Aura: Fate of the Ages

Rating:
Summary: Aura Fate of the Ages
Review: I am giving this game one star because I had the exact same problem that J. Tyson had. I think I would have like it if I had been able to play it beyond the first level. A note to J. Tyson: Would you please let me know if you find a solution to this problem.

Rating:
Summary: My fate is not being able to play the game.
Review: I enjoyed playing this game up to the point it becomes impossible. How is this? It started in Dragast, the second stage of the game. The first puzzle I encountered was visually blocked out by green and white vertical lines that cover the entire screen. I thought maybe this was an isolated problem. I was able to get by this one puzzle referring to a walkthrough (kind of ruins it for me). The very next puzzle had a similar problem. I contacted Dreamcatcher and was given a patch to download and install that was supposed to fix the problem. No such luck. I have since been requested to provide some information from my pc and I am waiting for a response. This problem occured with two separate sets of disks. Only some of the puzzles are affected. I think the graphics are great and would love to be able to play this game minus the problems.

Rating:
Summary: I just dont' get it
Review: I must not be a puzzle game person because I have no idea how anyone could get through these puzzles in a reasonable amount of time. The objects are so alien looking that I have no idea what to do with the things that I have picked up. I found a walk thru online and used it for the Gazebo outside on the first world. If I didn't have that there is no way I would have been able to solve it. Luckly I only paid $7 for this at Electronics Bountique and didn't feel that bad about breaking the CDs in half and throwing everything in the trash in fustration.

Rating:
Summary: Solid Myst Clone
Review: In the world of _Aura_, "the Elders" of your people have learned the secrets of constructing alternate realities. The key to this power lies in a set of magical rings and sacred artifacts scattered throughout several dimensions. From time to time, students are sent out to try to unite the rings and artifacts as part of their training. Few succeed. You play Umang, the latest student to undertake this quest. Shortly into your adventure, you learn that civil war has broken out among "the clans" and a powerful warlord now wishes to seize the rings and artifacts for himself. It's even more important that you get to them first!

Aura is a lovely 1st person game in the tradition of Myst, with many mechanical puzzles--devices to repair, vehicles to get running and secret passages to uncover--few inventory puzzles and virtually no conversations. What interaction with other characters there is occurs in cut scenes. Occasionally you get information, but it rarely moves the story along. So, for fans of puzzle driven games _Aura_ is a treat. It's been a long time since I've played a game so satisfyingly complex; in fact, I was stymied several times in the beginning just because I wasn't used to puzzles being challenging. But if you prefer 3rd person, character and story driven games, you might not like this one so much.

I ran _Aura_ on WIN XP on an AMD 2800 2-odd gig processor with a relatively new graphics card with no trouble at all; in fact, I was very, very pleased at the smoothness of the game. I did install the patch up front, however; I had been warned about possible glitches and wanted to avoid them. So I would recommend doing this.

Graphics are quite lovely, with 360-degree panning. I did find the panning somewhat nauseating at times, something that has not affected me for a long while. Sound was unremarkable--neither bad nor good. As is standard in this kind of game, each location has its own little musical motif. Most of them are unmemorable, except for the one that bears a striking resemblance to Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir."

Saves are unlimited, but you only get to see one saved game at a time when either saving or loading, and you can't name then for yourself; you're only given an image and a time/date. So it's hard to keep track of them. There are no timed puzzles and no action sequences. There is one section where you can be killed, but you are immediately allowed to try again from where you made your mistake, as many times as necessary.

So why only four stars? There was quite a bit of pixel hunting and places where hotspots were not immediately apparent. Where hotspots were close together, it was hard to tell the difference between them. I think this could have been easily remeied by making the active cursor a little more different from the inactive cursor. In one section the main puzzle was extremely incoherent and there was no indication whatsoever when you managed to solve it, meaning that you tended to wander around the area looking for something else to do for quite some time until you either checked a walkthrough to see what you missed or gave up and moved on by chance. Although the box claims that you have "four distinct realities to explore," you only spend about ten seconds in the 4th before the game is over. I think that's quite dishonest. The ending was a little abrupt and contrived to set up the obligatory sequel. Plus, there are a couple things that happen to you early in the game that you *know* are going to turn out badly (making a deal with someone who is obviously a bad guy, for example) that you can't do anything about.

Still, _Aura_ was a very enjoyable and absorbing game,about 25 long hours with one place where I needed a little direction. I had looked forward to it for quite some time and it did not disappoint.

