Rating: 
Summary: Falls Short
Review: This game, in the tradition of Myst and Riven, has appealing environments, reasonably challenging puzzles and a solid storyline, and is ultimately fun to play. Unlike Myst and Riven, Crystal Key offers a 3-D environment to navigate via Quicktime movies rather than clicking through two-dimensional snapshots. There are some disappointments, however. Graphics quality is uneven, and while I avoided serious difficulties the software does seem to contain some bugs. The soundtrack has some pleasing snippets of music, but clearly the producers didn't bother putting together much of a musical score. The interface, while easy to use, reveals some solutions through its highlighting of "hot spots" on the screen. The end of the game lacks the payoff sequence you'd hope to see after spending all those hours working through the puzzles and saving the world. Ultimately, one has some sense that this is basically an unfinished product, but at the price offered, its not a bad value.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful, but lacking a story and a good payoff
Review: The Crystal Key has environments just as breathtaking as the ones shown on the box. Exploring them is a joy. However, there is practically no story. You crash land on a planet and basically puzzle your way "out", which involves transporting to other worlds, etc.The puzzles are interesting, but often too easy and too linear. This is the type of game where finding a screwdriver on the ground means you'll be needing it for a puzzle around the corner. Some environments, like the subway and the corporate skyscraper in the lake, are so well designed you want to see them populated with people. At the very least, you want some sort of character interaction. But there is none whatsoever. Don't expect a good payoff ending. An anticlimactic ending is a pretty common complaint with most adventure games, but this one is pretty bad. It just suddenly ends. The only adventure game with a more abrupt ending is "Lighthouse", but at least that one had a few mythical characters living in its rich environments. Still, if you love exploring awesome settings, this is the title for you. It's definitely worth the low Amazonian price. Just don't attempt to compare it to the great adventure games, like Riven, Morpheus, and Obsidian.
Rating: 
Summary: A Game?
Review: I have to agree with my fellow reviewers this game was highly disapointing. The graphics aren't that impressive, the easily motion sick people I suggest that you stay away from this game for when you move the graphics get quite blurry and the movement is quite wreckless.
I got extremly board with the game and have yet to finish it (which I don't think I ever will.)
This game (if you could call it that) is a waste of money and time. As many others have mentioned this game has little point and no clues as to where to head next.
Rating: 
Summary: does not warrant the bad reviews
Review: lets start by saying im far too old for computer games, but riven and deus ex are my favorites and the standards by which i compare others. i bought crystal key (ck} months ago because of the box but didnt do it until recently because the reviews indicated it was a waste of time. this was wrong. i have an imac and the game never crashed or had "mechanical" problems, never was too dim to find objects, did not necessitate boosting brightness, was not slow or buggy. although the graphics were grainy at times, the pictures were pretty and the puzzles were engrossing, though a couple were far fetched. people complained of a stupid ending, but the disposition of ozgar was quite logical and clever. incidentally myst and riven had stupid endings too, but they are still great games. the point is getting through ck, not the ending. its the satisfaction you get from seeing a clue finally pay off. ck was not short; myst and riven took 3 days and one week respectively, and ck was in line. in summary, ck is all about puzzles and working through to the conclusion. the game runs well and the visuals are fine. its also cheap, so if you like myst types, give it a try.
Rating:
Summary: A below par Game
Review: The Crystal Key is an interesting game. You goto this other world to "look" for other beings; you are supposed to save earth. There are VERY little interactions with other creatures in this game. You move quite slow and don't have hardly a clue of what to look for to progress to the next areas. I found the game to be very dark in some areas (play at night for best results). However, it did have good graphics. They get blurred when you move, but most of the graphics are very beautiful when you stand still looking for something to do. I agree with most other reviewers on this game, it is just below gaming standards. I resulted to a walk-through for the last puzzle(s), this put the game below 3 stars because it did not keep me interested enough in the game to keep playing until I beat it. Nonetheless, I finally did and I must say I was not real happy with the ending. (Hint: Try dying RIGHT AT the end to get a more involved ending.) Bottom line: This game is quite boring and tedious but worth the money. Look for this game only after you have others to resort to.
Rating:
Summary: You have got to be kidding me
Review: I am an adventure gamer. I love this style of game and I have quite a collection. This game is near the BOTTOM of the list. The "puzzles" are way too simple, the "plot" simply stupid and the ending anticlimactic. I am used to dreamcatcher games being very hit-or-miss, but I never expected this bad. I blew through most of this in half a day. The only reason it took as long as it did is that I had to download a few patches to even run the thing, ...
Rating:
Summary: HUH?
