MINI-REVIEW: Crystal Key 2
Andrew Plotkin
(Review copyright 2004, Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com>)
I remember _Crystal Key_ as being a competent, if not groundbreaking,
adventure game. Reasonably pretty, with a nifty (if slightly awkward) puzzle
at the climax.
Momentary pause as I re-read my review from 1999... okay, I hated the
interface. And the sense of focus needed a lot of work. And it was buggy.
Hey, that's a *great* lead-in to my review of the sequel... because CK2 was
just like that, except not competent and without the nifty puzzle. I swear
this game could serve as an encyclopedia of Things Not To Do. But I'll skip
the minor sins, and just talk about gameplay.
CK2 loves, with a dear and heartrending devotion, to make hotspots appear
"only when needed". All sorts of things look like irrelevant pieces of
scenery, until you reach the Right Point in the Plot, and then suddenly you
can click on them. Of course you *don't* click on them, because you've
already learned that they're irrelevant pieces of scenery. You know how this
goes, I don't need to explain how dumb it is.
Perhaps to make up for this inconsistency, the NPCs are as constant as the
northern star. After an initial introduction, they always say the same
thing. Some of them *only* have an introduction, which they repeat every
time you click on them. You make the same replies, too. Identical little
conversations. It doesn't even pretend to be a "nothing new" response. I
know it's meant to drum the Important Clue Points into your skull, but
realism goes up in a puff of sooty smoke.
(Also, half the NPCs are irritating tree gnomes with smurfy voices.)
I got stuck several times, and each time it was "You want me to use what? On
what? What's that supposed to mean?" Once I clicked thing B on scenery A, I
was able to tell what I'd done. But I hadn't had any notion that that was an
interesting thing to *do*. Even if I knew that thing B or scenery A was
important to getting unstuck -- and I generally did know that -- nothing led
me to try that particular experiment.
And the "use everything on everything" strategy (which I hate to begin with)
wouldn't have helped much... because it was actually go to person F, click
him with thing E, then take thing D from him (which he happened to have
handy) and combine it with thing C, producing B, which you then click on A.
Some of these steps were logical; but inevitably, one would be a complete
blank-stare, what-the-hell-were-they-thinking action. Which means you never
even *start* the chain of logic. You can't try using everything on A if you
don't have B yet; and you don't know that B is *produceable* (much less
*why* it makes sense to use it on A) so you have no reason to talk to F
about E.
If you see what I mean.
Navigation is annoying, because you have to run back and forth across the
map. Three seconds every time you click a movement hotspot. (No transition
animations -- or very few -- those three seconds are just load time. It's
not disastrous, but I wish it was faster.) You have vehicles to jump from
one game region to another, which is okay. But I sure wish you didn't have
to change from one vehicle to another so often. That's just tedious. Walk
walk elevator switch walk walk boat. And back again. (You can interrupt any
animation with the space bar. Knowing this will save your sanity.)
Bah, forget it. I have a page of complaints scribbled down, but it doesn't
even feel worth going through them. The game just feels limp and shoddy. Too
much stuff is missing. Animations are missing -- things happen that you just
don't see. It's not confusing, it's just weak. The Gigantic Tree of Awesome
Stature lacks any grandeur whatsoever. The first time you see it, you won't
even realize it's a big tree. Looks like a tree. There's a musical sound
puzzle. Who thought that was a good idea? The Miller brothers in 1992,
that's who, but it turns out they were wrong.
The final puzzle makes no sense. Two-thirds of the way through the game, you
find the lever which will (literally) save the world. All you have to do is
pull it. You can't pull it. I don't know why. You have to go through the
rest of the game to get a thing and hang it on the lever, which then clonks
down and so you save the world. I have a theory about why this is, actually,
but I won't share it with you, because this puzzle doesn't deserve it. It
conveys neither meaning, nor drama, nor complicity, nor excitement. It's a
failure. That goes for the whole storyline, actually.
