The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time

The Good
The graphics are usually star in Journeyman Project games and this is no exception. Despite some fuzziness at times to facilitate the 720 degree panning ability, the graphics in Legacy Of Time are quite beautiful. Not quite as beautiful as in Journeyman Project 2: Buried In Time, but then that's a high standard to come up to.

The really impressive part of this game is an incredible storyline. Even if the game were complete drivel, it would be worth beating just to find out what happens. The FMV cut-scenes drive the story very well and are very well done. And the whole time-jumping concept is intriguing in itself.

Sound effects are great, as they were earlier in the series, with not only immersive ambient effects but also realistic effects which accompany your every action. Music is fair and the theme song is awesome.

A big part of this game, as well, is Arthur, your AI helper. At times, one could complain that his jokes are just too bad, I suppose. But I felt that he was a great addition to the game and easily my favorite character. Some of his comments are hilarious.

The Bad
Alot of people felt that the concept of being able to use the Chameleon Suit to talk to people was a great addition. However, I feel that it seriously breeches that spine-tingling surrealistic "aloneness" which accompanied the predecessors and gave them a special ambience. Also, it is unrealistic in the way that, obviously, talking to someone could change the whole of history. Even if these civilizations were destroyed, they must have had a few survivors somehow. Anyway, that's a lesser concern than the loss of atmosphere.

I had severe problems with the audio system popping. It could just be my computer, though.

Finally, a major problem is that you can't die. You could easily die and/or cause a temporal distortion wave in many places throughout the first two games. It lent even more atmosphere to what was already incredibly heavy in it.

The Bottom Line
It's not Buried In Time, but it's the next best thing. Kudos to Presto Studios.

The Good
Stunning graphics, animations, cutscene movies, a truly epic plot and great gameplay concept. The puzzels are all very well designed and related to the plot and the environment (unlike Myst-like games where you have to solve very obscure and unrelated puzzels). Very fun to play and watch the FMVs! The overall presentation is simply the best in its genre!

The Bad
A bit short, some mouse compatibility problems. Very addictive gameplay resulting loss of sleep.

The Bottom Line
Best adventure game with everything right, from fluid, beautiful graphics to great FMVs to atmospheric music to truly epic plot. A must-have for all adventure fans and all the other gamers alike!

The Good
Where to begin? First of all, the plot was very well done, and was always interesting; at no point did I become bored with the storyline. There were even a few unexpected twists and turns.

Arthur, while an annoyance at times, still had his shining moments of humor. And for those that hated Arthur in the previous game, fear not - you have the option now of muting him completely. A nice touch. :)

The ability to pan your view around was a very welcome improvement over the first two games. While this degrades graphic quality somewhat, it's well worth it.

The Bad
There is a horrendous problem with audio in this game, and it is apparenty a common issue with many computers. In order to stop the audio from studdering and popping constantly, one must tweak their system performance settings to disable various acceleration options - making this game playable, but other modern games will slow to a crawl. But perhaps it may be worth it, if you only play one game at a time.

The other problem I had, was that there was no way for your character to die - there was no risk. In the previous games, there were numerous ways to die, or cause temporal anomolies, and some of them were quite humorous. The sense of isolation in the first two games was not present here, and was missed.

The Bottom Line
If you can overcome the audio problem, this game is a must. The plot is well-crafted, and the drive to advance to the adventure's conclusion is always present. Look forward to many hours of lost sleep.

The Good
Legacy of Time was a fun, immersive experience. The plot held my interest throughout the entire game. A couple of the puzzles were a bit tricky, but never frustrating. Having 720 degrees of freedom was great, and the graphics were nice for the time. One of the best parts of this game was how much character it had- the "Chameleon Jumpsuit" added a whole new level to the gameplay by allowing you to interact with folks from the past. I was also one of the few people who didn't find Arthur annoying, and would often set him to verbose mode to catch every bit of Matt Weinhold's humor. The music and full-motion video sequences were also very well done. Jerry Rector made the best Gage Blackwood in the series, hands-down (of course, he also got the most screen time.)

The Bad
There were only two things I disliked about this game. One was the final heating vents puzzle in Shangri-La, which stumped me for too long (simply because I didn't realize that the third heat vent should not be included in the circuit.) I also disliked the endgame puzzle, only because it boiled down to guess-and-check instead of logic.

The Bottom Line
A grand adventure through time. Puzzles are easy to medium in difficulty. Suitable for children and adults alike. I would recommend playing the first two games in the series first, even though I consider this to be the best in the series (and played them in reverse order myself.)