Rating:
Summary: I'd love to be able to play the whole game, but...
Review: My review could be an exact copy of what J. Tyson wrote on August 17:

enjoyed playing this game up to the point it becomes impossible. How is this? It started in Dragast, the second stage of the game. The first puzzle I encountered was visually blocked out by green and white vertical lines that cover the entire screen. I thought maybe this was an isolated problem. I was able to get by this one puzzle referring to a walkthrough (kind of ruins it for me). The very next puzzle had a similar problem. I contacted Dreamcatcher and was given a patch to download and install that was supposed to fix the problem. No such luck. I have since been requested to provide some information from my pc and I am waiting for a response. This problem occured with two separate sets of disks. Only some of the puzzles are affected. I think the graphics are great and would love to be able to play this game minus the problems
_____________________

I've done EVERYTHING company has advised over their website, to no avail. It would be REAL NICE to spend this kind of money for some enjoyment and get GRIEF instead. Otherwise, as far as it goes (up until Dragast), it's a pretty nice game. Nice if company did more for quality control.



Rating:
Summary: Very good, with some minor room for improvement
Review: Pros:
-great graphics/animation/lighting
-complex and difficult puzzles varying in difficulty and application (so as not to seem rendunant).
Cons:
-Audio.... The synthesized "orchestration" and sound effects are, at best, fair. Sometimes, poor. Many sound effects sound far different than the objects you are interacting with should. The "score" is much less emersive than what I would expect for a game of this type. It doesn't set the mood as well as I would have liked and sometimes, its plain annoying.

All in all however, its a real good game. Well worth the $20 I spent on it. The sound effects and score are minor contentions that the rest of the game more than makes up for. If you're a fan of the genre, you can't go wrong with it.

Rating:
Summary: A little stupid but pretty good over all.
Review: This game has a story but it's flakey and dumb. But the graphics are good and the puzzles are quite good, bordering on exellent!

If you buy this game BE SURE TO DOWNLOAD THE PATCH OR YOU WILL HAVE TECH PROBLEMS!! Do a net search for "Aura patch" It should be no problem to find. Once it's patched you are good to go.

Fun puzzles. Not the best game but worth the full price nonetheless!

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't stop playing
Review: This game is a must if you like Puzzle/adventure games.
The puzzles are not as hard as the Myst series or Alone in the Dark which I found refreshing. Can't wait for Aura II.

Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking graphics but some driver issues
Review: This is a beautifully rendered game and the production design is equal to or surpasses many current movies. The graphics team gets giant kudos for their efforts, so if your main purpose in playing adventure games is to be immersed in alternate worlds, you will likely enjoy yourself in the lands of Aura. The puzzles are sometimes fun, sometimes obtuse and sometimes simply, "WHY am I doing this?", but there are walkthroughs on the web when needed.

As with all games, especially newly released ones, there are some game play issues. I didn't lose my cursor and my game didn't freeze as some reports on the web echoed repeatedly. After installing (3 CDs that seemed to take longer to install than any I can remember) the sound codex seemed changed. I could no longer listen to DVD movies using the speakers, I had to use earphones. The good news is that after uninstalling, this seems to be back to normal.

I installed patch 1 (newly released at that time) to hopefully fix a problem encountered in the house of mirrors. The mouse, without any input from me, appeared to be clicking through random scenes. There were ghost images and it was quite lovely really, but didn't get me where I needed to go within the game and eventually the program closed. So ---- patch one (374K I believe) is actually a new install program it seems as you have to reinstall all three CDs (sigh). It did not fix the problem of the random mouse clicks but it DID slow my mouse down to wading through Jello mode and made it VERY difficult to left click. This, unfortunately happened all programs, not just the game.

So, my advice is to not install patch 1 which turns the game into version 1.02, unless you have major issues. And, if you do, make sure that you have a restore point set and try not to get any viruses so that you need to turn restore off (my problem). On uninstall the mouse came back a bit, but not to its former zeal (smile). I installed the mouse drivers that came with the mouse again (Logitech wireless) and it is pretty much back to normal. I will adjust :))

I have a fairly new machine (HP 17 notebook) and the game worked well all in all, but I did get quite a few blue screen of death memory dumps and some black screen "windows won't start normally" along the way, so I assume this is a taxing program on your system. You might want to try the free downloads at several of the game sights before buying if your system isn't current.


And if you love the game, it looks like a sequel is planned.

Rating:
Summary: Puzzle Fanatics-This game is for you
Review: This was an ok game. For people who love puzzles this is a must have..Has puzzles galore. The graphics are ok, if not fullscreen. Basically you wander around solving the puzzles to get to the finale. I wasn't really impressed, liked both Syberia games much better.