CK2 is buggy, too, but you don't have to worry about that because why would
you play it? Wow, I don't think I've *ever* been this bitter in a review.
I've played worse games, you know. There are many, many worse games than
this. But CK2 is astonishingly free of anything... astonishing. There's one
nice house. I'd live there. (For a few hours I thought the puzzle to enter
that house made sense, but it turns out it doesn't, so never mind.) The game
is basically a string of fumbles, with no particular high points. And that's
what makes me to write a very, very bitter review. Also a meandering review
with no particular point. I hope you're at least enjoying the rant.
If you do play CK2, save every 30 minutes. New save file each time. Every
two or three hours, save and then quit and then reopen the game and reload
your save file. Do the same if your inventory disappears. It worked for me.
Oh, I forgot to mention the game-killing bug, where if you leave the manhole
without picking up the crank device, you can't go back and get it, so you
lose. I read that in a walkthrough guide -- I didn't run into it myself.
Now, neither will you.
Summary: phooey.
(This review, and my reviews of other adventure games, are at
http://www.eblong.com/zarf/gamerev/index.html)
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
Robert Gault
> MINI-REVIEW: Crystal Key 2: The Far Realm
>
> (Review copyright 2004, Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com>)
><snip>
I mostly agree with the review but want to add a few points.
At the price of $20 US, it is still worth buying if only because there
are so few adventure games being sold. If we don't support them, there
may be none left to buy.
The graphics in the game are an improvement over Crystal Key and worth
seeing. The story line for me was a problem just as bad as the lack of
logic for some puzzles. In the original, the story was more or less
straight Science Fiction. You could expect that sooner or later most of
the items invoked would be invented with the exception of Ozgar, an
homage to the Dark Force emperor from Star Wars. CK2 has changed over to
fantasy including, for example, a stupid idea that bacteria can generate
teleportation fields.
Christine Marie
> Andrew Plotkin wrote:
>
> > MINI-REVIEW: Crystal Key 2: The Far Realm
> >
> > (Review copyright 2004, Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com>)
> ><snip>
>
> I mostly agree with the review but want to add a few points.
>
> At the price of $20 US, it is still worth buying if only because there
> are so few adventure games being sold. If we don't support them, there
> may be none left to buy.
I hear you. However, my budget does not extend to providing charity to
businesses that can't get it together to find out what their prospective
customers might want, and my entertainment budget is tight enough that I'm
only buying things I expect to actually enjoy. Even at a $20 price point.
> The graphics in the game are an improvement over Crystal Key and worth
> seeing.
So they fixed that freaky gamma problem from the first one? I never got
past the prison cell sequences, because I couldn't see what I was doing. I
have no idea if I liked the story in the first one--I didn't get far enough
into it to really get what the story was.
Thanks!
Chris
Andrew Plotkin
> "Robert Gault" wrote:
>
> > The graphics in the game are an improvement over Crystal Key and worth
> > seeing.
Um, some of them. Some of the scenes, as I said, were dull or
unimpressive. Many were somewhat barren -- not enough detail.
I wish they'd used higher resolution on the panning images. Many of
the scenes looked slightly blurry. And the blur was clearly in the
source image, not a function of the panning algorithm.
> So they fixed that freaky gamma problem from the first one?
Undoubtedly by ignoring the Mac platform entirely, and tuning the
graphics for the typical PC display.
Jenny100
Magic bacteria.
Maybe they have midichlorians inside and can use the "Force."
(I had to look up how to spell midichlorians).
I actually enjoyed Crystal Key 2 (with a walkthrough).
Unlike the first Crystal Key, it didn't kill me off all
the time and give me "Game Overs" without explanation.
And it's one of the few games where you don't need the
CD in the drive after you install it.
EjP
>
> Oh, I forgot to mention the game-killing bug, where if you leave the manhole
> without picking up the crank device, you can't go back and get it, so you
> lose. I read that in a walkthrough guide -- I didn't run into it myself.
> Now, neither will you.
