Minimum System Requirements:
Windows 95/98/ME
Pentium 166 (Pentium 200 Recommended)
16 MB RAM (32 MB Recommended)
4X CD-ROM Drive (8X CD-ROM Drive Recommended)
3D Accelerator Video Card
16 Bit Sound Card
(ALSO GIVES MSR's FOR MACINTOSH)

This game uses the mouse/trackball for movement, picking up objects, accessing inventory menu, accessing the main menu (for saves, loads, exits etc) and the Space Bar on the keyboard to stop an animated scene and continue to the next area of gameplay.

THE MESSENGER - "Step through and discover...."
- "Breaking in is the easy part"
- "Embark on a fantastic journey through time"

In the present - I am Morgana, and I receive a letter (message from my father, who is now dead). In it he requests of me that I undertake to "Go to the Louvre, get the ewer (jug) and destroy it."
To accomplish this task I break into the Louvre in Paris, France and find and steal a Lion shaped perfume burner statue (perfume burner? perhaps receptacle for burning incense). Then I get to talk to a ghost who is to send me back in time to accomplish my fathers task. My first adventure takes place in 1377 during the reign of Charles the fifth. I am to collect other keys the assembing of which is to help me with the task at hand.
My second adventure takes me back to 1610 to continue my quest.
Then I am sent back to 1717 and I end up lastly in the 21st century for the ENDGAME.

I enjoyed this game very much for several reasons. Moving around was so easy. The puzzles/taskstoaccomplish were not so difficult that I pulled my hair. Some people might have wanted them to be a lot harder. Those of you who DO NOT use a walkthrough may have a hard time with some of them. Those of us who do can do the difficult with help and enjoy the game just as much.
Thanks to MaGtRo for the walkthrough and to all those on GB who helped me if/when I got stuck. I had no technical problems with this game at all. I guess my only complaint was the management of the inventory. You are only allowed to 'carry' 8 items but there are many, many inventory chests provided in different areas/rooms and getting to them when you find you need something you couldn't carry was not hard. There were no 'get lost forever' mazes, no timed puzzles that were 'undoable' and I don't remember any 'almost impossible to do' sliders. All in all an enjoyable game, great story, terrific graphics, fun, fun, fun.
I highly recommend it. Enjoy.
Love, Betty Lou

Thanks for this review, BettyLou.

There seems to be a lot more interest in this game or at least on whether it is worth playing - so a lot of folks will get a better idea from your opinion here.

I personally liked this game very much. It is one of the growing number of games with a female protagonist (wahoo!) and I enjoyed the lack of time puzzles and stealth approach to things. I also thought the graphics were supurb and the plot unique, involved and enjoyable.

Keep those thoughts flowing here at BR

Laura

I am playing this game now (have just entered the 18th century phase). I am enjoying it immensely! The location renditions are terrific and the gameplay is really quite good. The style is reminiscent of Traitor's Gate, even down to the way they use music-- which is to say, not very much, just little suspenseful motifs when you change locations. You know-- duh-duh-DUMM, that kind of thing.

However, I gotta say that the voice acting is about the worst. Many of the voices have a huge reverb and are unintelligible. Thank heavens for the wonderful GB walkthrough which tells you what everybody is saying!

And why should the Louvre guards sound like they are respectively from Scotland, Yorkshire, and the East End of London?? Weird. (Actually I'm not sure about the Yorkshire one. )

Nevertheless, well worth playing.

esube

I also had a great deal of trouble understanding some of the speeches. I thought the game was very good, though. As others have said, it is reminiscent of Traitor's Gate, although not as thorough and complete.
Paul

I am so pleased my review has inticed you.
I have found in several games that the music and/or sound effects overshadow the dialogue sometimes. If there is no option in such games to raise the vol of the dial and lower sound fx I sometimes find it helpful to put on my headphones and plug into my speakers - sometimes I can hear the dialogue better this way - don't know why, go figure.
Love, Betty Lou

Hi Betty, and thanks for your review, which encouraged me to try this game. I just finished it, along with my GameBoomer pals, jasper and Kat165, who may be along shortly to add their comments.

