Rating: Summary: Good, fun, great graphics Review: A beautiful game, with minor drawbacks. I had no problems installing it, it ran very smoothly. The plot is not very cohesive, but I didn't mind at all. Just a load of fun travelling from world to world and solving the puzzles. Wich, I must say, are not so difficult as some people would like you to believe. You definitely don't need a walkthrough for this one. The game is perfectly rendered, the graphics are Myst Exile quality - much better than had expected from a game that is relatively cheap (and much better than, for example Schizm). The main personage is a sort of Lara Croft, including the Tombraiderstyle clips, but the acting is horrible however. The faces of the personages look like they have all been very, very drunk last night. That should have been much, much better. The voice-acting is bad. So a star off for that. Having said that, I would recommend this game. It's fun, it's reasonably immersive and it's worth the money. I applaud the makers for continuing to make adventuregames, some perfect, some just fun. For this kind of money? A good buy.
Rating: Summary: Sheer disappoinment Review: After the brilliance of Beyond Atlantis (Atlantis 2), I fought hard to get a copy of BA2...... Whoa, what a disappointment! From the wooden voice over delivery of the principal (I am an Acting and Voice coach so have a little experience here) to the uninspired plot, worlds, and game in general. Additionally, the game ran very roughly on my computers (new one, well within the min. req)and failed to keep my interest. Did finish it, though-- in only a few hours. If you must play this game, wait until it hits your local electronics discount store in the $4.99 bin.
Rating: Summary: Beautiful graphics, good puzzles, very enjoyable to play! Review: Atlantis 3, Beyond Atlantis II As the previous Atlantis games, this game contains beautiful graphics. The storyline is enjoyable, not in the least because of our feisty heroine and the beautiful scenes she encounters. The puzzles are interesting and not too difficult or too easy. The game is wonderfully easy to operate, not a mouse click too much is needed, many compliments for that! Also nice is the story in a story, where the hero suddenly is a male. Any downsides: Very annoying is the puzzle that relies on motoric skill or luck (throwing the rock at the tiger). The end of the story is somewhat of an anticlimax. And there seem to be a few sides of the Cristal unused, suggesting that the makers of the game got fed up, and did not want to venture into more different worlds? But overall, one of the best adventure games around!
Rating: Summary: Dreamcatcher should have quit while they were ahead. Review: Beyond Atlantis (AKA Atlantis II) was a slightly flawed gem. (Pun intended for those who have played it.) Interesting, beautiful, difficult, reasonably well-plotted, internally logical, and fun. The only part THIS installment of the series got right was "beautiful."I will say that the graphics in this game are wondrous. From the Arabian Nights courtyard to the Pink Floyd-esque "Membrane" (which seemingly represents the heroine's brain...or maybe Jung's collective unconcious...or maybe God as visualized by dolphins) the rendering is absolutely gorgeous. But graphics alone do not make a good game. There is no logic to BA2...neither externally nor internally. The "plot" has you discovering an artifact that can imbue you with a superhuman wisdom by transporting you to a series of different realms and times and letting you experience those places through the eyes of one of its inhabitants. This scheme fails on a variety of levels. Sometimes, you appear in these realms as yourself, while in others, you are a completely unrecognizable character. There is no logic to WHY these worlds are chosen, nor to what you are supposed to "learn" in each. In fact, given that you are supposedly striving to achieve some sort of enlightenment that you can then pass on to the rest of humanity, it seems odd that the focus of the "Scheherazade" world is to lie, steal and seduce women. Eventually the sequence of realms seems completely arbitrary. It is similar to Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man:" a series of unconnected short stories woven together by a loose and incomprehensible over-story. Except Bradbury wrote GOOD short stories. The chapters of BA2 are weak and silly, each and every one. Even the few good puzzles (and there are a couple) are mired down in a morass of confusion and pretentiousness. Beyond Atlantis was a quality game...one that made you think, feel, and examine your character's motives. (Plus, the "White Horse" cutscene in BA may be the single best cutscene in any adventure game ever.) It is an injustice to THAT game that this one shares the same title. Avoid this game at all costs unless you are desperate for some eye candy.
