Paradise

"This can’t be the same man behind SYBERIA and AMERZONE, can it!?"

Benoit Sokal's SYBERIA took the adventure gaming world by storm several years ago, one of several titles in recent years credited with keeping the supposedly dying genre alive for a few years more. SYBERIA's style and simple storytelling made for an atmospheric and memorable game. Now, after this and a few other successful projects, Sokal has launched his own production company (White Birds) and released PARADISE via Ubisoft. Unfortunately, what should have been a homerun is more of a foul!

The same style of gameplay is on display here. Essentially, this is an event-triggering game. Talk to the right people in the right order, and you will progress through the game. There are plenty of puzzles as well, mostly inventory-based. There is a decent enough idea of a plot – you are the daughter of Rodon, king of a hidden-away African kingdom. On your way to . . . somewhere, your plane is shot down, and you wake up in a prince's palace, with amnesia! The game is about your quest for identity, while trying to leave the kingdom with a black leopard in tow.

I can tell you that the game looks stunning, for a still-graphic game. There is very little animation, and 98% of the scenes are pre-rendered, though extremely well made. Sokal's trademark style is well on display in the middle sections of the game as you make your way through dense jungle terrain, an abandoned mine deep into the earth, and a floating war machine.

Unfortunately, the game puts is worst foot forward up front. The opening level in the palace is mind-numbingly boring, consisting of such tasks as finding honeycakes for a harem princess, and preparing a steambath for her so you can steal her dress. The conversation trees are immediately revealed as rushed – talking to one character, she proclaims her fondness for you and promises to help you. Speaking to her again right away will have her shouting “These questions make my head spin, go away!”

It's this lack of attention to the details that kills the game before it can really get moving. Later chapters seemed a little less annoying. As mentioned above, the trek through the jungle is easily the highlight of the game (probably because it doesn't involve talking to anyone). Unfortunately, it is over far too quickly.

Much like SYBERIA, the puzzles here are less challenging as they are time fillers designed to stretch the game a little further. You will rarely get stuck on anything other than remembering who you haven't spoken to in awhile in order to trigger the next change in events.

Controls are frustrating as well. I can't understand why every point-and-click game wants to change things up when there are plenty of examples of games that have nailed the control scheme down to perfection! On each screen, you will basically be running the curser over every inch looking for that one hotspot. But rather than the cursor simply switching to the action or investigate icons, it has to animate into them. As such, if you skim by too fast, you may not realize you just crossed over the hotspot!

To round things out, the game designers threw in three sequences where you can play as the leopard you are trying to escort out of the country. These sequences have absolutely no impact on the game, and there is nothing you can do in them other than run around and scare birds away. After trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing as the leopard for about five minutes, I finally gave up and consulted a walkthrough which told me to simply hit ESC to continue the game. I did so, and the game asked if I really wanted to quit “NIGHT OF THE LEOPARD?” Um, yes, I do, since it is boring my socks off! This little element of the game feels totally tacked on and seems to exist solely for the purpose of allowing the marketers to proclaim on the game box "CONTROL THE LEOPARD IN REALTIME 3D!" Whatever, I'm not buying it!

In short, if you are a big fan of adventure gaming, you might find enough here to entertain you over the weekend, but I'd be cautious of spending more than $10 bucks for it! Hopefully Sokal will get back on the horse for his upcoming outing, SINKING ISLAND! We'll see . . .

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/08/08

Game Release: Paradise (US, 05/03/06)