Score
Gameplay:	6
Graphics:	7
Sound:	8
FunFactor:	7
PlasmaFactor:	5
Overall:	6.6

Atlantis Evolution Review
November 4, 2004 by Brian Callam

by Brian - November 4, 2004

Atlantis Evolution is a fairly enjoyable game for adventure fans if you can manage to look past its slew of poor design choices and mediocre voice acting.

Slaves of the Divine

I�m just going to come right out and say what the best thing about this game is: The story. Its compelling enough, most of the time, to make you want to continue playing, but the game is also hindered by a multitude of problems. You play as Curtis Hewitt, a young photo-journalist from New York City. The year is 1904, and Curtis is on his way home from a trip to Patagonia where he was taking pictures. When the ship enters a chaotic storm, and is about to sink, Curtis mans a life boat only to be sucked into a vortex and knocked unconscious. When he wakes up, Curtis is unharmed, sitting in his row boat on a calm sea, with a two headed bird sitting on his camera trunk. If that isn�t strange enough for you, the entire boat is then beamed up into a U.F.O. and your adventure begins. After winding up in New Atlantis, you will encounter the God fearing slaves of their religious idols. The people live miserable lives, so much so that all of their Gods are evil. The only one that might be considered good would be the Sun God, but the others, God of Death, God of Nightmares, and the chief God who is just as ruthless as the others. After being labeled a deviant (similar to an untouchable) and shunned by the townspeople, Curtis flees for his life to the jungle where he will get help from other deviants to get back to the surface of the earth, but not before saving Atlantis from their own Gods of course.

Like most games from The Adventure Company, the game is a point and click adventure. You will have to solve puzzle after puzzle to advance further and further into the game. Most of the puzzles are item based, so there is a fair amount of pixel hunting as well. None of the puzzles are particularly difficult, but there were times in the early parts of the game (mainly the jungle area) where I got frustrated. Unfortunately its not always clear what you are supposed to be looking for, and its very easy to get lost in the jungle areas. This is mainly because the game lacks a compass, so its difficult to discern whether or not you have been somewhere or not before or if you are going backwards. However, the jungle area is the only place where I had this problem. From then on out, its pretty smooth sailing as far as the puzzles go.

The other problem I had with the game is the completely unnecessary and ill-placed mini-games. It seems like they just threw them in there because they ran out of ideas for puzzles or something, because they have no relevance to your objective at all, and they just aren�t very fun to play. The first one has you launching boulders over a wall at a castle in order to save a town from the God�s wrath, which makes no sense at all. There�s also a frogger-like game, and a game reminiscent of the light cycles from Tron.

If you can manage to look past these design flaws though, the story is enough reason to finish the game.

Pretty... pretty static that is.

The graphics in Atlantis Evolution are very detailed, colorful, and realistic. You play in the first person perspective, and each area allows you to pan a full 360 degrees around. The in-game visuals are pretty stunning, and the cinematic sequences are even better looking. I�d say the world of Atlantis is well realized in this game. However, the areas are pretty static, and thus fairly boring to look at. Also, the lip syncing in the dialog sequences are worse than Ashley Simpson�s performance on SNL. Its not even close to looking real.

Exceptional soundtrack.

Atlantis Evolution has one of the best soundtracks from an adventure game in quite some time. It creates the perfect atmosphere for the story, and the areas you will visit in the game. Not a single complaint there.

Voice acting is an entirely different beast though. Its very hit and miss, leaning a bit toward the miss. Most of the voice actors sound monotone and uninteresting. Curtis has his moments, but sometimes even he sounds dumb, and the dialogue at some points is pretty weak.

Some more bad things.

Unfortunately, on top of all this, the game is also pretty short. I beat it in three days, with about 3 - 4 hours per day play time. I would have liked to see it go on a little longer than the ten or so hours it had.

One more thing, the menu in the game is absolutely horrendous in design. Not only are there no labels on anything, the buttons are abstract shapes that give no hint to their function. You have to mouse over them in order to find out what they do. This is just terrible design.

 

 

This game could have been an 8...

While the game has a lot of minor problems, they really add up and degrade from the title. If the developers can resolve some of the issues with the game, I would definitely like to see a sequel because the story is compelling and the environments are beautiful. As for a recomendation, I�d suggest trying the demo before you buy it. Still, despite its problems, Atlantis Evolution isn�t unplayable. I even enjoyed the experience as a whole, but I couldn�t help noticing its blatantly bad design choices.