The Crystal Key

Rating:
Summary: Decent Game... Sort Of.
Review: I really don't think this game is as bad as a lot of other reviewers say it is. It's basically a good game that's fun to play, with fairly decent graphics. Of course, there are some major problems. For one thing, the game routinely crashes on my computer. I can't go 15 minutes without it locking up. This doesn't make much sense because my computer meets all the right requirements, and it should work fine. Plus, it gives me weird error messages every time I try to save a game, but it still allows me to save, so I can let this slide. And not only that, but at times throughout the game, the screen will suddenly start to flash green, and I can't figure out why. But the worst problem this game caused was that it slowed down my computer immensely, so that I had to reboot every time I played the game. Because of all of these problems, it drove me to uninstall the game before I got to the ending. It's a real shame, because it's a fun game and I wanted to finish it. Oh well, perhaps another time.

Another problem is the story. I didn't find myself caring a lot about the characters (when there were characters), so I give the story a big thumbs down. The story got slightly better when you enter the Jungle World, but not much. I also wish there were more music and ambience effects, but there weren't. There were some nice ambience effects, like in the Jungle world, but not many. One last thing I didn't like was that it took a long time to move between scenes. Just walking along a corridor can take longer than it should. But, besides the major flaws and bugs, the game is fun to play. The puzzles are kind of cool, and exploring the new areas is fun. That is, if you like adventure games. If you don't like adventure games, you will loathe this game. I just wish it worked right on my computer, that's all.

Pros: Basically fun to play. Some pretty nice graphics in some areas (the Jungle World is really cool). The puzzles weren't too hard, so they weren't frustrating.

Cons: Major bugs in the game keep it from being completely enjoyable, and made me unable to finish the game. I didn't enjoy the story. Perhaps there should have been at least some harder puzzles. Hardly any music and sound effects. Pretty much no replay value. (Even though I do want to finish it someday)

Overall: 3 stars. I wanted to give this 4 stars, but the bugs and the lame story brought it down. It's worth buying only if you really like adventure games, and are willing to take a chance that it will work right on your computer.

Rating:
Summary: great graphix BUGGING GAME
Review: I really truley enjoyed this game's graphix, storyline and interaction, HOWEVER, this thing was so badly buggy I had to download three patches before I could even resume a sorta normal play. THen some of the patches screwed up the rest of the game!! I finally became so frusterated I had to uninstall it and put it back in the box. When I called the tech support for the game they said to uninstall the game and try again, starting over from scratch, I WAS almost DONE with the game!! No thanks I am a Computer Store owner and I will not be selling this game.

Rating:
Summary: You're Not a Player, Just a Watcher
Review: The player has no choices in where to go or what to pick up. You mainly just wander around looking for the cursor to change so you'll know where to go next. Then you get to ride there on a video. There is no logic to the puzzles, and no way to identify what you are looking at. There are no clues to point you in the right direction, just changing cursors. I got tired of wandering around and resorted to a walkthrough just to get it over with. Even then, the game makes no sense. There were repeated crashes, error messages, and reboots.
A complete waste of money - and a good thing it was not very much money.

Rating:
Summary: WOrst game ever
Review: ....I had so much trouble installing this in my computer.Nothing would work right.It caused errors in my computer.When i finally got everything fixed,the audio messed up.Then the game would freeze.I still dont know why it did it.My computer met all the requirments.I took it back to the store and got a refund.I say skip it.I dont think i will be buying to many games from this company any more.

Rating:
Summary: I hate this game
Review: I hate this game, I couldnt even get out of the first room with cheating with a walkthrough guide. The game was totally boring and wasnt interesting at all. Spend your money on something important.

Rating:
Summary: Boring!
Review: The Crystal Key was over before it began! Not only were there few actual puzzles to solve, but they were boring puzzles at that. With no character interaction besides a Martian that you have to hide from, this game proved to be the biggest waste of my money.

Rating:
Summary: Some Good, Some Bad
Review: Generally, I love this type of game... I had some fun with this one, but, honestly, there was much to be desired. Here's the deal:

The storyline was very compelling. Unfortunately, I had gotten about two thirds of the way through the game when I realized how interesting the concept was, especially combined with some smooth, detail-filled graphics. That meant that there was not enough left to really enjoy. The game is so short that, by the time I got into it, it was over. Bummer.

