Perry Rhoden, well where do I start? I suppose with the interface which is best described as typical point and click. Yes you can do everything with the mouse. No action or quick response required of the player. Take your time to explore without being rushed. Use of the S key will scan the room you are in showing the hot spots. When you get control of your mouse the hot spots disappear so you have to remember where they were. Just a slight annoyance where you will be scanning more than once to be sure you did not miss anything. There are a few items you need to pick up which are difficult to see and scanning is the only way you will find them. There is an auto save feature that saves games periodically and you can save whenever you wish. But, there is a big but! It appears there are only seven save slots in addition to the auto and quick save slots. I could not locate any "second page" in the save area. Access to saves is via escape key. Saves consist of three files each in the format of, (Slot1.perry_save_game), (Slot1.tga) and (Slot1.txt) For those of you who save a lot and seven saves simply won't make it here is my work around. After making seven saves I copied the collection of 21 files and pasted them into a separate folder independent of the game. With the initial saves still inside the game I then overwrote each as I progressed through the game. Of course you will end up with a second set of seven saves numbered the same as the original saves you made. You may want to name those folders save 1-7, save 8-14 and so on. At least it works but requires you carefully label them. So where did they hide the saves? The eternal question plagues gamers but in my XP system they are in the following path, My documents/my games/Perry Rhoden/Save Games. Yes it is too difficult to put a saved folder in the root file, that's my mini rant after all it's more fun to search. The game requires the DVD in the drive during play. It is friendly to the Windows start key allowing easy access to Mag's very new and very good walk through. I have no idea what copy protection is included.

The graphics--- They get a "well done" as does the voice acting on Perry's part which is good because Perry is the one you hear most of the time. Supporting characters range from good to irritating. I had no difficulty running the game in XP with a reasonably fast computer and video card that is on the higher end of mid range. (Nvida 7900 gs ) No tweaking needed what so ever. That is the good thing, no crashes, slow downs or annoying trouble spots. There were no overly dark scenes as you could usually see what you needed to except where some items were difficult to locate against the background. Sound effects and background music were well done and did not intrude upon game play.

The story---- I consider the story central to any adventure game and this was well done. Yes even if you have never heard of Perry Rhoden the story will stand on its own, so you don't have to rush out and catch up by reading the reported 3000 books or novelettes or whatever they are. I would have preferred they give you some background about Perry and Mondra's relationship but that was not to come. There were a few lines to clue you in but when a guy has to chase all over hostile worlds to save his love it would have been nice if they fleshed out that relationship a bit. It is a stand alone story and it is rather long they did not skimp there. The locales are similar to what you would expect in the Dune novel and movie. The worlds are rather dark, depressing and void of anything you would choose for a family vacation. Without use of any spoilers I will describe the story as one where the bad guys through treachery kidnap Perry's girlfriend. The hero is off to foil the bad guys and get Mondra back. As for the ending, well they did not leave any loose ends but the sudden exit could well have had Daffy Duck pop up saying "that's all folks". Another game where the ending is abrupt leaving you wondering why it is too difficult to have a short one, two or five minute scene closing the story. No they did not leave cliffhangers but it would have been more satisfying if they just added a little bit.

Game play--- As indicated above no action sequences or sudden death requiring you to employ quick reflexes. Everything is take your time, look around and plan ahead. The inventory is displayed along the bottom of the screen. Typically you pick up everything that is not nailed down but you never get to a point where you need to scroll it is small enough where all is visible. Yes you combine items to make other things and you can use items to give to others or ask about. Speaking about asking, there is no conversation tree. That's right no selecting what to say. If Perry has a question he gets right too it but, yes there is a but. If you click on a customer to ask a second question and there isn't one you have to listen to the conversation a second time. There is no shutting it off you gotta listen again. The conversation is written along the bottom of the screen, handy but begs asking why can't I terminate repeated conversations? When it is one of those irritating voices it becomes quite annoying. The puzzles are the typical logical ones centered upon how to open or fix something. A few require you to give something to someone to get something in return or information. Your game screen is quite clear with nothing other than your inventory showing. Everything else is accessed through the escape key. Perry will run via the double click and exits are highlighted when your mouse shows an open door icon. No map for quick travel to places you have already been so be ready for lots of back and forth. Yup retracing your steps happens more than you care for. Trying to be balanced and fair I will follow that complaint with a big plus. There are no encounters with sudden directional camera angle changes. Big points and props to the designers for that large favor.

I am not going to give this game a rating because that is too misleading. I could say this is a B+ game but how does that help? Your top 10 list is likely different than mine. A rating is generally nothing more than personal preference. For Perry we will do it this way. The game is rather long with a story that will keep most people interested. There are not a lot of long conversations but there are some. Most are short and to the point. Your game play centers mostly on Perry trying to figure out what is going on. Player interaction exists as do conversations but they are far less intensive than Culpa Inna but much more so than Nancy Drew. There are no endearing characters in this game, think April, Crow, Old Sailor, they are not there. There are many puzzles mostly consisting of using inventory items but there are some mechanical types that are quite intricate and can be perplexing. There are no mazes and not once are you called upon to bake a cake. I think it is a good balance between story and puzzles leaning a bit more toward the story with the puzzles fitting in nicely.I never got the impression a puzzle was stuck in there for the sake of having a puzzle. I can't recall any puzzle where the requirement left me wondering, "how why". I encountered no bugs or glitches and the game ran well eliminating frustration found with many games. I submit for the most part the game is worth the price of admission, should entertain you but won't apply the wow factor of TLJ, Tex Murphy, Gabriel and so on. No I can't put it in their company but it is far better than many games out there. The story was fairly simple and won't challenge the best of game story telling. The ending left a bit to be desired and I would have been happier if it were more detailed. All in all I found it enjoyable with some areas that could have been better, but nothing to seriously irritate most gamers. I'll qualify that by adding if gamers like a story driven game.

