Road To India

Rating:
Summary: Well worth the wait!
Review: I have eagerly awaited "Road to India" since its May (French-language) release and have waited four months for the English version. It just came in the mail today...I finished it in less than four hours. But what a game! Allow me to explain:

Pros:
+Excellent character animation, realistic facial expressions, gestures and movements
+Stunning 360-degree panoramas of New Delhi, Taj Mahal, Darmesh`s house and Kali temple
+Photorealistic streets and buildings in New Delhi--the colours were so intense I had to give my eyes a rest now and again!
+Music that uses traditional instruments, Indian pop music in one scene
+Background direction-sensitive noises, especially animal noises: pigeons, monkeys, rats, a kitten...it draws you into the gaming environment completely
+Real-world logic: finding everyday items and improvising in a tough situation--no endless number-punching or rearranging à la Myst
+Talk to the animals (even if it IS a dream)!
+Engaging storyline with multiple twists and turns
+Cutscenes are beautifully animated and the cutscene music is incredible, especially the love theme
+The game is played in two different formats: daytime takes place in modern New Delhi, nighttime takes place in mystical India (Taj Mahal, Kali Temple)
+The transitions between the dream world and the real world: soft filmy border and pastel colours vs. bright, glaring colours, peeling paint, stained pavement...
+Easy-to-use interface

Cons:
-Occasional synching lags, especially noticeable with the street boy
-Some of the Indian accents are rather...questionable
-Game is short; it took me less than four hours even though the Microids website suggests 20 hours of gameplay
-Long load times after cutscenes may detract suspense
-Streets are deserted...what happened to India`s overcrowded cities?

Final vote: This game was worth the wait! Computer games have taken me to China, Atlantis, Ireland, Tibet, and Mexico, but this was my first virtual trip to India and it was a smashing success! The colourful characters, exotic architecture, and plot twists were a pleasant surprise, and even though the trip was short it was a very memorable one! A+++

Rating:
Summary: Better than average
Review: I've played tons of adventure games over the years,and am no novice to this genre.What grabbed my attention here,is that "Road to India",only recieved a couple of stars in rating.After playing it originally years ago,I went so far as to purchase it years later,just to relive the experience.It is a classic,and one of my favorites.If the underlying hindu theme bothers you,don't play it.But that is the whole point,is it not?To step OUT of character,and into someone else's shoes.The graphics were just beautiful,and the subtle Indian music in the background,was never overbearing or intrusive.Quite the opposite,actually.I found the music soothing and complimented the scenes perfectly.While the puzzles were'nt mind boggling,they were not disengaging,and yes,challenging at other times.But what makes this game so memorable to me is the plot..the storyline.It never drags,but draws you in to a somewhat conspiratorial web,leading you down a darker road than the one before.Excellent job Microids.It hit the spot.5 stars....

Rating:
Summary: Better than average
Review: I've played tons of adventure games over the years,and am no novice to this genre.What grabbed my attention here,is that "Road to India",only recieved a couple of stars in rating.After playing it originally years ago,I went so far as to purchase it years later,just to relive the experience.It is a classic,and one of my favorites.If the underlying hindu theme bothers you,don't play it.But that is the whole point,is it not?To step OUT of character,and into someone else's shoes.The graphics were just beautiful,and the subtle Indian music in the background,was never overbearing or intrusive.Quite the opposite,actually.I found the music soothing and complimented the scenes perfectly.While the puzzles were'nt mind boggling,they were not disengaging,and yes,challenging at other times.But what makes this game so memorable to me is the plot..the storyline.It never drags,but draws you in to a somewhat conspiratorial web,leading you down a darker road than the one before.Excellent job Microids.It hit the spot.5 stars....

Rating:
Summary: Really Enjoyable, if Short
Review: IN _Road to India_, you play Fred, an American engaged to a Hindu woman. As the game opens, she is boarding a plane to India to visit her family. Soon after, Fred receives an unexpected "Dear John" letter. When he goes to India to find out what's going on, he witnesses what he thinks is a kidnapping, with his fiancee as the target!

