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The Crystal Key

The Crystal Key

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: You get what you pay for...
Review: Granted, the pictures and graphics are good, but the storyline could have been a lot richer - I felt like I was missing out on a large part of the story - the puzzles were good 9 there was a real-world logic about them, but DO NOT expect an exciting ending...considering how cheap it was, I'm not surprised.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Short and dark
Review: I'm not that experienced with adventure/puzzle games, but I do know what I like. I like to be able to see. Maybe it's my eyes or the fact that I play games on a laptop, but this game seemed particularly dark to me. I couldn't find several items except by the "braille" method.

However, it's nice to have the puzzles related to the storyline and not just thrust in front of you because a puzzle seems needed ("I need to use the restroom." "I'm sorry, but you'll have to solve this crossword first.").

The story seemed a bit short. I confess to using a cheat or two, but I don't think doing that sped up the time that much.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Disappointing
Review: The Crystal Key does have some beautiful graphics but moves very slow. Way too many bugs still in software. Does not even compare with Myst or Riven by any stretch of the imagination. I finally gave up after crashing too many times to count.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The Crystal Key! (well Done)
Review: I really liked the game. The puzzles are hard, but thats the reason why we buy the games. To let are minds work! But the game Puzzles might be to hard on some people, so i think you should give out HINTS or maybe some cheats for people not to get frustrated, and maybe they'll buy more of your games.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Disappointing
Review: As an avid adventure gamer, I found the plot to be less than intriguing and the puzzles to be simplistic and random. Graphics were way too dark, and having to go back to different worlds to pick up items frustrating. I give it a BIG YAWN!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: More bugs than a 4th of July picnic.
Review: This could have been a great game if only they had ironed out all the bugs before releasing it. I'm a patient person (well...make that "perseverant" - I was tearing out my hair & feeling a strong urge to strangle my computer monitor before finally giving up).

Some of the bugs: Items mysteriously disappear from the inventory, & I once had an entire spaceship disappear from right outside my door, leaving me stranded. Saved games are often lost, or the computer crashes during saving. Entire discs are "not found" when inserted. Sound effects from one scene will get pulled into another (e.g., dripping cave sounds in the middle of the desert).

To add to the misery, it's possible to be "killed" at the most unexpected of times. So it's necessary to save often. (Except that when you save...)

What a shame. Because the graphics are great (most of the time), the worlds intriguing, the puzzles not too difficult (although perhaps somewhat misleading), the sound effects good (when they stay where they belong), & there's a creepy character (a cross between the Emperor & ET) to vanquish.

As for the ending - well...I never got that far, try as I may (& in fact I had to peek into the game files to get a look at the evil ET character). Overall, a very frustrating experience.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not Happy
Review: Been to tech support many times to try to load this game. They were of no help to us. Our PC has all the requirements although no success loading. Has anyone else had this problem? Money not well spent.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Less impressed
Review: White I agree with the first reviewers accessment, for the most part, I found some of the puzzles quite arbitrary. Who'd think of using a radio to (oops), well, do THAT. I never did find the lever near the spaceship because it was so dark; I had to cheat. The only hint that a certain tool has to be used again is that it stays with you; figuring out what it has to be used on and where is extremely obscure.

When the graphics are good, they are almost great; but when they are bad, they are awful.

Take into account that I play few games. I loved Myst and Riven and solved both. When I got stuck, I could always think of something logical, or at least not totally random, to try. I've played several others of the same sort. Crystal Key is the worst of the lot (thought at $20 also the cheapest).

It would not run on a Mac PPC9500 on 8.1. It did run fine on a new (gold keyboard) PowerBook. It hung on an IBM ThinkPad 760e (Win95).

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Crystal Clearly Superior
Review: Pros:

1. Beautiful, immersive, atmospheric worlds. Monumental architecture. Eerie music. Breathtaking cut-scenes. Ugly, creepy arch-villain.

2. For the most part, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to solve the puzzles.

3. Great high-tech tools to use, impressive vehicles to drive and fly, creative use of everyday objects. When you pick items up, they zoom off the screen into your inventory with a whooshing sound. The inventory feature is exceptionally easy to use.

Cons:

1. Some locations are too dark and murky. I suggest that for the very dark places, you might want to adjust the brightness/contrast on your monitor to make it easier to locate the hidden goodies.

2. Some mechanical levers/controls respond correctly only if you move the mouse VERY slowly.

3. The game crashed a couple of times, and I never was able to get autoplay to work.

Bottom line: A superior, very entertaining adventure marred slightly by minor glitches.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not nearly what I was hoping for
Review: Because the box showed shots that made it look a lot like Myst or Riven, I thought, "Hey, this looks cool!".

Unfortunately, I forgot the adage "Don't judge a book by its cover".

Even though the graphics we quite nice, and the game utilized the 360-degree environment which was pioneered by Presto Studios in "The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy Of Time", this game really lacked in a plot and story.

Sure, there's puzzles that require a lot of thought. By the time you get to the end, though, your first thought is "That's IT?!?!!? Boy, that wasn't worth it!". A very disappointing ending.

I played this game on a fairly up-to-date PC, and it never made the computer crash, but I did have to go to Dreamcatcher's website twice to download two programs that are important in the playing. Kinda stupid...as other reviewers noted, they shouldn't have released a game with so many bugs.


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