Legend of Kyrandia 3 - Malcolms Revenge, The
Malcolm's Revenge is the third in the Legend of Kyrandia series and is played from the 'evil' jester's point of view. But is Malcolm really as evil as he seemed in game one? In this game we see the character in greater depth and what we discover about him is amazing. He comes across as more of a misunderstood, though testy, character who does have a noble side. And, of course, a very funny one, too. Think Saruman (Lord Of The Rings) meets the Grinch. For the observer of human nature, this is a fun-filled psychological journey revealing what makes Kyrandia's bad boy really tick. The player can also adapt Malcolm's mood to every encounter with a click on the innovative 'mood meter'.
The graphics in this version of Kyrandia are the same high standard as in the other two games with every scene providing a visual feast. The plot is a colourful and meandering one involving Malcolm trying to prove he didn't murder the previous king and queen of Kyrandia. In his quest Malcolm literally finds himself at the ends of the earth in an underworld ruled by gigantic, english-speaking fish and, at the other end, slashing his way through an island jungle ruled by cats. It all gets pretty silly with Malcolm suffering every slap-stick indignity. However he gets to hold his head high at the end when all the denizens of Kyrandia are present for the Royal Seance where the departed King William's ghost is called upon to testify on Malcolm's behalf.
What I love about the game mechanics is that you just click on whatever or whomever you want to interact with. There's no cumbersome interface to navigate every time you want the character to interact. The puzzles, while being ingenius and hilarious, are incredibly difficult, and if you can work your way through without reaching for a walkthrough, you should apply to become a Kyrandian Royal Mystic. I hear there's a vacancy.
The version uploaded to Abandonia is a CD rip meaning there are no videos, music or speech, but there are special effects. When setting up the game you must select your sound card to hear these effects. (The default is no sound.) With the sound card selected and the option to play the game in Windows, you then need to go into the game options (left hand corner of the game window) and turn down the speech volume and turn on the speech text. Unless this is done, the speech text will flash on and off too quickly to read.
When I tried to activate the game, I received a Dos message asking me to insert a CD into drive E. However, if you hit the 'f' key these requests are no more.
Some trivia: In the March 1995 edition of PC Gamer, Malcom's Revenge was named Runner Up for the best Adventure game of the year. (System Shock won, but - heh! - who remembers System Shock now?)
Part of The Legend of Kyrandia Trilogy
Reviewed by: wendymaree