>
In the original Crystal Key, there was a place (I think it was
breaking out of the prison), where you could accidentally discard
the key with no possibility of recovering it - effectively ending
the game with no message or warning. The only thing that saved
me wasting a lot of the time was realizing that the Crystal Key was
probably an important part of a game called "The Crystal Key",
and if I didn't have it, something must be wrong.
> Summary: phooey.
Thanks. I was thinking of buying it based on the somewhat positive
review in Gamespot. I remember thinking that the original
CK had all the right pieces, but somehow managed to miss the mark -
sort of like a movie that starts out with a high concept, but
ultimately goes straight to the video stores.
BTW, was the ending in this one as disappointing as the original?
I remember thinking "Wow, this makes Myst look good".
-E
Andrew Plotkin
>
> BTW, was the ending in this one as disappointing as the original?
> I remember thinking "Wow, this makes Myst look good".
I don't remember the ending of CK1. I remember the final puzzle, which
was a good idea, badly implemented. CK2 didn't have a memorable puzzle
*or* an interesting ending.
EjP
> Here, EjP <nos...@hackers.are.bad> wrote:
>
>>BTW, was the ending in this one as disappointing as the original?
>>I remember thinking "Wow, this makes Myst look good".
>
>
> I don't remember the ending of CK1.
It was pretty easy to forget. Basically, you solve the final
puzzle, there's one really, really short cutscene, and a little
text message that says something to the effect "Congratulations.
You killed the bad guy and saved the universe".
Oops! Was that a spoiler? Nothing to spoil, really.
-E
Dohh
Syberia 1 and 2; TLJourney and Myst Exile,but I thought the graphics in Crystal
Key 2 were far inferior to the examples above,albeit a very slight step above
from CK 1. Very few background animations to speak of (some sloppily-rendered
water animations nonwithstanding). IMaginative,but somewhat uninspired...IMHO.
Still,CK2 environments are about 100% prettier than those found in Forever
Worlds. What a clunker THAt one is...
Jenny100
> I guess I must be spoiled by the graphical environments in games such as
> Syberia 1 and 2; TLJourney and Myst Exile,but I thought the graphics in Crystal
> Key 2 were far inferior to the examples above,
They were.
> albeit a very slight step above from CK 1.
They were a quantum leap better than the miserably dark and
blurry graphics I saw in Crystal Key 1.
> Very few background animations to speak of (some sloppily-rendered
> water animations nonwithstanding). Imaginative, but somewhat uninspired...IMHO.
> Still,CK2 environments are about 100% prettier than those found in Forever
> Worlds. What a clunker THAt one is...
The graphics in Forever Worlds were actually the best part.
(sad to say)
Jenny100
> I don't remember the ending of CK1. I remember the final puzzle, which
> was a good idea, badly implemented.
I remember that near the endgame puzzle you had to step back
OUT of a closeup in order to interact with an object that you
saw in the closeup. That stupid interface quirk wasted
a lot of my time. I thought I'd neglected to do something
to "activate" the object.
Andrew Plotkin
> Andrew Plotkin wrote:
>
>
> > I don't remember the ending of CK1. I remember the final puzzle, which
> > was a good idea, badly implemented.
>
> I remember that near the endgame puzzle you had to step back
> OUT of a closeup in order to interact with an object that you
> saw in the closeup. That stupid interface quirk wasted
> a lot of my time.
Me too.
Expmiata
~Cissy
<a href="http://members.aol.com/IvaMiata/Krikkit/index2.html">My '90 Mazda
Miata</a><br>
<i>I love PC adventure games</i>
erimess
about anyone's opinion, but more out of curiosity since I really,
really disliked CK1, and would never have any intentions of buying a
sequel anyway.
However, this was one of the funniest things I've read for quite a
while, so I suppose (if you pushed it) you could say CK2 provided me
with some amusement... for free. :-) I especially liked the
paragraph of letters (yes, I see what you mean), and what seemed to be
a total giving up of even trying to review it just cracked me up even
more. I sat here and laughed through most of it.
