Download Lost in Time

This is yet another excellent adventure that was made by Coktel Vision (they’re the makers of Inca and Inca 2) and in their style the plotline is somewhat strange, yet very intriguing!

Now most plotlines which include time travel tend to get overcomplicated or are simplistically silly. Now the plot here might not be fully original, but it’s still very good. I mean a villain who wants to prevent some events by altering the past is not exactly the most original idea in sci-fi, but I haven’t seen any other such computer adventure around. You being only an innocent bystander, who got stuck in the middle of everything and ends up doing all the job, because the actually agent sent to deal with the villain is to clumsy isn’t all that new either. Yet it all somehow fits nicely.

So, you play the role of a young woman, who’s about to buy some real-estate. But you want to explore it first. Needles to say, you stumble upon a mystery you just can’t walk away from!

I like the way you’re dragged into the story. You start out aboard a wooden ship with a poster dating to mid nineteenth century on the wall. From then on, you’re on your own and it takes you quite some time just to discover, who your character even is.

After realizing what’s happened to you, you get a flashback. But instead of simply watching it, you have to play it out. I know this seems a bit strange, so to put it another way, when the flashback starts, you need to make it to the point where you entered the game.

The thing I really like about this game are the puzzles. Although I love those ridiculous puzzles from games like Zak McCracken, this game is absolutely brilliant in that area. All the puzzles are logical, so if you really think it through, you’ll be able to solve them. I mean, it’s nothing MacGyver couldn’t do ;) That being said, there’s also an option to get help. You have a few jokers that help you along the way, but these can’t be applied just anywhere in the game (otherwise some might be tempted to simply have the game solve itself). Also I like the way you are quite safe. This means you don’t get to die those odd Sierra deaths no body expected (it shows Sierra is only the publisher, not the producer of the game).

Maybe I should mention that this is probably the first computer adventure I played that involved real actors. I must say the casting was done very nicely. At some point when you get to see the villains face and he’s about to get violent – I really got scared of the look in his eyes!

The game is also played from different perspectives. So while you’re in the ship, it’s all in the first person’s perspective. You will also note, that the ship does not include real photage and it is 3D. The outdoor sequences, however, are all acted out, are all in 2D and are all in the third person’s perspective.

The sounds are quite good too, although there’s no speech. The music will help you get that odd feeling of disorientation at first and it will also support the action sequences when there are some.

Needless to say that the game is 100% mouse controlled and you only need to click. Left-clicking will zoom in on an object or pick it up. Right-clicking will bring up the inventory. Clicking on objects will change your cursor to that object. Clicking an object on another object will let you use one object on the other (or combine them if they are to be combined). Finding the objects can be tricky, as you may not see them at first, but after zooming on certain parts of the screen you will be able to spot them.

By dragging the mouse to the top of the screen you’ll be able to access the menus. It’s a standard interface Sierra uses in most of their games. Here you can save/load/quit, get help, read the log… Reading the log isn’t really necessary for playing the game, but it’s a nice addition as it contributes to the understanding of what happens. Also there will be new log entries made automatically from time to time – you’ll see it flash when this happens.

So it’s an overall enjoyable game, with great puzzles (that seem very logical to me), excellent graphic, user friendly interface and solid sound. Over all I’d give this game an almost perfect score (92%), which would still translate to 5 points. I’d also warmly recommend this game to all adventure game fans, all the people who like games with interesting plot lines and also to all MacGyver fans out there.