The Crystal Key

Rating:
Summary: A good game with a better plot!
Review: In my opinion, The Crystal Key is a good game. However, it does have some problems. First of all, when you're looking around the area, the graphics don't blend easily. Also, the puzzles are very challenging (actually, I love challenging games). But I must say it has a very interesting plot. When you finish the game, the villain dies and a screen comes up and says, "Congradulations! You've defeated Ozgar and freed your people!" Then it goes to the main screen. Not much of a congrats. This is the plot: Somewhere out there among the stars, lives another race of people. We know this because, just weeks ago our radio telescopes accidentally intercepted one of their interplaetary communications. When we were able to decode it, this is what we read: "Danger: Ozgar has been defeated but not destroyed. Suralon is sinking. Return to Arkonia. Abandon all colonies at once." Who were the Arkonians? And who or what is Ozgar? Only days later, a gigantic alien spaceship deployed powerful satellites around the earth. All kinds of upheavals occured in the next two days: devastating earthquakes, critical weather shifts, and drastic gravitational changes. Ozgar is coming after us. You, a hypership test pilot, are relatively safe in the polar research station, where the world's first hypership is being constructed. After scientists successfully pinpoint the origin of the Arkonian signal, you are chosen as the last hope; savior of the planet. Your mission? Find the Arkonians and defeat the evil Ozgar. I would recommend this game to people who are very experienced with strategy games.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I bought this when I was in my "Adventure" mode. Several other games earned my dollar, such as Lightbringer, Gabriel Knight 3, Kings Quest 8, etc. This one, however, was not really with the $19.95 I spent.

The visuals are beautiful. The gameplay is too linear however. You have to "do this" before you can "do that." There is no way to accomplish your goals in multiple ways. Whereas this concept was astonishing 3 years ago, it no longer appeals to the gamer.

Another gripe: WAY TOO SHORT. If Al Gore had played and beaten this game, he would have demanded a recount and a re-recount. (LOL...oh, the political humor!)

Buy this game only if you truly are a fan of mindless puzzles and rail gameplay. If you want a little more freedom in a game with a little more depth, story, character development and replay value, look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Waste of good money
Review: The graphics were mediocre, the storyline quite lame, and the clues very frustrating. Could not advance without a game book, but am not willing to spend more money on this game.

Rating:
Summary: Plotless, pointless, and pretty
Review: As a Myst fan I looked forward to this game and was sure that since it was so difficult to find in my local store that it must have been great. Boy, was I wrong. I played through and found that the puzzles were pretty difficult simply because were totally unrelated to each other and the rest of the game in general. Running a PII 600 MHz machine the game gave me no problems and the graphics ran fine. I am not an extremely picky gamer and with a bit of a plot this game could have been tolerable. ... .

Rating:
Summary: A spectacular romp!
Review: I thought this was a georgous game, the graphics splendid, the storyline logical, and the puzzles not so impossible that one must have a walk-thru always at hand. The game's ending was a mixed bag, on one hand it seemed as if the developers were facing some sort of deadline and just cut the story off and closed out, the congratulatory message was an unsatisfactory ending. On the other hand, the final disposition of Ozgar, the villain of the piece, is a deft touch.

I have read a good deal of commentary on how this game is buggy, crashes often, and in general is difficult to run. I have a mid-level machine, a Compaq Presario 1692, a Lap-Top, and while I got the feeling it was all the machine could do to keep the game running, I had only one actual problem, in putting some books on a bookcase early on in the game. Even so, on the next try I was able do do what I needed to, and proceed. Some of the transitions from one scene to the next would hang up for a few seconds, but there were no crashes or real difficulties; I never had to download any patches or anything of this sort.

Antoinetta

Rating:
Summary: I want my money back!!!
Review: We were excited to find a game like Myst and Riven. Boy did we have a rude awakening. The movement was good as you went through the game, but you couldn't go anywhere you didn't have to go. There was no investigating. The game was almost impossible to go through with out some hints. The green screens about drove us nuts and the graphics were substandard.

If you liked Myst and Riven, chances are you won't like this.

Rating:
Summary: THe Crystal Key
Review: I thought it was going to be like RedJack Revenge ofthe Brethern and Dust etc.. It was difficult to play for example picking objects and going to places. THere was also no interaction with any othert characters in the game . At the end of the game all that the player got was a message that you saved your planet and freeded your people. I was disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Unfinished Product?
Review: I think I'm being generous with the 2 stars I gave this product. This game seems unfinished, as if they ran out of time and just slapped it together. The graphics are okay in some places, not great though, and NOTHING like the pictures on the box. Do not be fooled. In fact, the playing window is quite small, which makes it seem as though you're looking through binoculars - very distracting and annoying. Most of the graphics are very bad. Some of the scenes look like unfocused pictures. The shadows are just black areas with no depth. I don't know what else to say - it's bad. The voice actors add nothing to this game. They aren't really characters, they just appear briefly to provide information. To top it off, there is no ending cinematic. The game just ends with a screen that says, "Congratulations!" The puzzles are sometimes entertaining, but that's it.

Rating:
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.

Rating:
Summary: Yuck! Do not waste your money
Review: This game is so full of bugs that it's almost embarrassing. What were the people at Dreamcatcher thinking? Riven and Myst set a very high standard for games. These guys don't even come close. Don't waste your money on this disappointment.