Hi oldmariner

Your review is thorough, interesting and much appreciated, thank you !!

Cheers.

Mad

Thank you Mad. I hope it is helpful. I tried to be objective and keep a bunch of opinion out of it. I certainly have no shortage of opinion. I have come to realize everybody does not love the same games I do.

Thanks, Oldmariner.

It's great to learn more about games before we buy them.

Thank you oldmariner for writing this detailed review.

(The heading comments is a bit misleading. I was not expecting a review here but a few lines of comments. So you can see this is a surprise)

I like your review, it provides bits of information that may not be commonly found elswhere:

- saves workaround
- requires DVD for gameplay
- alt-tab friendly
- comparison to Culpa Inna, The Longest Journey
- use of April, Crow, Old Sailor for illustrative purposes
- no cakes to bake
- puzzles type

Good job

Thanks, oldmariner

For that great review....I can't wait to play

That's the problem Mission one comment leads to another and before you are through you have a long winded review. I thought information was more valuable than opinion. Be wary of those comparisons I'm not sure how much I liked this game. I'm still thinking about it. I will say it is not close to TLJ not even in the same league. I can say I liked Culpa a lot better as well.

But again Rhoden was a good game but hard to rank. There was nothing wrong with it structurally it was almost perfect. Character wise there was nobody that resonated. Perry was ok, nothing to dislike but rather bland. The story, well if you are a fan of distopian sci-fi then you will like this.

So I thought it best to talk about what was inside the game than give an undecided opinion to confuse or mislead.

Thanks for the comments.

Although I lked your review, I can't completely agree with you

I thought the game was amazing!
When you first start the game it soon becomes obvious, that this is a huge world to explore.
Maybe it doesn't look like it at first, but somehow they made me feel this way.
I almost immidiately forgot everything else around me - just wanting to know more, see more.

I didn't feel the limited save slots was an annoyance, because I never had to go back to a previous save.

As for the puzzles I never felt they were out of place or too difficult - they fit the world

It was one of those games, I didn't want to end.
Took my time with it and played over 3 days instead of in one go.

Yes, there is. Press spacebar and you skip conversation, albeit one sentence only at a time - maybe that's your point - but that could also be an advantage if you like. Anyway, in that case, you just press spacebar repeatedly until the conversation is gone.

smulan

I think that tip will help out a lot of gamers

In a well designed game like this,where you cannot advance to the next chapter without having completed everything,you really dont need more than 1 save per chapter.

You know, and this is just my opinion, it's not a matter of how many saves I need--it's a matter of why is it limited in the first place?

misslilo
Though I liked the game you liked it more. That's why I tried to stick with basics and limit opinion. I thought it was a very good game but was not wowed by it. I did not want to score a game this good because of that. I'd score it lower than what many others would and perhaps misinform people. I felt it better to describe what I saw and give people a feel of what to expect. I agree with you on the puzzles.

Geo
I do feel the limited saves were annoying. Yes the chapters are long and theoretically one save per chapter may be adequate. But I like making a save after completing certain puzzles. In that way when replaying I can skip the ones I don't like or find bothersome. The limited save opportunities provided here force you to become creative as in my work around. That should not be the case as it's no big deal to provide more room.

smulan
Thanks for the spacebar tip I missed that one. It will help people who like me detest those voices of those characters with the disk shaped heads, bl*dy awful.

looney4labs
We seem to agree on the saves.

Like I said it is a good game, I disliked the chopped ending and I believe a lot of people will like this game. I hope the info was useful.

Hi oldmariner -- a good review, touching on many of the points that I was curious about. I now want to play this game more than ever!

I agree with you re: saves -- they should be unlimited, and I don't understand why developers limit the number of saves.

I like to go back to many of my previous saves and repeat parts of the game, particularly the type of game with a complex plot. I don't like having to repeat entire sections of the game just to (for example) confirm what a character said at one point.

Very interesting review oldmariner. Thanks

Love Maria

Oh my gosh, how did I miss this game before? I just finished playing it and I loved it. The atmosphere reminded me so much of that good old game "Blade Runner" There was so much to do and so many interesting characters to interact with. I just have to say this is one game I really got many hours of enjoyment out of and it was well worth the money. I think I'm going to play it again to maybe see some things I missed.

Thank you, oldmariner for the wonderful comments

One thing I do for games that have limited saves - I move my saved games to a different directory thereby "emptying" the game's saved games directory so when the game looks in it there's nothing there.