I was a bit annoyed that I felt I had to use a walkthrough for this one. I got tired of slowly wandering through the game, hoping I would stumble across the clues I needed to find my direction, trying to exact a plan to get the bad guy. Why did I feel like that? Ultimately, the use of logic alone cannot be used to figure this one out. The many of the puzzles, but, especially the end, I felt as though they were contrived out of chance alone, like a good book that suprises you with an ending that is "just not right" for the storyline, or incongruent with other elements of plot.

So, all in all, the game is nice and entertaining, but I was pretty disappointed at a premature ending.

Rating:
Summary: A very bad Myst clone
Review: Overview: Succinctly put, if you liked Myst, then you will probably like The Crystal Key. If you didn't then stay very far clear of this game. Unlike Myst, however, there is at least some slight semblance of a plot at the beginning of the game instead of just being thrown down in the middle of an island and expected to figure out what is going on. With The Crystal Key, you, the player, are expected to help save your people from an alien race, but that is about the extent of the plot. Like Myst, however, more of the background story begins to unfold during the game, but not by much. In The Crystal Key, you have to navigate through deserts, jungles, meadows, underground worlds, and alien ships, most of the time jumping from one place to another without any real sense of direction or idea what to do next. This game would have been greatly improved if there had at least been a narrator, or a method to look at items and get a description of what items were being picked up, or what the player is looking at. Nearly all of the puzzles are illogical, and require tinkering with switches until something happens. Sometimes there are hints, but they are generally so vague, that it is easy for a gamer to miss them. Another thing which greatly annoyed me was there were a few parts in the game where if the player didn't find an item (like a screwdriver) and they later progressed through the game and found out they couldn't go back to get the item, they were pretty much dead. I HATE puzzles like that, especially if the gamer is just wandering around and can't figure out what went wrong because the player never found a particular item, or didn't write down a particular code. There was hardly a moment during this game where I pondered through a puzzle, and a nice big light bulb went off in my head and I would say 'that was a clever puzzle'. If you want a decent adventure game, go find an old Sierra game, ANY of them provide more entertainment and better game play than The Crystal Key did. If this is the future of adventure games, then maybe adventure games should roll over and remain dormant until the big players like LucasArts or Sierra decide to come out with more adventure games.

Pros:Beautiful rendered scenes (when they aren't so dark that you can hardly see them). Made for both PC AND Macs, so that earns another couple of bonus points. Also, it's an adventure game, so that earns a few brownie points. The game was fairly short, so it wasn't TOO painful, and it cost only ... I've read about bug problems on the PC, but it worked with absolutely no problems on my G4 Tower Mac.

Cons: Some of the scenes (like on Ozgar's mothership) are so dark that it is very difficult to see what is going on. Nearly all of the puzzles are highly unintuitive, and involves plenty of poking around until something works. Sometimes objects are difficult to even find, and require more poking and prodding than most people would like to spend time on. Also, this game is very linear, so if you get stuck on a puzzle, you are stuck for good until that puzzle is solved. And one pet peeve I have with all games that just jump from screen to screen like Myst and The Crystal Key, is this is a very lazy attempt, and moving about like this might have been okay in 1984, but it wasn't acceptable in 1994, and it is certainly NOT acceptable today. For the ending note, the ending is very, very, VERY lackluster, and just shows a screen that says congratulations. Very disappointing ending if that was it. No fanfare, no party, not even a Golden Mop as a token of appreciation!

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly dull
Review: I do like pastoral games, but this one was just a shade too soporific for me. I got about halfway through before I realized that I just didn't care if the aliens destroyed Earth or not. Bad sign!

Rating:
Summary: What the heck is this game about?
Review: I've had this game for months but due to lack of time I just got around to playing it yesterday. This is one of the most boring and annoying games I've ever played. I won't go into the grainy images, the dark screens, etc., as the previous 41 reviewers have said it all! While I did not experience any crashes or bugs (as I have with many other games by Dreamcatcher Interactive) I found no rhyme or reason to this game. Other than the fact that the Arkonian world has been devastated and Ozgar must be destroyed, there's no real plot or even one character that one can relate to. I've made a vow never to buy another Dreamcathcer game - ever!