Summary
Let's beat the hell outta the Nazis!
The Good
One of the few computer games where you can actually see Hitler and even let him sign something for you...
Yup, this historical background is probably the best part of the game. I enjoyed so much fighting with the Nazis, it felt great! I preferred entering a combat with every single soldier and beating him up rather than solving a puzzle in order to surpass those soldiers... They well deserved it! :)
The game combines a classic adventure (especially in the first part) with some combats (in the Nazi castle). The adventure elements are more of the exploring than on the puzzle-solving side: you must find the right room in order to get the right item etc. This is also probably the first game to introduce the immortal Lucas Arts system of "optional dialogue lines". Surely, the usage of this great discovery is rather rudimentary here, and the dialogue is generally not very widely used. Besides, the emphasis here is not on the humorous side of those optional lines (like in "Secret Of Monkey Island"), but rather on the correctness of the answer: if you choose a wrong line, you can die.
Yes, this game is quite different to most of the Lucas Arts masterpieces: you can die here, and pretty often. There are some very tricky action sequences, especially the very hard ones near the end of the game (where you also can't save your game, to add suspense and feeling of reality).
The game's style is actually closer to "Sierra's" classic adventures, although the idea, the design and the half-serious, half-humorous atmosphere are typical "lucasartish". However, the puzzle-solving is a bit unusual for a Lucas Arts game: the puzzles are less complicated, more logical, not nearly as rich and as various as, for example, in "Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis". The puzzles are more of the "find the right combination" or "choose the right way" kind than the famous "use-this-with-that" madness a la "Day Of The Tentacle". It is an adventure where taking a decision is more important than thinking, so to say. Or, in other world: an adventure with a delicate action flavor.
Technically, the game is superb: stunning 256 colors VGA graphics, great sound effects and atmospheric MIDI music. The controls are the SCUMM system of Ron Gilbert; nothing original here, but more elegantly used than in earlier games "Maniac Mansion" and "Zak McKracken".
The Bad
This game is a bit of the naive side, of course: black-white characters, simple plot, corny Holy Grail stuff (the same topic is treated much more interestingly and profoundly in "Gabriel Knight: Blood Of The Sacred, Blood Of The Damned). Playing this game is just like to watch... well, an "Indiana Jones" movie, of course, what did you expect? :)
Not much puzzle-solving in this game, and the combat tends to be rather primitive. Still, it was refreshing and realistic...
The Bottom Line
If you expect a really classic Lucas Arts adventure, this one is not for you. However, standing on its own, it is a milestone in the development of adventure games and a pleasant change to the more typical games.
