The Crystal Key

The Good
The opening could have been the basis for an action game, but The Crystal Key is pure adventure. When you step outside your spaceship, your eyes feast upon beautiful blue sky, lush green grass and trees. In the distance, a lone building beckons you. On with the adventure!

Following clues left behind by the former inhabitants, there are numerous puzzles to solve. Unfortunately, there is nobody else around. You wander alone, in Myst fashion, but this is definitely not Myst. At least the game is not linear, so you can pop in between the worlds as often as you wish.

Puzzles range from easy to medium in difficulty and some may keep you occupied for hours.

The Bad
The QuickTime engine used in this game caused me major grief. What should have been an easy grab-drag action became laborously slow and clumsy, sometimes infuriating me enough to hit my computer's reset button.

While the graphics are very realistic, one of the worlds is too much so. Players may find themselves helplessly lost in a jungle where all of the leaves, rocks and trees all look alike. Although not a maze, it felt like one as you attempt to find only two real places of interest there.

The inventory management is a bit clumsy. There are no descriptions offered for any of the items you pick up nor even a name for them. What in the world is that strange gizmo? You'll have no idea until you have to use it and then it is just plain luck.

Another major flaw was the ending. After solving all of the mysteries and saving the world, what you receive is a very short and anticlimatic ending. A simple thank you from the Arkonians, or a view of them returning to their homeworld, would have been sufficient. You are rid of the evil Ozgar, yes, but even his demise was too quick and I didn't feel any triumph - other to be glad to have finished the game.

The Bottom Line
Adventurers who liked Myst and its sequels might find The Crystal Key entertaining, if they can get beyond the bugs. Personally I wouldn't waste my time.

The Good
Graphics & Game Interface:
The best thing about the game is the graphics. They are nothing special in comparison to the graphics quality today, but the game has a really sweet zooming and panning effect available on all screens. The game controls and interface are simple and easy to use.

The next best thing about the game was finishing it so I could get it off my hard drive.

The Bad
This game is a technical nightmare and suffers from extremely poor development.

Technical Difficulties:
It took me hours to get the game to run. Because the entire game is nothing but a QuickTime application, it will only run under the specific version of QuickTime in which it was developed. And the right version of QuickTime has to be installed on your computer BEFORE you install the game for it to run. And the game-stopping bugs are too numerous to recall here -- just make sure you have multiple saves of the game backed up.

Oh, and let's hope your CD drive is in good condition--it'll spin like crazy during the entire game.

Story (or lack of):
It has a generic storyline: Some evil alien dude is about to destroy the world and you have to stop him. Other than that basic premise, there is nothing else that fills in the details to expand on that story. Scenes are only tied together by your attempts to move from one area to the next to get to the end.

Gameplay:
Half of the puzzles are generic and simple; others are totally illogical where you have to play a guessing game with your inventory. The game is really short (or maybe that's a good thing in this case)--played it in about 10 hours.

Sound/Music: It has some minor sound effects and practically no music at all.

The Bottom Line
This is your basic Myst-clone done very poorly. You can probably find in a bargain bin for $5, but considering the numerous titles available at that price you're sure to find something better.