Kingdom: The Far Reaches

Far Reaches is no salve for traditional RPG warriors, but it makes a great forage into another strange fantasy world. If you think you're going to get the fast action of Dragon's Lair or the solid elements of Chrono Trigger, however, you'd better Reach for something else.

I liked Kingdom: The Far Reaches. The sound and look of the game kept me interested, as did the turns in the plot. Unfortunately, skill is not a factor in this game. If you listen to what people say and have the brains to put two and two together, you'll do just fine. Just don't wander into any locations without first being told to do so or it's curtains. if you're a parent, this will wow your kiddies; If you're older and more patient, this is a relaxing change.

A given clip may be interesting the first time, but repeats can grow tiresome (fortunately, they can be cut short). Step-by-step decisions limit control over Lathan between or during clips, so while Saturday-morning-TV fans may thrill to the thought of manipulating a cartoon, older players aren't likely to be much impressed.

Still, there are a few dozen of hours of puzzles to solve and very entertaining voice acting --- shame about the so-so animation. The verdict: Kingdom is one of the most playable FMV games for the 3DO, which isn't saying much, but hey.

All in all this is quite an entertaining game -- not difficult, but involving enough. It seems that 'video' is the way games are going at the moment and, though this excludes the player to a certain degree, Far Reaches nevertheless has enough going for it to keep you entertained. It still requires sufficient player interaction and decision making to sit comfortably within the 'adventure game camp'. But, remember, this is not a traditional adventure game where you can wander about and pick up and manipulate lots of objects. There are a few objects to collect, but it is much more akin to watching a fantasy cartoon with the opportunity to direct the action at the appropriate places.

As I fired up this latest adventure title from Interplay, I couldn't help but be reminded of Dragon's Lair, the Laserdisc coin-up game that was a hit in the 1980s.

I approached Reaches as a role playing version of Dragon's Lair, an "interactive Lord of the Rings," as one of the reviews from the box art exclaims. I was soon disappointed. This game is graphically interesting and undoubtedly appealing to some because of the deep storyline, but it's difficult to really make much sense out of the story without retracing your steps over and over. It's linear to the point where if you get the right sequence of moves, you win. If you don't get precisely the right sequence, you go back to the beginning and try to get the right sequence again. You can save the game in progress, but with the linear storyline, it's hard to know how far back you need to retrace your steps in order to figure out what you should have done to survive whatever killed you.

"Interaktivität" und "Multimedia" sind die Schlagworte der 90er Jahre. Nachdem sich "spielbare Filme" auf CD-Rom nicht zum ganz großen Renner entwickelt haben, versucht Interplay nun, mit Kingdom - The Far Reaches den "interaktiven Zeichentrickfilm" zu etablieren!

Spelets allra största fördel är installationen, som är föredömligt enkel, eller rättare sagt inte finns alls. Det är bara att tuta och köra. Tyvärr räcker inte det så långt.

Ein Königreich für eine Spielidee: Läppische Adventure-Ansätze werden durch bescheidene Zeichentrick-Sequenzen zusammengehalten.