Heart of Darkness

The Good
Everything! You have pure action. The grafic is high, full of details and surprises!!! The best is, everytime they "kill" you (believe me, there are lots of;) If you fall to your death or get eaten (which is always a particularly gory event, especially in contrast to the saccharine trappings of the story), you end up at the beginning of your current puzzle area, which is never too far back. Keep getting killed and a tip will appear to help move you along, though knowing what to do doesn't always make the going easy. We have a lot of PS/PC-Games in our collection, but believe me, nothing comperes to "Heart of darkness"!

The Bad
We played more than a week, never the less it was too short, because is so damn good!!!

The Bottom Line
The game is something for advanced players!

Hidden away in the Heart of Darkness lies a terrifying world. A world ruled by the Master of Darkness whose cruel and absolute power leads an army of emaciated devils. The fiendish force scours the land in search of Andy a young boy on a quest to rescue his dog Whisky. Trapped in a terrifying nightmare only you can take Andy through hundreds of epic encounters to overcome a whole host of wonderfully weird characters and emerge triumphant from the Heart of Darkness.

The Good
Phew! Almost 6 years in the making and at last it's RELEASED! You can't get yourself asking, "why it took so long?" I don't have the answer, neither believe it's so important: If you like the game, there is no problem!

In general, I liked the game. Especially being able to find yourself again in a world similar to Another World and Flashback after all those years is a great enjoyment --just like playing the Curse of Monkey Island! So as expected Heart of Darkness improves the known quality to a incredibly lifelike experience.

The opening intro of the game is a perfect example for this thought. This stunning animated cutscene is just like watching a movie, like watching an earlier work of Steven Spielberg. It's not difficult to understand the interest of him in making a computer generated movie with the story of Heart of Darkness. Maybe, it'll be a second Toy Story affair, eh? Who knows? Amazing Studios (the developer of the game) is currently working on setting up a new company to handle CG movies.

The Bad
Although I like the gameplay, it's definitely frustrating to play. You didn't manage to cross the section you were in? The game immediately sends you back to the action and waits you perform your required skill. Unfortunately there is no alternative way to find in Heart of Darkness!!

For a 1998 game the low-resolution graphics could also be a problem. But you can't blame the developers for this because it's in the making for a long long time. So you had better amuse yourself with the 3D dimension they had filmed for the end sequence :)

The Bottom Line
One state-of-the-ART! 'Nuff said...:)

The Good
Just when all the hopes went away, and we started thinking how platform level-based genre was extinct, we're blasted from the past with another touch of classic. This game can easily be compared to good old rule called Another World, in both story and graphic quality for its time, as well as animation and music quality. Once I started this game, I was like a glued to my computer side of me. It showed me the history, and unraveled longly forgotten part of meback when I enjoyed a perfection under the a name of Blackthorne.

You're playing a waggish li'l boy whose only fear lies in the bottom of the darkness. The scene opens as you're sleeping on the class, and your terror-like creature of a teacher is trying to punish you by closing you in a small closet, but, as the ring went off, you wriggle down below, and run out as fast as the wind carries you. There you find your faithful friend and a dog, start wearing your baseball hat, and you run yelling 'freedom!'. Just as you found a nice spot on the grass to spend your rest-of-a-day vacations, sun eclipse approaches, and with a nice eye-darksun effect, your dog disappears, and you end up only with his hat.

No matter the fears you confront as a young man, your dog is more then a reason to surpass those fears, and free him the darkness. You enter your tree-hut cabin, take your gun and stuff like that, and fly sky to find your dog captured. As you come to some canyons right from the clouds above, you strike some black creature and stuck in some nearest cleft. Thus your adventures begin.

As much as it took the game maybe too long in development for such a shortness of playing, it holds really breathtaking stunning effects and graphics, and the animations are worthy playing. Just if you know how funny they can be... hehe, I'll leave that to you for discovering. Controls and playing skills are more or less all taken from Out of This World and Prince of Persia game types, so it'll be easy to adjust and settle as in home if you've played any kinda platform game of similar style.

Music is clearly enough for you to realize some heavy orchestar compositions are involved, as with that kinda music, it's no such wondering that there is a soundtrack for this game available. Since you'll meet many friend and foes during the game, not all will be clear to understand, but they sure holds the ability for fun and are adjusted to that world's settings, so everything actually comes to the right place. Wether the sound is distance, or is there yelling or begging involved, wether your laser is on, or some mountain creeks, wether you fly or swim, talk or fight, the sound and background and story music are perfectly combined to work as one.

As I noticed here, there were some major efforts in making many different, and highly detailed places, and yet having only one or two of each specific different place. I believe I also noticed that in Another World as well. The thing is, developers usually once they do the level frame, and all the wall and ground and background images, pump that to volume of like at least twenty levels all of the same type and look, but only difference lies in the level net and scheme output. On 'Another World' aka 'Out of This World', and this game, 'Heart of Darkness', levels are really detailed, and the traps and enemies are almost unique on each levels, with different puzzles to cross to, and even though they coud've make ten levels with each graphic elements, they still didn't misuse their quality, and that's the main reason why both games, AW and HoD are actually rather short to play, but unique in every aspect from player's viewpoint.

The Bad
Well, the fact that game is actually short wouldn't be a minus, as that's the way it is. Just imagine if you'll have to spend a year of playing on any game, where would that lead? I'll tell ya. That would lead to the point that you coul play about 80 games in your lifetime... hehe, and we don't wanna live like that, now want we!? :)

Also, both of the games, this one, and Another World have concentraited their main strength on the last level. Why? We all come to the end easily, thinking how the game's short, and then stuck on the last level. It's not impossible, you'll manage to end it once you play it couple of extra times, but think it this way. If they directed the final strength of the level through the whole game, we would automatically play each level longer, getting the feelings as the game's a bit longer then we thought so.

Here's great example of game using that think on us. Whoever played, and finished Eye of the Beholder, he or she will know that the game was hard enough on the every level, and finally, when getting to the end, that Xanathar creature was as easy to kill as every other creature, and you even got plenty of space to do the fight. That way, the game gets longevity a bit extended, and nobody has to try more then once the final fight, and end animation, if there is any :)

The Bottom Line
As good as Out of This World, as fatal as Blackthorne, an adventuristic as Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, funny as Secret of the Monkey Island, and addictive like none of the mentioned. This game will w/o a doubt give you hard time on some places, but reward you decently, and give you some of the best elements you can find in game - easy controls, fine story, nice music, great adventuristic spirit of action, and well done animations. Can you trully ask for more knowing the game crawled from the dust of our 2d memories we were always happy to dealt with :) Except that, this whole mumbo-jumbo about 2d is actually oriented a bit more to 3d then I've spoken during this review, so there's another reason why you should try this game out.