Customer Reviews

Amerzone

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Amerzone is a time consuming, medium difficulty, point-and-click adventure. If you enjoyed the point-and-click classics, Myst and Riven, you are sure to love Amerzone. My favorite part is that you are whisked away from France to the fantasy land of Amerzone; and the graphics are even better than Myst and Riven combined. Recommended to all.

The storyline: sixty years ago, three young men went adventuring through the Amerzone, each one representing an aspect of Civilization (science, religion, politics) in first contact with this primitive, romantic land. The game begins as the adventurers, now old men, look back on an experience that started with good intentions, but ended with each betraying and exploiting what once was a land of enchantment. Valembois, the scientist of the group, realizes that an artifact he removed years ago -- a giant egg -- is, miraculously, still alive. He charges you with the quest of returning to the Amerzone with the egg, thereby restoring vitality, myth, and mystery to the land.

Pros:

1. Fabulous, unusual, lifelike 3D graphics; fantastical, yet believable places to explore. The rain forest scenes contain exquisite traceries of leaf, branch and shadow.

2. In no other game has the world felt so alive with indigenous species -- the frequent flights of birds, the movement and sound of insects -- plus fascinating portrayals of unknown, exotic creatures: the Pechosaur, the Suckerer, the Porcopotamus.

3. Unlike most other computer games, the ending to Amerzone is superb: from the moment you encounter the web-footed giraffes, through a misty ascent on a delicate rope bridge where water and sky merge, through a flight over bubbling volcanoes, to the final spectacular cut-scene.

Cons:

1. The mouse responsiveness in this game was erratic. The 360-degree panning was smooth, but sometimes when I clicked on a hotspot, I had to try over and over to get the hotspot to function. At times, I felt as though I was slogging through waist-high water, upstream, against a fierce headwind. If you have a similar experience, try double-clicking on everything, which pretty much solves the problem.

2. I would have enjoyed seeing some colorful, exotic flowering plants in the rain forest scenes. Those would have provided a more spectacular contrast to the gray, wind-swept French countryside at the beginning of the game.

3. I didn't really appreciate the game's storyline until I played through it a second time. I suspect that games like Amerzone occupy the mind and senses so thoroughly with new sights, sounds, and mysteries to solve, that it is easy for subtle story nuances to go unnoticed. In a way this adds to replayability; however, if Amerzone's designers wanted the player to "get" the storyline the first time through, they needed to make it a lot more obvious.

Bottom Line: If you loved the intrigue, pace and style of Myst and/or Riven, you will have a very pleasant time with Amerzone.

While this game is visually very good and fun to play, it is as indicated quite easy. I play almost every adventure game I can get my hands on, Myst, Riven, Shivers, Amber, Lighthouse, etc., and rate this game only moderately interesting. Maybe it's because the cursor changes shapes when you place it over something important, or because you can hardly fail to find the solution to the immediate puzzle, but I rate a game on how much help I need in solving puzzles and how long the game takes to play. I expect a good adventure game to keep me stumped for weeks or even a month or two depending on the amount of time spent playing it. I received Amerzone in the mail December 24th, solved it on December 27th and needed help on only 1 puzzle and that was only because I was impatient. (I would have solved it had I only tried it a couple of more times.) Visually it's a great game, but for a real adventure game player it's only a short diversion. Beginner?...buy it...experienced?..you can do better.

I have read several negative reviews of Amerzone, but after playing it several times these are my impressions.

When I first saw the cold grey windswept coast of Brittany I was amazed. I could hear the wind whipping against the rocks, and could almost feel the sea spray. The grey clouds were very low and threatening, and the crash of the waves could have easily been thunder.

The interface was very easy to learn. I had trouble seeing in darker areas inside the lighthouse even when my monitor was set to 100% brightness, but that was the only trouble spot.

I was glad to get on the way to Amerzone, finding the first level a tad colourless and boring. The puzzles were of medium difficulty, based more on surroundings than on some obscure facts or useless trivia à la Riven.

The game is simply chock full of detail, right down to props. My Casablanca-loving friend was thrilled to see that movie poster on the wall in the boat bar (did you catch it as well?). But my favourite part was the animals, plant life, and insects of Amerzone.

The journal was full of watercolour sketches of different birds, insects and animals that lived in the Amerzone jungle as well as sketches of the native tribe that lived there. I tried to find all of the species in the jungle, and was missing only one.

I only encountered one native woman in the Amerzone, along with a guard and a priest, but you can definitely feel the presence of many, many others. The Spanish village was a nice touch, as was the broadcast in Spanish by the Amerzone dictator. Everything felt totally authentic, and I wanted to book a flight down there for a week or two.

There is not much in the way of music, but sound effects are abundant and very well done. There are often several layers of sound for a single location, such as water lapping, trees creaking, insects buzzing, foreign birdcalls, and strange grunts and snorts from unknown animals.

The 360 degree panning was excellent and reminded me of "Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time" although in all honesty the graphics are sharper in Amerzone. The backgrounds are photorealistic watercolours for the most part, and the characters are more cartoonlike and stylized. The animation quality was top notch as well.

Unlike some, I do not dislike the ending. I thought it was more realistic, more true to the world of the Amerzone and the effects of Spanish colonization and an opressed people. It is not a fairy tale ending by any means but it does provide closure to your mission.

Amerzone was an experience from the beginning to the end. True, gameplay was short, but the beautiful locations and thoughtful, engaging storyline should make up for it. Amerzone is becoming increasingly harder to find, and if you can find a copy and you enjoy games along the lines of Riven and Myst don't pass this one up.

