Heart of Darkness

by Blue Byte Software

Product Features

• playstation

Product Details

• ASIN: B00002STJ0
• Item Weight: 8 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,831 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

GameSpot Review

Five years in the making, Heart of Darkness is the latest platform/puzzle game from the creators of Out of this World and Flashback. It's a subgenre where the only real competition is GT's Oddworld series, which it mirrors in its high-quality, brain-twisting puzzles.

The story is all Steven Spielberg meets Jim Henson, though not nearly as annoying as that might sound. Boy from the suburbs uses his self-made spaceship to travel to another world to save his loyal cartoony dog, who's been kidnapped by a shadowy netherworld ruler. After boy crashes, he has to hoof it the rest of the way to the castle his pal is imprisoned in.

Barring his way are crazy alien environments, which are the home to kid-eating lake monsters, slime-drooling spiders, nebulous winged demons, and the like. The puzzles involve getting past all of them, often by performing tasks over several different screens (the game moves screen-by-2D-screen, instead of with a gradually scrolling view) in precise order before you can proceed further. They're, in fact, wonderfully orchestrated and great fun to solve.

For instance, one early dilemma requires you to pull the roots out from under a killer plant (so that you can later pass by). Then you have to scare a bunch of firefly-like bugs out of their nest and quickly climb up to the area where the flies have risen to, where they're distracting another batch of killer plants. Timing is, of course, everything, at every stage in the game.

If you fall to your death or get eaten (which is always a particularly gory event, especially in contrast to the saccharine trappings of the story), you end up at the beginning of your current puzzle area, which is never too far back. Keep getting killed and a tip will appear to help move you along, though knowing what to do doesn't always make the going easy.

There's a great degree of variety to the puzzles; some involve running, some jumping, some using found objects, some shooting (you gain and lose weapons several times in the game), some climbing, and some all of these nearly in conjunction with one another. The puzzles are also very rewarding, either through the occasional bit of CG animation or the revelation that you must be the smartest person in the world to have figured them out.

The environments are graphically lush, with detailed 24-color backgrounds that your gangly little player character runs around in front of and sometimes even interacts with. They're quite pretty, but if you want great static visuals, you might as well go to an art gallery.

The best part of the game is, as it should be, the puzzles. Standing up next to its "brother," Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, Heart of Darkness has better and more complex puzzles but is much more linear, has nowhere near as much replay value, and isn't nearly as long. The game spans two CDs, but a lot of it is taken up by CG and art. It's a great game with nice graphics, but it's only got about 14 play hours to it. That's a little too short to justify a purchase, but it makes for an excellent rental. --Joe Fielder
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc.

Product Description

Heart of Darkness is a 2D Platformer game, developed by Amazing Studios and published by Interplay, which was released in 1998.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a Game!, September 25, 2000

By 

Brent Hilton (Layton, Utah USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Heart of Darkness (Video Game)

i have'nt had this much fun since i played dragon's lair or enjoy watching my brother this game. it made me shake & laugh ,have'nt done that for a while, plus i was rooting for andy too win just like dirk the daring. so if you're a fan of dragon's lair , space ace , brain dead 13 then you'll love this one. for the arcade kid in all of us . highly recommended!! P.S. kids under five may have nightmares so be careful . good buy for money. it's a two disc, so it's long good luck with it.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars heart of darkness, November 28, 1999

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Heart of Darkness (Video Game)

This was a very cute game. It's not what i had expected but was still an excellent pick. I was looking for a role playing game which this is not. Its an adventure game in which the boy travels through very scary scenes killing shadow monsters. It has very good comic type graphics and is not too scary so that younger players can enjoy it. It does take some thought and trial and error to get through some areas so i don't recommend it for those younger than ten or so.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, Fun game!, October 21, 2002

By 

B. Boxbangieleroerrwwerevrwrer III "inre-" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Heart of Darkness (Video Game)

Heart of Darkness has great cut scenes and good graphics overall. Addictive, challenging game play (be sure to save) with an appealing story line. My eight year old loves it too and plays for hours. The puzzles are not too hard but for me required some work. Personally, one of the better games I've played.