Fade

.: By: Jason Surguine :: Device used: E-125 :: September 6, 2001 :: Buy this game :.

Fade, the first real graphical adventure game that many have been anticipating is now out. Should you rush to buy it? Is it just a bunch of pretty pictures? What’s the big deal behind this game anyway?

Graphic adventure games have been around for decades now and they’re nothing new. Most of the time there is no action. A perfect example of a comparable PC game would be Myst I or perhaps Return to Zork. The game is supposed to deliver outstanding visuals, some interesting puzzles, and a good story.

Fade does this on a couple levels. The visuals are some of the best visuals in a PPC game to date. Sure, they are still screens and there is absolutely no movement in the game, but they look nice. The story is very intriguing and had me confused the entire time I was playing it, pressing me to finish the story and solve the mystery. And the some puzzles in the game were definitely interesting.

As you know, the game was originally in French and has been translated into English. The translation was pretty decent, for the most part. However, you could tell there was more than one translator, and some of them didn’t do as good of a job as the others. In addition, even with the patch, there are many areas in the game that still have bits of French lying around. Luckily I have a pretty good knowledge of the French language. ;)

The controls in the game are all done through a clean GUI that is pretty friendly and easy to figure out, making the gameplay pretty smooth. This is helped out by the fact that the gameplay is all just point-and-click actions. However, it did become a pain in the donkey to move through multiple rooms just to perform a small task.

I believe that they should have implemented a map system that you could use to visit any place you’ve been to on the map. Another thing that could have been done would be to have a definitive order of the rooms you can visit when you hit the exit/move button. I found myself clicking on the wrong room too many times.

I did like the diary idea though; it was nice to be able to try and figure out what the heck I was supposed to be doing.

As I’ve said, the visuals presented are very nice, and its obvious that much time was spent on creating all of the mages in this game. But I can’t help but feel bored after seeing still images for hours on end. Even the cut scenes were a bit drab using one-frame movements. Making the game play more like a comic book than a movie; which is what I think the developers originally had in mind. It would be nice if the game implemented a few FMV scenes or something to that effect, to liven up the game a bit.

Like many graphic adventure games, some of the puzzles are so elementary, you wonder why you had to tell the character to do it, while at the same time, other puzzles make absolutely no logical sense whatsoever, and you only figure them out by wasting hours trying to click everything on everything else, and when you do solve them you answer with a resounding “WTF?! That makes absolutely no sense at all!”. And of course, there was a fair share of just plain silly puzzles. For example, at one point the character doesn’t want to get his hands wet to get his keys out of the his own toilet, so you have to fetch it out with the poker from the fireplace. Excuse me?! In other words, Fade has the perfectly normal difficulty balance of most graphic adventure games.

Let me reflect on the story a bit. I do admit while I was playing through the game that I was captivated by my own confusion, with a quest for knowledge to solve the mystery about what the story was really about. However, reflecting upon the story now, I realize that I really didn’t care what happened to the main character's wife, Anne. Meanwhile the entire game you are searching for her, because she is supposed to be important. In fact, all of the characters in the story seemed to be pretty weak, as I didn’t necessarily feel for any of them.

The end wasn't awe-inspiring as everyone says. In fact, it kind of upset me and seemed extremely cheesy to me. Overall, the story is okay. There was nothing that was particularly earth-shattering. Perhaps it’s just me, or possibly the loss of story through translation. It almost seems like every time you fade or pass out, they didn't know what to do with the story line themselves. So they just tried to start over, and then rationalize all of the holes in the plot with the ending.

As far as sound goes, I disagree that having sound effects instead of music being more 'ambient'. In my opinion, that’s a load of horse manure. Some of the most of the 'ambient’ movies have both, and never (good movies anyway) is there only sound effects or only music. The sound effects that do exist are pretty decent, but many of them get very annoying after awhile (especially the footsteps in gravel sound when you’re walking around). And don’t tell me that it would have taken too much processing power to do both. This game ran fine off of my Microdrive, which was nice (most games don’t), but we’re on still screens for Pete’s sake. I honestly thought that the NES versions of Dejavu or Shadowgate had more ambience than this game.

Nonetheless, this is the first and best graphical adventure game for the PPC, and it has been done with a very professional quality. I enjoyed the game thoroughly. As frustrating as it was, I more or less played the game non-stop until I beat it. While the difficulty was pretty moderate, if you ask me, I beat the game in about 14.5 hours. And I didn't use the walkthrough once. I did browse through the walkthrough afterwards and saw many mistakes that wouldn't have helped me much (probably even hindered me due to its quick, poor translation). This is a pretty good, solid title, and you may think that my score and me ripping the game apart makes no sense, but I am honestly just trying to point out the biggest flaws in the game and what needs to be worked on for future reference. I hope to see many more outstanding games and even improved and better titles coming from the Fade team in the future.

Pros:

• First and best graphic adventure for the PPC

• Professional quality

• Easy GUI system

• Wonderful still frame visuals

• Freaky, messed-up storyline

• Decent sound effects

Cons:

• Still frame visuals, no special FMV cut scenes or anything

• Illogical puzzles

• Still some leftover French

• Weakly, messed-up storyline

• No music

.: Game category: Adventure & RPG Games :: Reviews Index :: Buy this game :.