A good game for the person who only wishes to move forward, Amerzone has a big price tag for not-so-big adventure. This game has a boring-to-annoying sound track, poor resolution and a fairly static environment. Good for the inexperienced or younger gamer, however--the puzzles aren't very puzzling and it's almost impossible to miss clues. 3D shots are excellent, easy to move around--storyline is interesting. If you found Myst/Rivan to be difficult, you'll love this one.

Amerzone is a good game for the young and/or inexperienced gamer. For anyone else the game is disappointingly simplistic and linear. While the story line is interesting the "puzzles" are not so puzzling. In fact the solutions are handed to you in such a matter of fact way that it's nearly impossible to miss any of them. If you can pick something up you can surely bet that it will have an immediate use in the next scene. Not too challenging. Lastly, the game itself did not play smoothly. I had several instances of broken and choppy graphics...especially as I walked through animated scenes....and the game crashed several times. Amerzone was/is a major disappointment. Recommeded only for begining gamers and older children.

First off - this is a great game. The graphics are fantastic, no question. Unlike usual game animation, which can be jerky, this was surprisingly lifelike. The sound effects are great and the puzzles are reasonably easy. The only thing missing is a more detailed story. You come, you see, you conquer. There is one instance where you get clubbed in a village and thrown into jail - but you never find out why, who did it or what you might have done wrong. This could have been a great Indiana Jones type game but it's just too easy. You only get hindered once, and it's no fun if nobody's after you. All this needed was a bit more of a plot, like Zork Grand Inquisitor, and it would have been a five-star game, no questions asked.

My husband and I were disappointed in this game. We waited for two months while we built a new computer to play this game (for optimal game play and graphics). Although the graphics were outstanding, the game was simple. Unlike Riven and Myst, the game tells you when a clue is needed by changing the arrow to a hand or gears. So simple, our seven year old can play it. We finished this game in just 2 hours. What a waste.

I played "AmerZone" after having enjoyed playing "Syberia" and "Syberia II," so I had heard of the Amerzone, having had to root around the train station at a university town in order to find some flowers from that distant land. So I was looking for a similar sort of adventure game and was surprised to discover some significant differences in this earlier game from Dream Catcher, which I would have to characterize as a "beginner" level computer game of this genre.

Promising "A Secret Place...An Incredible Discovery," this game starts in Brittany in France and then sends you off to the Amerzone, an imaginary Central American country ruled by a brutal dictator. Your goal is to find the fabled egg of the legendary "White Birds" of the Amerzone, who are born to live and die in the sky without ever landing. The egg was taken from the natives and the tribe has been cursed since that day. You are a reporter, who learns the location of the original sacred egg of the White Birds and has to return it to the jungle and put an end to the suffering, which suggests a surprising amount of altruism on your part (although I suppose there will be a story to tell if and when you get back).

Your journey begins with a conversation between your character and a mailman, who asks you to take the letter he left in the mailbox of the house down the road directly to its owner, an old man who will explain to you enough information for you to get a clue as to what you are going to have to do. After the mailman rides off you are into the general interface for "AmerZone." This means a statis screen with a cursor at the center where you move the mouse to have a full range of 360-degree movement. However, you are not going to be able to move around in each environment, but just view everything from the fixed vantage point. Consequently, what you have is more in terms of a slideshow progression than a 3-D environment you can fully explore. This approach tends to make me a bit dizzy from time to time, especially when you are wandering around checking every square inch in all directions to see what it is you are missing to do whatever you have to do next.

You primary mode of transportation is a Hydroflot. You have to find it and get it working at your first location and then it will then fly you to the Amerzone, where it will also serve you as a motor boat, a sailing ship and a submarine as the situation demands. The Hydroflot will get you to each location as you go deeper into the jungle, where you will then get to walk around and do what needs to be done. There are only eight slots in your inventory so you do not need to worry about collecting a whole bunch of things. In fact, for the most part it will be easy for you to figure out what you need to find and what you are going to do with objects when you find them. For example, getting gas for your Hydroflot and finding computer discs are going to be almost constant concerns and relatively easy to accomplish with dogged exploration of each locale. Unlike "Syberia" and other games of this type there are not a lot of conversations with other characters. You will only need one hand to count the number of characters there are to talk to and you just listen to what they have to say (there is no choosing of topics or any talking at all on your part).

Ultimately, the only thing that is going to frustrate players, especially young players, is going to be going through screens looking for the one thing you are supposed to pick up. In my case that happened to be with the penultimate task of the game as I wandered around and around a lava pit trying to find what there was to pick up. But that is a standard concern with such adventure games and young players will not be confronted by complex puzzles beyond their ability to solve, hence the idea that "AmerZone" is a game well suited for beginners. More experienced players are not going to find it much of a challenge.

The graphics based on Benoit Sokal's artwork are pretty good, as is what music there is, but overall "AmerZone" is a pretty simple game and not especially challenging. If that is what you are looking for, then this is an okay choice. The emphasis is on deduction and problem solving, not being big and strong or having good hand-eye coordination. There are over 200 screens to explore, even when there is nothing to do in most of them but point and click on the adjacent screens, which explains why there are four discs in this game although the number of locations you visit is relatively small. Young players who move on to "Syberia" after tackling "AmerZone" are going to enjoy the increased challenge, the superior graphics, and the vastly improved story line.

While the graphics and visuals were extremely good the adventure part was totally lacking of any serious challenge. The story line has some excellent potential but the developers failed to capitalize or recognize this. What could have been an adventure to rival Myst or Riven, failed miserably. 'A' for graphics and visuals, 'A' for story line and 'F' for adventure and puzzles.