This Article was oringinally printed On Mon 22nd March 2010 at Hexus.net.
At the end of the last century adventure games were pronounced dead as a genre. The game that seemed to seal the fate of the adventure genre was Grim Fandango. In my opinion Grim Fandango is Tim Schafer’s greatest game and while reviews were very positive gamers didn’t seem very interested. Lucas Arts moth-balled development on further adventure games to concentrate on Star Wars games while Sierra seemed to lose its way completely.
This is a stark contrast to the genre`s height in the mid 80`s to mid-90`s. Sierra initially led the way with three game series: Kings Quest, Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry. Lucas Arts came a little later but revolutionised the genre with the release of Maniac Mansions and SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion.)
Lately though, point and click games have been making something of a renaissance thanks in no small part to Telltale Games creating episodic games based around Sam and Max, Bones and more recently Monkey Island.
Simon Sorcerer 5 – who’d even want contact?! is the latest instalment in the Simon the sorcerer series. The original game was released in 1993 to positive reviews, which spawned five direct sequels and two spin-off games. Simon is a pretty ordinary teenager who hates doing homework. After finding his dog hiding in a large wooden chest in the attic he picks up “Ye Olde Spellbooke.” After throwing it onto the floor a portal appears and Simon is magically transported to a fantasy world filled with Fairy tale characters and nods to Lord of the Rings and chronicles of Narnia.
Since his last adventure Simon has settled down with Alix and opened a magic shop. It’s New Year’s Eve and Simon’s home town is having a party. Simon wants to launch a rocket to celebrate the occasion but is reminded by several people about his past failures (blowing up a cow and making it rain frogs.) Simon agrees and instead amuses himself by putting firecrackers in the guard’s pants. Roll on to the next day and Simon is watching his New Year’s video whilst Alix is shouting at him to tidy up. Simon falls asleep but is woken up by a knock on the door. After a very brief introduction from Simon to the fundamentals of point and click games we are given control and can start our adventure.
After some quite simple puzzles Simon escapes just in time to see Alix get kidnapped by the aliens. What follows is an adventure across five chapters to try and rescue Alix and save the world from aliens. The journey takes in a tropical island which is home to Captain Narrow and his grounded ship the black pear, an underground mole city, a space ship made from the black pear, before finally arriving at the eye of death.
If you have played previous Simon games the majority of the cast will be familiar, with returns for Goldilocks, the drunken wolf, Little Red Riding Hood and unfortunately swampling. There is a smattering of new characters as well and although there are some in-jokes new players shouldn’t feel too left out by what is going on.
Point and click games usually stand or fall on their puzzles. There is a very fine line between too simple and too cryptic and annoying. The puzzles should make you feel good when you solve them without feeling like you are being treated like a child. The puzzles here are little too much on the simplistic side. As the game goes on the puzzles do get a little more cryptic but there is nothing that is going to challenge anyone familiar with the genre. This makes for a pretty easy game. There is a brief section where you have a choice of three routes to take, but this is only for one puzzle and then you are back on to the same path again.
Simon the Sorcerer has always followed the humorous approach to point and click games which when done right can lead to real belly laughs. The problem here is that the game was originally made in Germany and then later translated over to English. While there are some funny moments for the most part the humour feels strained and there wasn’t a moment where I can remember laughing out loud at the game.
The voice acting is adequate, although at times verges on the annoying. Swamplings Voice is really annoying but then this is to be expected as he is an annoying character. Simon sounds ok although I still think I remember Chris Barry`s Simon and that just fitted better. The mole spy voices are the perfect example of the voice acting on a whole. One of the voices sounds like you`d expect a cold war spy to sound while the other sounds like someone attempting a really bad Austrian accent.
Graphically, the game isn’t going to win any awards but then this is a genre where photo-realism has never been the main draw. The majority of locations are well drawn and well detailed and the character models for the most part look good. It’s good to see the developers moved away from the 3D engine that failed in the third game. My only slight gripe is that at times some of characters and locations can seem a bit angular when you`d expect them to be smoother.
This isn’t the best point and click game around, it’s not even the best Simon the Sorcerer game, but it is a decent game. At less than 10 hours this isn’t the longest game out there and the genre has never really leant itself to multiple play-throughs, at least not straight after completion. There is a number of Easter eggs listed in the end credits but these don’t add much to the game at all. There is also the chance to see what the aliens were saying throughout the game which is a nice extra, but doesn’t really add much to the experience. If you enjoy point and click games and need some to tide you over until the new series of Sam and Max then you could do a lot worse than this.