Customer Reviews

The Secrets of Da Vinci: The Forbidden Manuscript

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was surprised by this game. When I bought it, I was desperate for a new adventure game so I decided to give this one a try. I lucked out. This game was actually clever and interesting and had several different endings depending on certain choices you make near the latter part of the game (If you buy it, make several distinct saves during the last quarter of the game.). The main activities in the game are exploring DaVinci's villa and making his devices work in order to progress through the game. Don't be put off though, the puzzles aren't too difficult and most of the time you know what you should be doing. This game has a sound storyline and the puzzles fit nicely into the story. There are no mazes or slider puzzles and you don't have to incinerate any zombies.

The Graphics were great in this game. You have lots to pick up in the game and use most sooner or later. I left one part behind and had to back track to figure out where I had left it in order to use it again. It has some alternatives which can change the game a little. You could only move around when you got a straight arrow to go that way. But the movement was still pretty easy. Lots to mix and lots of puzzles. Mostly logical puzzles which I love to figure out. I have played lots and lots of PC games and throughly enjoyed this one. When I ordered this game I thought I had ordered The Da Vinci Code game which I just finished the book. But this game was very interesting also.

As a fan of the role-playing, mystery/puzzle solving genre, I must say this game is outstanding on all counts.

I am often irritated when playing games in said genre at the lack of a coherent, reasoned story arch. It often seems that the designers force together inconsistent concepts resulting in a kind of patchwork quilt plot, and me having no clue what I have just done.

Not so with this game.

The storyline was engaging, enlightening, and solid. The graphics were beautiful, unique, and true to the period. There were no in-game display options, but I played it on a widescreen LCD and everything looked fantastic. The ambient music had a classical/medieval twist that was pleasant and served to further draw me into the period. The voice acting was also impressive, suggesting to the player that much effort was invested by the designers in this crucial and often overlooked element.

I also enjoyed the puzzles, all of which were logical without any annoying pixel hunting. Whenever I was stuck, I would quit, do something else, and it would not be long before some solutions popped into my head. There was one puzzle towards the end involving a painting of the Mona Lisa which required more manual, random clicking than thought, but nonetheless solvable.
I would compare this game to the Syberia and Agatha Christie series.

Here's hoping for a sequel!

This game has only "The Da Vinci Code" words in common with the well known book. It is situated in Manoir du Cloux, the manor of Da Vinci, after a few years of his death.
It has a point-and-click interface and you can look around.
It is not one of the games to remember for years but good fun for a game of a weekend that you can complete fairly easy as long as you don't get stuck in some situation. The reproduction of the manor is impressive and worth looking at.
You need to recover a missing manuscript using a cover handed to you to gain access to the manor. It is very important to check and read your portfolio carefully and to look also very carefully for objects that you will need sooner or later.
Many situations can be solved by more than one approach, for example being kind or not to somebody, and this will change the plot slightly, even the end. I found this very refreshing particularly after playing some excellent games with not very pleasant and unavoidable endings

BEFORE you buy this game, check to see if your display processor can handle it. I assumed mine would because it played most games and was very wrong. The way to check is: 1. if you have Pentium III or higher, you are ok. 2. if you have something else, especially something older; go to START/RUN/ type in dxdiag/ click on display tab and see if it shows 64Mb of display memory or more. All Kheops-studio games need that much.
Also know that the tech support site is not shown anywhere on the box or manual that I could find. I had to contact contact@kheops-studio.fr to find out that tech support is supposed to be handled by nobilis-france@callcenter.fr , however, they never answered any of my emails for help.
It may be a great game, I don't know. Want to buy mine? I can't use it. May be time to buy a newer computer.

I read some of the reviews about this game and decided to buy the game. I thought the game was great. I have found a lot of adventure games are too challenging for me. I enjoy the level of the Nancy Drew series. Well, this one was not overly difficult where I had to find a cheat website on it. It was challenging enough for me to get stuck, then come back to it and figure it out. I also like the way the game can have different outcomes because of your conscience. I recommend it for those who like the the Nancy Drew series also.

I really loved this game, not only because it had interesting puzzles and really great graphics, but also because I really did learn alot about de Vinci and his many interests and inventions. I would highly recommend it and hope that there are more products like this being developed.

Secrets of Da Vinci is another game from Kheops Studio, the producers of Return to Mysterious Island. You play Valdo, a young artist (and occasional forger) who has been hired to Chateau Amboise in France to find a codex that Leonardo da Vinci left there on his deathbed.

Like RtoMI, the game is entirely non-linear and it all takes place in the chateau or on the chateau grounds. There's a lot of inventory to pick up and a great mix of puzzles--mostly logic. Oh, and you can act either "angelic" or "diabolic" to change how some of the characters respond to you.

There are two different endings, depending on how nicely you want to play with the chatelaine of the chateau. I mean that literally--I think the game is rated E but to advance you have to seduce the lady, and there's a cutscene sketch of the two of you in bed together. It's not dirty, but I was a little surprised that they actually showed it.

Overall, Secrets of da Vinci was fantastic, and I can't wait for the next Kheops game to come out (Cleopatra, which is already out in France and should be released in English in a few months).

It was a bit of a rough buggy ride actually getting this game shipped but I did finally get it after way too long of a wait.

The game installation was a little rocky as well it failed several times. I just kept installing it over and over into the same directories until it finally worked. The 3rd time was a charm for me anyway. After this it worked great and I played it for days sitting on the taskbar. Toggling back and forth between programs in windows XP was no problem.

This game is a fantasic adventure game with riddles and puzzles at every turn. It really makes you truely understand how the scientific knowledge Da Vinci experimented with truely a man before his time. The player experiences this technology and lives it within the game. All to complete a great quest for science and the greater good.

Smooth animations and transitions in game were never a problem. No choppy movement in the game even after running for 24 hours. I do have a 3 Gz CPU with 2 GB of Ram and a 256MB AGP card however. The game uses bout a 1.5 GB of space on hard disk for installation. Game is played with the mouse only the keyboard is not needed for great game playing experience.

The game was so immersive and entertaining that it played pretty fast. It was over after only a few days. The game has 4 possible outcomes with several ways of getting to the end. A great concept for a game but, the only drawback is prolly that the world of the game could have been bigger. More Quests, more locations, more puzzles just more...
Maybe Secrets of Da Vinci Code 2 ???

Over all a great game that's certainly worth seeing.

If you like puzzles and mysteries, then this game is for you. Challenging and fun.