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Mystery of the Druids
(Das Geheimnis der Druiden)
by House of Tales (Entwickler)
CDV (Publisher)
A preview by slydos, october 19th, 2000
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"De Druidibus" - "About the
Druids" - was a title of a class test in Latin, which I can remember still after so
many years! The task was clear: Translate the text and answer the questions about the
contents. The situation was hopeless - I was quite a blank in Latin and was prepared für
a "5" or worse. However I was saved not by my latin knowledge, but rather
Asterix and Obelix and my interest in celtic history to a pleasing "4". But not only this affectation for the hidden in the dark and mysterious culture and history of the Celts raised my appetite for this new mystery-adventure by the german developers "House of Tales": |
| The story begins with a mysterious murder case.
Inexperienced Detective Brent Haligan of Scotland Yard - one of the two main
characters - comes across a mysterious fraternity of druids in the course of his
examinations. During his investigation he is supported by the anthropologist Dr. Melanie
Turner - our second protagonist. The two encounter a ritual, which has its origin 1000
years ago to preserve the power of the druids and to control mankind finally. Haligan and
Dr. Turner are absolutely aware, that they have to thwart the completion of this ritual.
However before they can travel through time into the past, in order to execute their
dangerous mission, they must be exactly prepared in the present. Only those who know the
power of the four elements und could use it in the right manner, are able to solve all
riddles and finally can obtain the secret rune-stick, which is necessary for the druids to
terminate their ritual. A suspenseful, well thought out adventure in 3rd-person-perspective, that starts as a crime solving-/detective-story, until one is pulled into an uncanny mysterygame, which stretches from legendary Stonehenge to our enlightened time. 54 locations and more than 360 sceneries are leading the gamer from England to France and even into the past, 1000 years ago. Therefore you have to slip alternating into the role of Detective Haligan or Dr. Melanie Turner and to lead nonlinear, lip-synchronous conversations with non-player characters. Altogether there are 20 characters, for example the druid expert Arthur Blake, Lord Sinclair and the uncanny druid Serstan. The game contains 5 hours of speech and an extensive soundtrack in Dolby Surround-quality. The actors are prerendered polygon-3D-models with up to 1000 polygons and they are set into highresolution HiColor backgrounds and sceneries. This combination of 3D/2D allows to play the game on a normal pentium 200 with 32 MB RAM. Despite the 3D technology you don't need a 3D-accelerator card! These are pleasantly low system requirements, surely welcomed by all gamers who do not want to or cannot follow every hardware-trend. Bravo! At last a game, in which the story and not hardware/technics plays the main role. "The Mystery of the Druids" can compete with all those, which deviated from mouse-control almost by force because of complete 3D-environments (and high system requirements). Gamers are not forced to use a catchy keyboard-control, but can rather intervene directly in the game (without learning process) with a throughout more popular mouse control. The developers indicate that they don't have a specific model of adventure game from the palette of existing games, but describe the puzzles of "Mystery of the Druids" kind of Riven-like, therefore one can expect here rather puzzles than inventory/object-oriented game tasks. Also skillful conversations will help to progress within the game. Gamers must not go through action parts (there are none), you have not to carry a weapon because there is no shooting and killing - a pure adventure game, not forgoing to let you master a maze ;-) With "Mystery of the Druids" a traditional adventure game will be available in january/february 2001.
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Copyright © slydos für Adventure-Archiv, october 19th, 2000
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