure

Graphics & Sound:

With an absence of good point-and-click adventure games lately, people's faith in the genre has slowly declined, making more room for just about every other genre out there. Helping to dig this grave is the newly arrived Jazz and Faust. Though the world is fully 3D, the characters look and move in what can only be described as the wrong way. The opening cinematic is lackluster, and is followed up by equally unimpressive visuals. The locations just don't impress like those of The Dig or Fate of Atlantis.

Following in the wake of the poor visuals is an even less impressive audio repertoire. First off, the voice acting is appalling. Sound effects are simple and easily forgotten. The music is bearable, but I wouldn't recommend that you listen to it all the time. In short, the bells and whistles in Jazz and Faust could use a complete reworking.


Gameplay:

Considering the graphics and sound, better things could hardly be said of the gameplay. Though it is not terrible, it is definitely not what this genre needs to survive. A thin storyline and even thinner puzzles make the playing experience a very bumpy ride.

The game is split into two storylines that intertwine and eventually meet in the end. The two protagonists are (amazingly) Jazz and Faust. Jazz is a pirate who has a lust for adventure. Faust, on the other hand, is a noble sea faring captain who finds himself in love with a girl who dropped a jewel in front of him. The driving force behind both of these characters is hard to comprehend when you see what they go through. Suffice it to say that this wouldn't translate into a good book, movie, or short story. Or video game. Oh, wait, too late.

The puzzles mainly consist of either clicking on an object, or picking up some obscure object from one place to use it on another somewhere else. There really aren't any thinking puzzles or neat little gimmicks, and not even any good jokes. You don't even have the option of choosing what you say to people. Instead, you just issue a talk command, and then you talk. It feels as if the developers didn't even glance at the best titles of this genre, and instead went straight into it with no prior knowledge of what worked and what didn't.


Difficulty:

If you find clicking on objects difficult, I wouldn't recommend this game. That's basically all there is to it, but the hardest part will be trying to find some of those objects. Some are plainly out in the open, but there are a few that are so obscurely hidden that you'll spend a good third of your time trying to find them. There are no glints, color differentiation, or hints as to where they are. They look exactly like the background, and most of them will be found by the sheer luck of your cursor passing over them.

Game Mechanics:

Point and click is the only option here. The cursor icon will change accordingly as it passes over various things. Different icons occur for talking, interacting with an item, or using items on something. Walking to a place is accomplished by simply clicking there. A simple interface, but the only problem is that you cannot combine objects in your inventory. This seriously reduces gameplay abilities, making the whole shebang even simpler, and in turn, less fun.

Not only is Jazz and Faust a step down from other games of its genre, but it is hurting the very foundations it is built upon. Each bad egg adds to the growing disinterest of the point and click adventure games. Soon, only die-hard fans will be playing these antiques, and unfortunately, they'll probably be playing games like Jazz and Faust.


-Snow Chainz, GameVortex Communications
AKA Andrew Horwitz

Minimum System Requirements:



Windows 98/K/XP/ME, DirectX 8, 300 MHz Processor, 32 MB RAM, 8X CD-ROM, 4 MB Video Card
 

Test System:



Windows 98, 1.4GHz AMD Athlon, GeForce 2 mx 32MB video card, 40 gig hard drive, 56x CD-ROM, 256MB DDR Ram, Sound Blaster Live! sound card, T1 Internet connection

Windows Iron Storm Windows Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius

 
Game Vortex :: PSIllustrated