Azrael's Tear (first impressions)

[saibot216]

Started playing Azrael’s Tear (finally), and it’s one of those adventure games like Johnny Mnemonic or Phantasmagoria A Puzzle Of Flesh that sort of expects you to know what to do and gives you vague clues to other puzzles. There's this puzzle I'm currently on and I saw a plaque in another room that correlated to this machine, however the pipes just don’t seem to go into the holes they do on the plaque, so this will be interesting.
Azrael's Tear is a very early 3D game, so every time you go into a new room it has to load, but the load times aren’t bad, the rooms are rather small though, for the most part. Had a couple combat situations and you have to go into combat mode, which may sound annoying, but it’s pretty well integrated. Shot an explorer and a dinosaur, good stuff. Just need to figure out that darn puzzle. So far it’s a good game, just complex.
The voice acting is actually good, which is surprising given games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, which have some pretty bad voice acting. The voice acting in AT has emotion in it, and feels genuine, which is a very nice change from previously mentioned games.
The music is quite memorable in a good way. Great DOS game music and does a good job of setting the mood. To be quite honest, the first song you hear in the game is going through my head right now and I’m highly considering getting the soundtrack right now.
I'll give you all the complete review when I finish it, but so far, that's what I've gotten out of it.

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(Puzzle referred to)

[TotalAnarchy]

I'm pretty interested in how the combat works. Is it just about hitting or shooting thingies like in FPS, or are there more profound mechanics?

[saibot216]

Well when you aren't in action mode you use your mouse to pick things up and examine surfaces, etc, you also use right click to look around, which is weird, but hey, it works for me. When you go into combat, the mouse clicks turn into gun fire, so you aim and fire and you get an advanced crosshair set up too. Sounds confusing, but it's well integrated.

[arete]

This is really interesting and informative. If you would turn this into a full-length review, we could put the game onsite (Wereboar uploaded it iirc).

[saibot216]

Oh wow, very cool! I'll definitely try to finish the game soon, but I'm getting into the wrap up of school, so I've put the game on hold to write papers and do presentations. But when those are over I will get back to the game soon!

[saibot216]

So I beat Azrael's Tear and upon doing so I emailed Matthew Stibbe at his request and my email not only made his day, but it inspired him to publish the game's proposal and design documents on his site (http://www.badlanguage.net/azraels-tear)!

In addition to the things in my first impressions above:
Getting to the end of the game is a lot of fun and very memorable. Actually, the whole game is memorable. When I finished the game, I sat back and sort of ran through everything in my head and took it all in, something I have never really done before once I have beaten a game. But getting to the holy grail is a real challenge and real memorable because of the obstacles you have to face to get to it like the downward spiral of boards or the path you have to take to get out of the grail room. The ending is fantastic as well and given a sequel was planned it makes me wonder what would have happened in the sequel. I HIGHLY recommend Azrael's Tear to anyone looking for a good adventure game to play with a mixture of action. The games only downfall is how it gives you no general idea as to what you're supposed to do next, not even a hint. I had to consult a walkthrough quite often and I felt kinda stupid for doing so, but in reflection I couldn't really blame myself. But despite that issue AT is a fantastic game, easily one of the best I have played, and is well worth a try.