I agree with you absolutely that this is one enjoyable game, and one that adventure lovers should get. The puzzles are great, the locations interesting, the graphics are great - it's just a fun treat!

That being said, I do have a couple of comments. I agree with the other people who critisized the voices. I wouldn't say it was the acting that is bad, but a combination of the reverb/accents/talking too fast that is the problem. And it was doubly frustrating cause if you wanted to listen to a speech again, you had to go back and load a saved game (sigh). I agree that at times the WT was useful (particularly the one by MaGtRo) to read what was said.

The other comment I have has to do with loading saved games. There are many points in the game when you get arrested or killed or blow yourself up, and what does the game do? It throws you back to the very beginning of the game!!! So of course, you have to load a saved game, play up to that point again, and you may have to do this multiple times before you figure out a way to avoid that particular trap. Frustrating!

Also, the ending was very, very abrupt. But it could be that it felt that way because I had become so attached to this game, that ending it was a shock and a disappointment! It's really a terrific game, and one that I will be replaying.

Andy

Hey, all. Great review, Betty Lou. And hiya, Andy, good buddy! I haven't finished the game yet but I'm almost there. I just wanted to comment to Girlgeek about the dying/captured.

Girl, please don't let that keep you from playing this game. I am terrible at any sort of action and/or timed elements and I have managed - so far - to get beyond it. You can get captured and get sent back to the beginning - of the particular time period that you're in, not to the beginning of the entire game, but it is so easy to restore your last save. Just save right before you enter a new room or open a new doorway and you'll be just fine.

MatGro's wt is really excellent for picking up the story thread cause, as Andy, mentioned, the dialogue/voices are mixed way down under the sound so it is often hard to understand what is being said.

But other than that this is a beautiful game. The characters are very well done, graphically, the puzzles fun and challenging and the story (what you can follow!!) is fairly interesting. Plus, visiting the different time periods was fascinating. I'd love to see this in more games, where you visit the same location during different periods of time.

Please, GirlGeek, do yourself a favor and play this game. It really is an adventure game and not actiony at all. You can get caught not too frequently, and if you save as I suggested, you'll only be stopped til you load up your last save. And you'll know, don't go through that doorway just yet!! This game is also still readily available and at very reasonable prices. I don't think I've seen it for over $20.

Check it out!!

I'll be back later to comment more once I have completed the game (Anne and Jasper play much faster than I do!!!)

Hi all. Great review, Betty Lou! You've gotten me interested in this game now!

Have to ask everyone though---can you play this on XP? I've had a heck of a time getting 95/98 games to play on my system, even with alot of tweeking from Inferno's page, and so I'm now hesitant to buy anything until I know that someone else has been successful at getting it to run on XP.

Thanks!
Tracy

Hi

I'm two thirds through this game now and have to say I am enjoying it much more than I thought I would.....Mainly because it is much more an adventure game than I expected it to be

Been sitting on my "to play" stack for a very long time but I am SO glad I took it down and started it

Cheers.

Mad

Hi;
I played Messenger on XP, I did change compatablity to 98.
I hope to find more games of the older genre type point and click, per the ablity to play on XP. As a would be archaelogist, I play games more for the views and backgrounds as travel is not always available.
ssgamer

Morning all

I am currently playing this one on XP Pro and also changed the compatability to 98 and it runs fine....

Karen

I think this one is okay, especially for a game backed by the French ministry of art (or some such institution). I'm not that far into it so I can't be totally fair, but the graphic artists need lessons on drawing the eye. Granted, the eyes are one of the more difficult things to render so that they look right, but there are plenty of tricks. I wished the artist knew them. It may seem very superficial of me but--the eyes, they haunt me. Based on initial feelings I will give it a C minus, because I do appreciate it's education value.
Of course I should mention there is some violence in the game, even a crossbow headshot--ouch!

Steven, Is it a good thing or a bad thing that the eyes haunt you?

A bad thing. Lovecraftian bad. Well, not that bad.