Review: this is probably the worst role playing game ever made. while the graphics are somewhat, i stress somewhat, satisfying, the game play is awful. the "puzzles" are so simple that my ferret solved most of them for me while i was off doing some thing a bit more entertainig, like stabbing my self in the eye with a sharp object. aside from the "puzzles" there were no hints what so ever on what to do next. you wander around aimlessly untill you finally stumble across the smallest little thing. at least in other role playing games, even the bad ones, there is some sort of central thought pattern and things to find that lead you along your way, this is just a lot of aggravating wandering. then when you finally figure out that you should've ducked in the alcove to the left and gone back to the place you were befor that you did every thing at and so on and so forth, the ending is far less then satifying... no battle no thought behind it, no follow up on how you saved your race of cowering humanoids...NOTHING, just a cheap lil 3 line text something to the effect of " you won." with the credits rolling over it. and it has no replay value what so ever. i would not buy or play this game for free at that, while dream catcher does have other good games, this is definately not one of them..
Rating:
Summary: ugh
Review: This definitely was not one of your better role playing puzzle games. There was no real goal for the game. You just sort of wandered around trying to find your way out. Many good graphics, although many of the scenes were way too dark. There was no incentive to go on except that you were hoping something interesting would happen. In games like myst and safecracker, you have indirect interaction, people leave you messages so you know there is life out there. Here, you're on your own. And the end was disappointing, there was no cute little mini-movie making sense of it all. The only reason I gave it two stars instead of one is because there were a few interesting surprises like an alien guy who walks passed you (the only time you can possibly die in this game). Also, there were too many nice graphics that couldn't be grabbed or touched. I thought that was disappointing. No easter eggs in this one. I recommend the Myst series (Exile is a little rough on your computer), safe cracker, riddle of the Sphinx (excellent!). Time machine and Harry Potter are very good too but they are third person and you can get zapped in both.
Rating:
Summary: An Absorbing, Cohesive Experience
Review: A colony has suddenly evacuated its cities in order to avoid the wrath of an angry Ozgar. The player's object is to locate Ozgar and stop him before he destroys this planet. The colonists have developed a remarkable technology for hypertravel from one world to another. Through the course of the game, the player gains control of this technology in order to find and defeat Ozgar. By virtue of this narrative, the player is afforded the opportunity to jump freely (after gaining the technology) from any of four worlds. The worlds are quite disparate and very beautifully rendered. It does take some time and effort to obtain the technology, but the process of doing so is engaging, interesting, logical, and rewarding. There are very few non-player character interactions. In fact, in most cases an encounter with another character usually means trouble--some encounters result in a sudden "game over". This game, consequently, is a very solitary experience, with very little dialogue and with most clues being found intuitively and through exploration. I enjoyed this aspect of the game very much. Some reviewers have felt that the sudden "game over" encounters were unnecessary and distracting. Perhaps, but if you save often (as you should anyway), you can easily return to the gameplay, and the game makes it fairly clear fairly quickly that you should avoid ALL beings. Once the first serious encounter is made, the player is fairly well clued in that nothing about these worlds is particularly friendly. The scenery is just splendid. The worlds are very different--one lush and green, one arid and dry, one partially submerged underwater (and in which the player enters one building and goes several floors down beneath the surface of the water outside). The player's progress is extremely linear--most things must be done in a particular order, and in some cases the player may be significantly hindered if she has missed some element. However, the ease with which the player may jump from world to world more than makes up for the linearity. Exploration is multidimensional in this regard. Toward the end, I did find it necessary to go to a walkthrough online. The puzzles became to some degree inhibitive rather than contributing to the game experience. Once solved (by cheating a little), the storyline and graphics were rewarding enough for me to forgive myself my indiscretion. The final puzzle, I must agree with other reviewers, is unnecessarily convoluted and the end is rather seriously truncated. In this way, I was a little disappointed. I give this game four stars for its creative way of mitigating the problem of linearity by giving the player free rein (after gaining the technology) to explore several beautiful worlds; for its inventive artwork in rendering the worlds; for its pensive, solitary feel; and for its science fictional (as opposed to fantasy) concept. I give this game no more than four stars because I sense that it was cut short, because the linearity sometimes interferes with how much exploration the player may engage in each world, and because I felt it necessary to turn to walkthroughs in order to complete the game. All in all, I come away from The Crystal Key feeling mainly that I spent my time well in these worlds.
Rating:
Summary: The Crystal Key
Review: I found this game to be just so so. With computer graphics you'd think that they'd be able to make the aliens more alien. They remind me of stormtroopers in black armour. I feel this game was limited to 1930's stile imagination.
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