I didn't play this game for a long time, mainly because of all the negative reviews here. Now that I have played it, I wonder what all those negative reviews were talking about; despite a few flaws, RTI is one of the most enjoyable games I've played in months. The graphics are lovely, the music is appealing, the interface is exceptionally easy to use and understand and the puzzles are sensible, if somewhat simple. Having just come off an interminable game where the puzzles made absolutely no sense, RTI was a breath of fresh air.

Most of the puzzles are the classic inventory and communication sort: get someone to help you by giving him an item or find an item that will allow you to accomplish a task. I was thrilled that, in general, you used inventory in a realistic way in this game. That is, you didn't need to find a special knife to cut this particular rope (for example) when you already had five knives, or use your nailfile to loosen screws when you had a screwdriver. There was no random application of inventory, hoping against hope that something would work. If this made the game easy, it also made it relaxing. Thank you Microids!

There were several unusual sound puzzles--you had to listen hard in this game! And there was a lovely use of animal characters. If there were a couple of red herrings and puzzles that seemed to have no purpose, it was an acceptable trade-off.

This game did run pretty slowly. Loading new locations took some time, as did simply moving from screen to screen. I did not understand the reason for this, but found it only mildly annoying. There was some disc swapping and cut scenes occasionally stuttered. I think there could have been more time spent tweaking the program to eliminate these things, but again, it surely wasn't bad enough to condemn the entire game.

Yes, this is a fantasy India--sometimes resembling _The Temple of Doom_--not a historical India. Half of it takes place in a dreamscape. I actually liked the use of the dream sequences, which made me think of _Morpheus_ or _Amber_. I didn't find it at all offending or unusual that archetypal items like the Taj Mahal and the Indian rope trick should appear in dreams, but if that disturbs you, this game probably isn't for you.

At under ten hours from start to finish, Road to India isn't a long game. It's worth playing for all that. I recommend it highly.

Rating:
Summary: Really Enjoyable, if Short
Review: IN _Road to India_, you play Fred, an American engaged to a Hindu woman. As the game opens, she is boarding a plane to India to visit her family. Soon after, Fred receives an unexpected "Dear John" letter. When he goes to India to find out what's going on, he witnesses what he thinks is a kidnapping, with his fiancee as the target!

I didn't play this game for a long time, mainly because of all the negative reviews here. Now that I have played it, I wonder what all those negative reviews were talking about; despite a few flaws, RTI is one of the most enjoyable games I've played in months. The graphics are lovely, the music is appealing, the interface is exceptionally easy to use and understand and the puzzles are sensible, if somewhat simple. Having just come off an interminable game where the puzzles made absolutely no sense, RTI was a breath of fresh air.

Most of the puzzles are the classic inventory and communication sort: get someone to help you by giving him an item or find an item that will allow you to accomplish a task. I was thrilled that, in general, you used inventory in a realistic way in this game. That is, you didn't need to find a special knife to cut this particular rope (for example) when you already had five knives, or use your nailfile to loosen screws when you had a screwdriver. There was no random application of inventory, hoping against hope that something would work. If this made the game easy, it also made it relaxing. Thank you Microids!

There were several unusual sound puzzles--you had to listen hard in this game! And there was a lovely use of animal characters. If there were a couple of red herrings and puzzles that seemed to have no purpose, it was an acceptable trade-off.

This game did run pretty slowly. Loading new locations took some time, as did simply moving from screen to screen. I did not understand the reason for this, but found it only mildly annoying. There was some disc swapping and cut scenes occasionally stuttered. I think there could have been more time spent tweaking the program to eliminate these things, but again, it surely wasn't bad enough to condemn the entire game.