So, yes, I quite enjoyed the rant. :-) I believe I will send it to my
brother.
---
erimess
My therapist told me a way to achieve
inner peace was to finish things I had
started. Today I finished 2 bags of potato
chips, a lemon pie, a fifth of Jack Daniel's
and a small box of chocolate candy.
I feel better already.
Andrew Plotkin
>
> However, this was one of the funniest things I've read for quite a
> while, so I suppose (if you pushed it) you could say CK2 provided me
> with some amusement... for free. :-) I especially liked the
> paragraph of letters (yes, I see what you mean), and what seemed to be
> a total giving up of even trying to review it just cracked me up even
> more. I sat here and laughed through most of it.
Thanks!
Honestly, I *meant* to write a longer review which had, um, more of a
point. I ran out of ideas, energy, and motivation. I sat there staring
at the screen, and eventually decided it would never have more of a
point than it already did.
Murray Peterson
news:Nc3kc.269$Xj6....@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:
> At the price of $20 US, it is still worth buying if only because there
> are so few adventure games being sold. If we don't support them, there
> may be none left to buy.
As much as it would sadden me, I would still find a complete absence of
adventure games to be preferable to a shelf full of very bad adventure
games. Since it appears that Earthlight hasn't learned how to make a good
adventure game, I won't cry if they quietly move into other areas.
--
Murray Peterson
Email: murray_...@shaw.ca (remove underscore)
URL: http://members.shaw.ca/murraypeterson/
Jenny100
> Robert Gault <robert...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in
> news:Nc3kc.269$Xj6....@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:
>
>
>>At the price of $20 US, it is still worth buying if only because there
>>are so few adventure games being sold. If we don't support them, there
>>may be none left to buy.
>
>
> As much as it would sadden me, I would still find a complete absence of
> adventure games to be preferable to a shelf full of very bad adventure
> games. Since it appears that Earthlight hasn't learned how to make a good
> adventure game, I won't cry if they quietly move into other areas.
I think Egyptian Prophecy and Crystal Key 2 were both by
Kheops Studio.
http://www.kheopsstudio.fr/site/index.php?lang=2
Egyptian Prophecy is a much better game.
Maybe people from Earthlight work at Kheops?
Murray Peterson
news:vuClc.3173$a47...@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net:
> I think Egyptian Prophecy and Crystal Key 2 were both by
> Kheops Studio.
> http://www.kheopsstudio.fr/site/index.php?lang=2
>
> Egyptian Prophecy is a much better game.
>
> Maybe people from Earthlight work at Kheops?
Gamespot indicates that CK2 is "developed by Earthlight Productions, in
conjunction with Kheops Studios". However, I have no idea what that means.
Andrew Plotkin
> Jenny100 <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in
> news:vuClc.3173$a47...@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net:
>
> > I think Egyptian Prophecy and Crystal Key 2 were both by
> > Kheops Studio.
> > http://www.kheopsstudio.fr/site/index.php?lang=2
> >
> > Egyptian Prophecy is a much better game.
> >
> > Maybe people from Earthlight work at Kheops?
>
> Gamespot indicates that CK2 is "developed by Earthlight Productions, in
> conjunction with Kheops Studios". However, I have no idea what that means.
The pamphlet credits Earthlight with "Story and Game Design". The top
names there are Jennifer and John Matheson. Those are the same names
which headlined CK1 (which was Earthlight and Dreamcatcher, but not
Kheops.) Then there's a big "development team" listed.
Only a couple of names are listed under Kheops, and it's just
"Programming, music, and sound".
At a guess, I'd say that Earthlight licensed the game engine from
Kheops.
Murray Peterson
news:c776q1$arc$2...@reader2.panix.com:
> The pamphlet credits ...
Do those little inserts even deserve to be called pamphlets? :-)
> At a guess, I'd say that Earthlight licensed the game engine from
> Kheops.
Thanks for the information. Sounds like Earthlight is the "guilty party",
so I'll stick to my original comment about them.