Rating: Summary: Dreamcatcher should have quit while they were ahead. Review: Beyond Atlantis (AKA Atlantis II) was a slightly flawed gem. (Pun intended for those who have played it.) Interesting, beautiful, difficult, reasonably well-plotted, internally logical, and fun. The only part THIS installment of the series got right was "beautiful." I will say that the graphics in this game are wondrous. From the Arabian Nights courtyard to the Pink Floyd-esque "Membrane" (which seemingly represents the heroine's brain...or maybe Jung's collective unconcious...or maybe God as visualized by dolphins) the rendering is absolutely gorgeous. But graphics alone do not make a good game. There is no logic to BA2...neither externally nor internally. The "plot" has you discovering an artifact that can imbue you with a superhuman wisdom by transporting you to a series of different realms and times and letting you experience those places through the eyes of one of its inhabitants. This scheme fails on a variety of levels. Sometimes, you appear in these realms as yourself, while in others, you are a completely unrecognizable character. There is no logic to WHY these worlds are chosen, nor to what you are supposed to "learn" in each. In fact, given that you are supposedly striving to achieve some sort of enlightenment that you can then pass on to the rest of humanity, it seems odd that the focus of the "Scheherazade" world is to lie, steal and seduce women. Eventually the sequence of realms seems completely arbitrary. It is similar to Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man:" a series of unconnected short stories woven together by a loose and incomprehensible over-story. Except Bradbury wrote GOOD short stories. The chapters of BA2 are weak and silly, each and every one. Even the few good puzzles (and there are a couple) are mired down in a morass of confusion and pretentiousness. Beyond Atlantis was a quality game...one that made you think, feel, and examine your character's motives. (Plus, the "White Horse" cutscene in BA may be the single best cutscene in any adventure game ever.) It is an injustice to THAT game that this one shares the same title. Avoid this game at all costs unless you are desperate for some eye candy.
Rating: Summary: Great Adventure Game Review: Both Beyond Atlantis and Beyond Atlantis 2 are great adventure games. These games give you plenty of different places to explore, puzzles both easy and complex, beautiful graphics, and characters to interact with. The Atlantis series are my favorite next to The Longest Journey.
Rating: Summary: Impossible to Install Review: Copy of e-mail sent to dreamcatcher tech support 11/23/01 Not responded to as 11/29/01 Received game nearly two weeks ago and could not install because: 1. With CD insertion notification on, the drive selects for over three minutes, then stops and nothing happens. 2. With insertion notification off, browse for G/setup.exe dies in a loop, CTL-ALT-DEL gets blue screen with fatal error OD at 0246:014747FB, enter key gets second blue screen with fatal error 0D at 08C3:0147268B, second enter key returns to system. 3. After a naked boot of Win98 (run msconfig with no autoexec.bat, config.sys or startup up group items) and browsing for G/setup.exe get message: G/setup.exe not a valid Win32 application. 4. I am running Win98 SE with 96MB RAM. Driver for CD is MS IDE-CD R/W 4x4x24 dated 4/23/1999. MS online says this is latest driver for the CD drive. 5. Spoke with tech support about a week ago on problem and after talking me through a settings change on the CD buffer read-ahead option the tech said they'd send me another copy of Disk 1, which I received today and which has the same problem with installation. 6. I had no problem with installing or running Beyond Atlantis, Riddle of the Sphinx or The Sacred Amulet.
Rating: Summary: COOL Review: Great 3D graphics and sound! 3 fabulous CDs. Very interesting game, has nothing to do with the movie. I played it with pleasure!
Rating: Summary: Simply great! Review: Great game, I really enjoyed playning it! Graphics, sound... Take this game and you won't regret it!
Rating: Summary: Install problems, game made no sense Review: I agree with others who had install problems. I also could not get the first CD to be recognised or install the game on my machine. I luckily have two computers and tried the install on the other (Windows ME instead of Windows 98SE) and it worked. Then I had to try and figure out the stupid puzzles. I did not find them intuitive at all. Some were easy, others made no sense. I agree that the graphics were stunning, but I play games to PLAY, not look at pretty pictures. If you want to rate that way, 5 stars for looks, 1 star for substance.
|