Yes, this is a fantasy India--sometimes resembling _The Temple of Doom_--not a historical India. Half of it takes place in a dreamscape. I actually liked the use of the dream sequences, which made me think of _Morpheus_ or _Amber_. I didn't find it at all offending or unusual that archetypal items like the Taj Mahal and the Indian rope trick should appear in dreams, but if that disturbs you, this game probably isn't for you.

At under ten hours from start to finish, Road to India isn't a long game. It's worth playing for all that. I recommend it highly.

Rating:
Summary: Really Enjoyable, if Short
Review: IN _Road to India_, you play Fred, an American engaged to a Hindu woman. As the game opens, she is boarding a plane to India to visit her family. Soon after, Fred receives an unexpected "Dear John" letter. When he goes to India to find out what's going on, he witnesses what he thinks is a kidnapping, with his fiancee as the target!

I didn't play this game for a long time, mainly because of all the negative reviews here. Now that I have played it, I wonder what all those negative reviews were talking about; despite a few flaws, RTI is one of the most enjoyable games I've played in months. The graphics are lovely, the music is appealing, the interface is exceptionally easy to use and understand and the puzzles are sensible, if somewhat simple. Having just come off an interminable game where the puzzles made absolutely no sense, RTI was a breath of fresh air.

Most of the puzzles are the classic inventory and communication sort: get someone to help you by giving him an item or find an item that will allow you to accomplish a task. I was thrilled that, in general, you used inventory in a realistic way in this game. That is, you didn't need to find a special knife to cut this particular rope (for example) when you already had five knives, or use your nailfile to loosen screws when you had a screwdriver. There was no random application of inventory, hoping against hope that something would work. If this made the game easy, it also made it relaxing. Thank you Microids!

There were several unusual sound puzzles--you had to listen hard in this game! And there was a lovely use of animal characters. If there were a couple of red herrings and puzzles that seemed to have no purpose, it was an acceptable trade-off.

This game did run pretty slowly. Loading new locations took some time, as did simply moving from screen to screen. I did not understand the reason for this, but found it only mildly annoying. There was some disc swapping and cut scenes occasionally stuttered. I think there could have been more time spent tweaking the program to eliminate these things, but again, it surely wasn't bad enough to condemn the entire game.

Yes, this is a fantasy India--sometimes resembling _The Temple of Doom_--not a historical India. Half of it takes place in a dreamscape. I actually liked the use of the dream sequences, which made me think of _Morpheus_ or _Amber_. I didn't find it at all offending or unusual that archetypal items like the Taj Mahal and the Indian rope trick should appear in dreams, but if that disturbs you, this game probably isn't for you.

At under ten hours from start to finish, Road to India isn't a long game. It's worth playing for all that. I recommend it highly.

Rating:
Summary: Easily the worst adventure game ever.
Review: Never before have I played an adventure game which was blatently offensive, throughout. According to the liner notes, this game is set in "deepest darkest India"; your girlfriend is a "Hindi princess"; one of the first puzzles involves the stereotypical "Indian rope trick". Hindi is the language, Hindu is the religion, and the fact this made it through says a lot for the integrity, historical accuracy, and respect for South Asian cultures which this game has: NONE. It plays like a white person's fantasy about tourism, set in an India which is uninhabited and lifeless.
The game itself is boring and senseless. The graphics are ugly and flat, the dialogue is terrible both for the hideous acting and horrible "accents", and even navigating the game is more difficult than it needs to be.
If you want a good game, try Grim Fandango; for an immersive India, read Rushdie's Midnight's Children. But by all means, AVOID THIS GAME.

Rating:
Summary: It's no Bladerunner
Review: No way is this a great game, but neither is it terrible.

Controls: Easy to use, but for some reason the options control on this game did not allow me to actually change any of the options. Didn't like the game enough to bother looking for a patch.

Motion: This was a big minus for me - it's slide show style, you click on something, there's a lag, and then suddenly you're there. No sense of motion. Once you're there, you do get 360 view, up and down and all around, but the picture does this stretchy blurry thing as you move the cursor around, which made me not want to look around too much (I kept feeling motion sickness coming on).

