Description
Ladies and gentlemen, please pay attention - the Orient Express is about to depart from Paris! Do I hear somebody playing a violin? As the train slowly starts moving away from the station, a young, courageously looking man jumps on it from his motorcycle and makes his way inside. This is Robert Cath, an American about whom we don't know much as we begin the game. In the train, he finds the dead body of the person he was supposed to meet. Now he has to act quickly. The only way not to arise the suspicions of the police is to disguise himself as the murdered man. A very dangerous investigation begins, and the hero soon finds himself involved in a deep net of personal intrigues and political conspiracies.
The Last Express is a true real-time adventure set in 1914, just before the First World War, in a concrete historical and geographical environment. As you gain control of Robert Cath, time begins to flow. If you fail to solve a part of the mystery until the train arrives at the next station, certain events might follow which will lead to a premature and disappointing ending. You cannot die or get stuck in the game, as you can always rewind the clock and try playing any period of time again. Along with some detective work to do and a couple of inventory puzzles, your main task in the game will be to listen to people's conversations, to talk to them, and to solve the mystery by finding out more information about the bizarre case. There are also some action fighting sequences in the game.
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Trivia
Lead Designer
Jordan Mechner points out several sources of inspiration for
The Last Express:
- The Alfred Hitchcock movie The Lady Vanishes (1938) provided the idea to use a train as the setting
- The plot was modeled after spy novels such as John Buchan’s The 39 Steps and stories by John Le Carré
- European comic artists François Schuiten and Enki Bilal inspired Mechner to use stylized drawings instead of real-life actors
- Characters were drawn in the style of the Art Nouveau period (see special trivia)
- And finally, Mechner set the game in the time of World War 1 because “the Second World War as a scenario is overstressed, in games as well as in movies”.
Source: Marc A. Saltzman:
Game Design: Secrets of the Sages (BradyGames 1999)
