"Halt, deviant! Halt, deviant! Halt, deviant! Halt, deviant! Halt, deviant..."

These are dark times to be a fan of graphic adventure games. Where once store shelves were packed with the likes of King's Quest, Legend of Kyrandia and Day of the Tentacle, instead they are packed with games like Halo and the latest World War II shooter. Not that FPS games are automatically bad, mind you, just not my cup of tea. Point being is that in this day and age it's getting harder and harder for a graphic adventure fan to get his kicks. So while browsing through some racks at Best Buy looking for a new diversion, I came upon this little offering called Atlantis Evolution. Charmed by the screencaps on the box, and influenced by being in the middle of a huge Secret of Blue Water binge, I happily shelled out thirty bucks for what looked like an intriguing adventure. Was it? Let's see.

Story-4/10: The year, 1904, the man, Curtis Hewitt, rugged explorer and nature photographer on his way home to New York after a photo safari in Patagonia (you know, the company that makes those jackets). Of course, he doesn't make it, and his ship goes down in a storm. He gets sucked into a spaceship and finds himself in the new Atlantis, where he must find a way to bring down the cruel gods that rule it to be able to return. Kind of dumb, but I've heard worse.

Graphics-9.5/10: The developers wanted to make it look great and they did. The environments Curtis explores, the forests, the caves and ultimately the palace of the gods itself are all stunning. The characters themselves don't look quite as good, but this is still one of the best-looking games I've seen in a while. At times the visuals seem limited, however, especially during close ups (i.e., Sama always moves her hands to her face in the exact same way when the camera is on her, Chel always puts his hand on the back of his head when it's his turn to talk, etc.). Unfortunately, the graphics have another dark side mentioned in gameplay.

Audio-7/10: Pretty good, but not much to write home about. The voice acting in the game is passable, but a lot of the lines are pretty bland. The sound effects are pretty good, but there isn't much BGM to speak of.

Gameplay-5/10: And there is where it all starts to come crashing down. You use a mouse to swivel a camera around and click on hot spots to pick up items, interact with prominent features of the environment, talk to characters and travel to other screens. Being able to move the camera in all directions is rather unnecessary, however, as looking at the ground helps two times I remember in the entire game. And the menu screen looks like it was done in the native language of Atlantis; the only way to tell what anything does is to hold the cursor over one of the symbols until explanatory text appears over it. Menu screens should not be one of the puzzles you have to figure out.

As this is an adventure game, Curtis needs to explore lots of places and pick up items to aid him in his quest to dethrone the gods. This is complicated some by the visual splendor mentioned above, as there's just so much darn STUFF lying around Atlantis that it can be a pain to find the all-important hot spots and exits to other screens without meticulously running your cursor over every inch of your surroundings. I never would've found the important item in Sama's quarters if not for a walkthrough.

Conversations, like in many games of this type, are important for gaining clues and background information, but how you utilize them in Atlantis Evolution is strange. Instead of a list of topics or sentences you have Curtis say, instead you see a series of boxes with little pictures in them as your options, often giving you only the vaguest idea of what they'll cause him to say or ask. Not that there's ever any danger of saying the wrong thing, no matter how suspicious it would seem, but the system is still rather bizarre and at times really doesn't make sense. Some people tell Curtis things not because they have any reason to, but because the designers couldn't think of any other way of having you find out some vital clue. Like late in the game when Curtis infiltrates the home of the gods, he is able to masquerade as one of them because of their physical likeness. Well, the god Curtis looks like tells him things like a clue about how to access their doomsday weapon, despite the fact that this guy is usurping his identity, has made him a prisoner in his own home, and is attempting to bring down his family's entire regime. Would you help someone out under those circumstances? Neither would I! Not to mention how does Enna not notice you stealing stuff from her boudoir, then opening and entering the secret passage right behind her?

And for whatever reason, whenever Curtis wants to hack a computer or open a door or something along those lines, the game makes you play a mini-game based off a recognizable game of yesteryear. I was able to pick out Scorch, Frogger, Arkanoid, Boxxle, and several other old cell phone games done up with some fancy graphics. I guess this means anybody with a reasonable amount of hand-eye coordination could bring down the gods. Isn't it kind of lame to reinvent video games my parents played in place of thinking up and putting in a puzzle?

And I bet you're guessing what the headline means (or not, if you've played this game). Well, in Atlantis Evolution, it's possible to die, but like in a lot of latter day adventure games where that's possible, you're automatically put back where you were right before it happened. And almost all of the possible deaths are at the hands of the Guardians of Humility, so be prepared to hear that proclamation of impending doom a lot.

The game is fairly clear on what it wants you to do (find Chel, find a way on to the transport ship, find and disable the pillar of fire), but the smaller details can make this quite a task what with the difficulty of finding the right items can involve (a handful of rocks and an ordinary stick don't exactly jump out at you in the middle of a forest maze, and one you're probably frustrated trying to find the way out of at that), or not realizing that you need a place to hide from the guards, or things like that.

Replay value-1/10: No. Just no. You'll see everything when you play Atlantis Evolution the first time. Frankly the game just didn't interest me enough to warrant another play-through after I beat it once.

Overall (not averaged)-5/10: Atlantis Evolution could've been all-time great and a treat for all those starving adventure game fans out there. Instead, the interface and emphasis on visuals over gameplay hurt its appeal. Hopefully it'll sell enough anyway to give it a chance to evolve into a good series with a sequel.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 02/09/05, Updated 11/25/05