Graphics: Graphics were pretty good, although I've seen better. The options problem did not allow me to try out 32 bit rather than 16 bit, maybe that would have helped a little, I don't know. The scenery was pretty realistically drawn, and if I'd been more involved in the game it might have been enjoyable.

The story: Your girlfriend is kidnapped and you're trying to find her. Pretty staightforward and easy to follow. Can't say I really cared much about any of the characters - no character development at all.

Dialogue: Boring. Nothing original here at all.

Puzzles: Just hard enough. Didn't need a walk thru. The usual collect stuff and then use it. Unfortunately you pick stuff up and then can't really examine it, so I'd pick something up that looked vaguely like a stick, but couldn't get a closeup look at it or any more information to maybe describe it. So I was quite surprised when it turned out to be a flute, and only solved the puzzle by randomly pulling out every item and trying it out. Same with opening a door - needed to get a key that was on the floor inside the door, but couldn't even see that there was a key there, so was surprised when after randomly combining items my character suddenly reached through the door and managed to get the key with a tool I had made (out of materials I couldn't identify until they were put together).

Soundtrack: Not very interesting. Sound effects were ok, but nothing to brag about.

Biggest disappointment here is that everywhere you go is deserted, except when there is an animation. Animations were excellent, but when you're walking around trying to solve puzzles and find things, there's no one around and your character is so boring that he doesn't even have anything interesting to say to himself.

It's an ok game, good for a few hours of entertainment, but there's really no flair, nothing to really engage you.

Rating:
Summary: A great collection of missed chances....
Review: Road to India looks very promising. The packaging is great, the screenshots terrific. But what a dissapointment this game is. First of all the game is very shaky. Cutscenes are far from fluent, and the game takes forever to load or save, or even to shut down. And while my systems meets not only the minimum requirements, but exceeds the recommended ones as well! The gameplay is boring.You walk the streets of India, but it is bland, misses al the confusion and excitement of real-life India. What a missed opportunity. India! Crowds! Noise! Smokey alleyways! Colourfull markets. But no, this is just some Indian decors in a lifeless setting. And not very original at that. Taj Mahal, it's the first thing the makers came up with. Yawn.....
And the music wil get to your nerves in minutes - repetition all around. Of course you have to find objects, wich is extremely simple. Then you have to use them, wich is so simple is is downright insulting. You of course have to speak to characters, but it is all spelled out for you. This would be okay with a game for children, but hey, this game starts with a bomb-attack nd an abduction. Not childs stuff, I would say. You want to move around the city some more? The game won't let you. 'I don't know Delhi very well, so I better stay here in case I get lost'. (Repeated everytime you try to go somewhere the designers don't want you to). What? The whole point of adventuregaming is getting lost, finding your way etcetera. The graphics are decent, but nothing to write home about. I've seen much older games (Beyond Atlantis for one) that has much better graphics. The 3D environment has been done better in many games, such as, yes Beyond Atlantis, Exile, etc. I was especially dissapointed because Microids are the makers of Amerzone, wich enjoyed, although that was a bit simple too. Let's hope their coming release, Syberia, is up to scratch.

Rating:
Summary: Road to Incompetence
Review: This game sounded good on the box,a real mystery,exploration,thriller type game,my favourite.What a let down.This game is a complete waste of your time.The story line is very weak,a loony guy wants to sacrifice your girlfriend to make his scarred girlfriend beautiful again.But the main problem with the game was 1-that it was way too short,I finished it in 3 days ,and I'm only able to play 1-2 hours a day!and 2-the dialogue was so cliche and nauseating,absolutely no imagination what so ever. Even the charachters were ugly to look at,no handsome hero or pretty heroine here.Sorry to be so negative,but this game was really awful,I would not recommend it to anyone,not even grandma or junior.