Customer Reviews

Morpheus

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is what a proper adventure game should be. There's a mystery to solve, a secret past to discover, even a maiden to save! There is also no swearing, no blatant sexual themes (although the scantily clad woman on the cover of the box might suggest otherwise), and very little gore.

What made this game so much fun was the uniqueness of it all. You're an explorer out to discover the legacy of his lost father and discover a ship trapped in the ice. The ship is inhabited by odd spirits and dreams of people long dead, and it's your job to find out what happened and set the dreamers free.

The acting in this game is very good as are the graphics in the game. The characters are easy to believe (instead of looking like disinterested hacks reading from scripts) and the story rapidly swallows your attention. If you love a challenging adventure game with a deeply involving plot you'll adore Morpheus.

I found myself totally engrossed in this game. It is visually delightful, imaginative and enough of a challenge to be really interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed the 1920's haunted ship,the story, the characters, and the puzzles.Most of all, I enjoyed the creativity, imagination,and challenges of the characters dreamworlds. This is a game worth having. I was entertained and challenged, without blood guts and gore. In fact I ended up buying five of "Morpheus" to give as Christmas gifts. If you enjoy the creative and imaginative aspects of gaming, and can be entertained without violence, this is your game.

Morpheus offers a haunting and intricate story, elaborate settings, and a significant amount of game play. The dialogue is well-written and I found myself drawn into the characters and story and not wanting the game to end. Puzzles range in difficulty from easy to fairly difficult, but all were fun to solve.

A criticism is that the voice acting is a bit hammy in parts. Also, the interface is a bit slow at times. However, these are minor criticisms, and it is important to note that I didn't experience any bugs or crashes while playing this game, which is an all-too-rare experience with this type of software product, unfortunately.

The thought, imagination and hard work that went into the creation of this game are evident. I recommend Morpheus to gamers who enjoyed games like Myst or Riven, and Morpheus represents a good value for the amount of entertainment and game play it offers.

The puzzles are well-integrated into the gameplay -- e.g. when you have to find a number to unlock a combo lock, it's invariably a number that was relevant to the character whose door it is.

The graphics are beautiful and the animations smooth. Granted, this is on a P3 600 with 32M of VRAM, but they were so perfect that I expect they'd be fine on a considerably lower-end system. (I was a touch annoyed that it did not automatically switch resolutions; I had to manually set my res to get it to use the whole screen; it's not hard, it's just that there've been games that could do this automatically for years, so how come not this one? Whatever...)

I liked the story. Sure, you have to suspend disbelief, since it's SF set in the recent past. But considering what a difficult genre that is, I thought they did a really impressive job. (Jules Verne and H.G. Wells would've loved the Herculania.) The ambience is great, helped along by a good mix of bg noises and a well-blended soundtrack. The characters, who at first appear rather flat and archetypal, actually each develop some depth as you learn more about their private passions and neuroses. (Of course, if you're impatient it's quite possible to win the game without ever exploring the nooks and crannies where you'll find this stuff; failing to find a large chunk of the story may have contributed to the low rating one of the other reviewers here gives.)

There's also a pretty decent mix of puzzle types. "Find the combo for the lock" is the most common, but there're a couple "manipulate the switches to the right position", and the odd bit of mathematical tomfoolery and wordplay here and there, something which I always enjoy. One of the lock puzzles even requires some Riven-esque attention to the environment. My only real complaint is that the "endgame" segment could've stood to have another puzzle added, something really tough to round out the sense of achievment. (I thought the colored-bead puzzle at the end of Riven was a great finisher.)

One last comparison to Myst/Riven: The ending is mysterious and leaves you a little confused, but unlike in Cyan's two big hits (which I love, don't get me wrong), you definitely have a _conclusion_. Whatever happenned, it's over, and there was a happy ending.

Regarding the caption: it wasn't a short game -- it spans three CDs, and a great variety of scenery -- I just was having so much fun I was sorry to see it end!

Wow! What a surprise! A relatively low priced game which in my opinion competes evenly with some of the more expensive ones. There are many puzzles to solve....some easy, some more challenging, but not so challenging as to be frustrating. Great plot and character development. Music and graphics were excellent. A haunted ship with a whole cadre of ghosts with stories to tell. What could be better? No ghouls. Just good fun. Even a bidet!

It's difficult to sum up this game. If I were to judge it solely based on the gameplay, I would give it a 3. But the emotions this game stirred up, not all of them good, makes me want to give it a higher ranking.

You are thrust into this game with very little background; the story starts in media res. It's your job to discover the mystery behind the wandering ancient ship on the Arctic ice. The character interaction is minimal; you are treated to numerous ghost-video sequences reminiscent of 7th Guest. In fact, this game resembles 7th Guest in many ways, but it is much darker and deeper in plot.

I give the gameplay a three because the graphics are somewhat dated and the interface can be frustrating at times. There is some tedious disk changing involved, but not too much. Some puzzles approach the higher end of the difficulty scale, and I struggled with a few of them.

But the main thrust of this game is definitely the theme. We are able to contrast and compare two underlying relationships between father and son. The game was at once touching and disturbing, as I felt torn between pity and disgust over the tragic character. The end was also strangely abrupt, I thought, but it seemed to fit in to the ambience of the game and added to the mystique of the game overall.

The best thing (or maybe worst, depending on your point of view) about the game is that it continues to haunt me. The discovery of the main character at the end has stuck with me, even though I finished the game a couple of months ago.

This game will not disappoint if you are looking for a thought provoking experience.

As a mom who doesn't have hours on end to play a game, I liked this one. It saved your place, exactly where you were. There was no gore, a mildy interesting plot, and came together nicely as the puzzles were solved. The ending was a bit of a let down (aren't they always?). I only wish I could have roamed a bit further around the ship. A few more false leads makes things interesting.

I was attracted to this game by the price. I figured even if it was bad, I wouldn't be out too much. But once I had the game installed and running, I was lost in its lush and eerie world. The graphics are spectacular, worth the price alone. I found it challenging, but there are on-line help boards and walk-throughs available, and I did occasionally visit those for hints. The game is logical, and in my experience, not as frustrating as Riven. My biggest disappointment was when I realized I had finished. I wanted to have more. If you like logic-puzzle games, like Riven or Myst, you will probably enjoy this one.

I wouldn't know how the ending is because the interface is so frustrating and the plot is so lame that I have decided to abandon the game without completing it. The interface combines the poor resolution of Doom with the you-can-only-stand-in-certain-places of Myst. To call this game "3D" is false advertising. Panning around a 2D picture does not make a 3D environment.

I could flame for pages about the poor interface, but I'll just say DOS 1.0 was more user-friendly, and leave it at that.

Likewise, I can not flame the plot because there was none. The "puzzles" were something like this: Guess a number between 1 and 1000. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope...

There's a reason this game is cheap. Think about it.

I loved this game. Initially I bought it because of the price...and because I thought it might be interesting. I was hooked right from the jump. The graphics were incredible and the little movie scenes took me by surprise and left me with goosebumps. I'm not a bigtime gamer but I love this type of game where you can just get lost in the world you're playing in. I especially enjoyed the dream worlds...I wish they were more in-depth so I could have explored even more and spent more time there. I recommend this game to everyone who likes the escape of this type of game. Some of the other reviews on here talk about flatness of acting and all kinds of technical flaws, etc...just play the game and immerse yourself. You'll love it... I want to make a return trip to the Herculania and all it's bizarre, magnificent worlds!