Crystal Key 2: The Far Realm

"The Mediocre Realm"

The Crystal Key 2: The Far Realm manages to be adequate in every way. Unfortunately, it fails at any attempt to be more than that.

Allow me to start with a small diversion. The Adventure Company (who produced this game) really know how to make a game box. I commented on this in my review of Schizm (although it probably came off as a bit condescending). That game came in a plain black box. All the screenshots were inside the front flap or on the back. The cover had only the game's logo. That created a distinct presence on the store shelves just by its *absense* of flashy graphics. The Crystal key 2 manages to do the same thing, using an all-white cover. Somebody down in the marketing department sure is doing their job right. Kuddos.

Sadly, the actual *product* is less spectacular. The game is mediocre at best, even within point-and-click adventure circles. And, really, it must be said - even though I myself do enjoy them from time to time - who makes point-and-click adventure games anymore? This genre is dead, largely thanks to games like this.

GRAPHICS - 5

The graphics in The Crystal Key 2 are rather poor. Like Schizm, it suffers from badly compressed video in places, giving the screen a pixilated look. Scenery is pretty, and I did like the rusted-out hulk of the ruined city. However, the phrase "kinda bland" continually crept into my head. Most everything looks just a bit too uniform. It's as if no one on the planet really cares much for decoration. Or, when there IS decoration, it's rather uninspired and copied en masse.

The characters, meanwhile, not only look laughably bad, but the body language is eerily lacking. They all stand and stare straight ahead as you talk to them. What little motion they DO have, only serves to highlight the fact that they DON'T move enough to seem lifelike. The faces of all the characters are quite bad, proving that while ILM can make Yoda come to life, The Adventure Company might want to stick to bad full-motion video.

SOUND - 5

The music in the game is fine, but not outstanding. It does an adequate job of setting the mood but never more than that. Sound effects are okay, but not especially good, either. In all, "serviceable" best describes the audio work here.

The voice acting, however, is bad. Really bad. The main character sounds like a twenty-something actor trying his best to sound like a teenage kid. This never really works, and the overall effect is that you'd like to scream at him to shut up. Many of the other characters sound as if they've been given purportedly "humorous" voice stylings for no apparent reason.

GAMEPLAY - 4

If "kinda bland" describes the graphics and "serviceable" describes the audio, I'm sure you'll find no surprise that the best way to describe the gameplay is "tepid."

This being a point-and-click adventure game, I don't think I have to explain the fundamentals here. You wander around. You pick up items. You solve puzzles. That's about it.

One thing that I found particularly madening is that the game only allows you to go to certain set locales that are relevant to the plot. This, despite the fact that there are often other hallways, other doors, other areas you clearly COULD go if you were really there. You simply aren't allowed to go there. Now, granted, the locations of the game (a spaceport, a city, etc) by their very nature require that certain places be off-limits. However, there are better ways to do that than to simply not let the player click there.

The puzzles, for the most part, are intuitive. With few exceptions, the logic behind a puzzle is usually very easy to grasp, and the solution is never too obtuse (with some exceptions). The game is easy, but that works in its favor. Given that it is, after all, mediocre at best, anything that can be done to alleviate the player's frustration is appreciated.

However, the game does have one truly glaring flaw - its ending. In most games, you can generally tell when you are approaching the end, as things become harder and plot threads start to come together. Not so in Crystal Key 2. You simply solve one final puzzle, and the game is over, quite abruptly. All the loose plot threads (and there are many) are then tied up by exposition during the final cutscene. Anticlimactic, to say the least.

CONTROLS - 6

The controls are...well, adequate. The freelook from Myst III is incorporated here, which helps a great deal. However, you have to toggle the freelook off the access your inventory. This wouldn't be so bad, were it not for the jetpack item. You have to leave freelook off to activate the jetpack. Then, when you reach your destination, you have to turn it back on. Why freelook is not toggled on automaticaly after using the jetpack - since there is no reason why you would EVER need to access your inventory immediately upon landing, unless you had accidentally traveled to the wrong place - is beyond me.

Another great annoyance is that, while you have many forms of travel at your disposal, none of them can take you to every place you need to go. This means you have to spend much time late in the game hopping from boat to jetpack to another boat, then back again. A "zip mode" would also have been much appreciated, as many locations are seperated by what seems like an endless number of nodes to click through.

Finally, I was greatly annoyed at the fact that most characters mindlessly repeat everything they say until you do whatever it is you're supposed to do to make them say something else. If you show them an item, and they aren't programed to respond to it, they'll ignore it and go on telling you whatever they already told you about a dozen times. A simple "I don't know what that is" or "I don't need that right now" was apparently beyond the game designer's capabilities.

So there you are. It's not a bad game. It's just...a game. If you like point-and-click games, you might get a kick out of it. If you don't, you won't. Nothing here is going to persuade you of anything. It's a C- effort. If this were high school, The Adventure Company's report card would say something like "you can do better - see me after class." On the other hand, it's a marked improvement from Schizm, so perhaps this means that, in another decade or so, their games will actually be good.

My gut tells me, though, that this is a company whose highest ambition is to churn out more cheap junk like this.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/06/05