Return to Mysterious Island

"How Mysterious Can it be?"

Good Adventure games are very few and far between these days. Return to Mysterious Island happens to be just that, a good adventure game. While it does carry a very low price tag, don't confuse this game with the other “budget” adventure games out there. What makes this game stand out?

Graphics
This game has very low system requirements, if you have a Pentium 3 you should be fine. With that in mind, I did not think I would see much in terms of good visuals. However, the mysterious island is full of detailed area's, from the open beaches to the dense jungles. On the other hand, everything is very simple. Yes, everything is beautiful, but that's because not much movement goes on. All the tree's and bushes are pretty still, as if there is not much wind. Occasionally there are a few animals that move, but these are simple animations. Sweet and well done, but they are still simple. The only other complaint would be that some of the pictures in the photo gallery are just sketches as apposed to pictures.

Sound
Sound is very well done. The sound the fire makes, the animals, even the ocean all sound very real. Heck, even the sounds of you eating are done well.

Controls
The controls are very simple. The view is from first-person, and there is a cursor in the middle of your screen. When you move the mouse you will move the cursor, which acts as a point of reference more than a point of interaction. You have a full 360 degree view of the environment. The cursor will blink if you move over an area you can walk to, change to an operate symbol if you move it over something to pick up, or otherwise interact with, ect. You left click to interact, and you right click to access your inventory screen. The inventory screen is simple enough as well. Anything you pick up will go to you inventory, and you will be picking up a lot of items. You have about 7 “pages” of inventory, each with multiple slots. Each slot can hold one item. You can also combine items to make new ones. Some of the combined items can be disassembled back into there own separate parts, others can't. The only complaint about the controls is that there is no option for a reverse mouse, and you can't control the mouse sensitivity. This is rather strange as you don't use the keyboard at all, except for hitting the escape key to Save/Quit.

Game Play
Like most adventure games, the game play is all about solving puzzles. You walk around, pick things up, and use them, all while trying to continue on your way. The game is very self-paced, and offers multiple solutions for almost any puzzle. The fact that you can combine different items in your inventory plays a huge part in this. The best example is when you are required to make gunpowder. There were different ways to acquire the ingredients to make gunpowder, not to mention about 3 slightly different combinations. You also find old gunpowder, and you could just try to make the old powder usable. The game has a points system, which seems to award more points if you go the more creative route. For example, you get more points for creating gunpowder the more complex way. This gets me started on another point, the puzzles themselves.

The puzzles well done for the most part, but there are a few bad and, in some cases, useless ones. The majority of the puzzles are completely story driven. You want to explore this island; however, you can't because you don't have the strength, so you must eat to get strong again. You then spend a lot of time trying to get food to eat. Then you explore and find a way that is impassible, so you work on trying to find a way to continue onward. However, there are one or two misplacements. One, you come across a windmill that is broken. You spend a lot of time fixing it, as there are multiple puzzles involved in doing so. After you fix it, it serves almost no purpose to you except to make a few items, or assist in making the items, that you can easily get by without having. At the end of the game, it seemed the only reason I fixed the windmill was to earn points, and maybe brag about the fact that I fixed a windmill. It would have been a little more gratifying if there were one or two things you NEEDED to get from a working windmill in order to solve the game, instead of just providing an alternate way of getting them. Similar issues with multiple other puzzles. There are also a few small holes in the plot, but this will only be noticed by the very curious players who want to know more.

Story
For those who don't know, this game was inspired by a little book called Mysterious Island. The book was written by Jules Verne, and is the sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It's not really a sequel per say, but it tells about what happened to Captain Nemo and the Nautilus. You are a sailor, and you get shipwrecked on the island. You have to find a way to survive, and ultimately, get off the island. As mentioned before, most of the puzzles are story based. You first have to find things to eat, then you explore for a way off, all the while solving puzzles as they arise. You keep having visions of Captain Nemo's ghost, who is a restless spirit. You decide to help him. Everything is very well done until the end where things take a strange turn.

You do eventually come across the Nautilus, which is Nemo's submarine. Once there, these deadly robots appear across the island and want to kill you. This provides interesting game play, as you can destroy the robots in a few different ways. However, these high tech robots seem too out-of-place in the game. If there were just two or three of them inside the Nautilus, it would make more sense. However, seeing so many all over the island was a little redundant, and most of them you had no choice but to shoot them with a gun, which involves no creative thinking at all except for making the gun work.

Overall, it is games like this that show that the Adventure genre is still alive. You don't have to wait for big budget titles like Myst and The longest journey to come out with sequels. This game is well made, from the ground up. Since the Adventure Company makes mostly budget class games with low production values in order to give you a $20 price tag, not too many of them end up being good games. It is uncommon to see a very well put together game such as this one. Not to mention having a solid story, cause that is essential to an adventure game.
Return to Mysterious Island is both for Adventure gamers and, with a $20 price tag, for budget gamers. Adventure gamers waiting for the next Myst, Syberia, or Longest Journey game, pick this one up to pass the time.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/21/05