Archives by Day

About Rainier

PC gamer, WorthPlaying EIC, globe-trotting couch potato, patriot, '80s headbanger, movie watcher, music lover, foodie and man in black -- squirrel!

Advertising

As an Amazon Associate, we earn commission from qualifying purchases.





PC Review: The Mystery of The Druids

by Rainier on Oct. 12, 2001 @ 9:20 p.m. PDT

Prepare for a classical adventure that will keep you captivated in a point-and-click exploration through time when a case of murder turns out to be part of a sacred ritual, only now being completed. 1000 years after it began! MOTD is a perfect blend of modern intrigue and olden day mystery accompanied by an engrossing story line full of plot twists and dashes of humor.
A series of horrible murders happens/occurs in England, only the bones of the victims are found and pieces are even missing. After a while police finds a suspect and after a trial he gets send to prison.

A year later a new corps is discovered and it follows the exact same pattern as the previous murders so now its up to you, Brent Halligan, Scotland Yard detective to solve the murders and preferably BEFORE another mutilated corps turns up. The pressure from the press is huge, especially since the innocent man who got convicted and send to prison, has been murdered by inmates.

Soon (depending how smart you are) you discover its not a single lunatic you are dealing with but dark forces, an old cult going back several hundred years....

Mystery of The Druids is a adventure game and you play it in 3rd person perspective and during the game you will also get access to another caracters. The background graphics are very well detailed and look really fresh, something I wont say the same about the characters. The quality of the models suprised me a little, especially when having conversations with your boss in the beginning of the game.

Regardless what you think about the character graphics you won't be disappointed with the story because its VERY well thought through.

But the problems you encounter are nothing new and revolutionizing. The downside with this game is that they have not used the value of a Scotland Yard detective, there is just too little detective/police work that needs to be done.

Example : you arrive at a crime scene but there isn't anything to do there because the Forensic Dept. has already gone through it all. A witness has already been questioned but there is no way you can interrogate him yourself because the poor soul is in the hospital. Hospital? Bah I wouldn't had anything againt pushing him a little... maybe he hasn't told us everything ? ;)

Then there is the issue of picking things up. Brent obviously has missed the part about stealing because tha'ts nothing he has a problem with, something you soon discover when you see your inventory filled with useless stuff. Dont know how the Yard works but I dont think Brent would have been successful there.

The gaming functions are easy, You point-and-click with your mouse. If you want to look at something you just move the cursor over it and IF you can look at it a magnifying glass will appear. This makes it impossible for you to miss anything and you don't really need to be carefull when you are investigating some place since you CAN'T miss anything. What supposed to be found, gets found.

So anything good then? The story is excellent, the movie sequences are VERY NICE. I recommend big speakers and dim light during the animations. What pulls the grade down is how you play the game. In my opinion, if you are a Yard detective you should be able to push people around and do some snooping around.

Is this a Revolutionizing Adventure Game? No, its not. But is it a Good Adventure game then? Yes it is. It does not really contain anything new but thanks to the very well thought through story you will have many hours of gaming fun ahead. If you feel unsure, download the demo that is available and check it out. If You like the demo, you WILL enjoy the full game.

A lot has been written about TMOTD movie sequences, they are supposedly violent etc. Well the movie seq. are animated and very well done and I suppose one or two of them might frighten some poor souls out there but this IS a mystery/detective game after all not some educational crap. The missing point in most articles is that this is an Adventure Game. The Point in the game is that you will have to use your brain to get somewhere, not your AK 47.

The recommended system requirements are pretty basic a Pentium II 400, 64 Mb RAM and 4 Mb Video RAM will suffice.

Some Features :

  • Classic Point and Click Adventure
  • 3D polygonal Characters with up to 1,000 polygons
  • Hi-resolution pre-rendered backgrounds taken from UK locations
  • More than 20 NPC's for conversation and interaction
  • 54 exciting locations
  • More than 360 interactive scenes
  • More thank 5 hours of music and voice-overs
  • Non linear dialogues and game play
  • Vehicles can now drive backwards
  • Realistic lip synch dialogues
  • An extensive soundtrack, mixed in real time
  • SFX in Dolby Surround Sound

The game is already available in European outlets and coming to the American shelves October 30, 2001 ($29.95 US)

Used system

P3 1.000 / 512mb Ram / WinME Guillemot 3D Prophet Geforce2 Pro


blog comments powered by Disqus