Off-duty Police
Inspector Peter Glebsky arrives at the remote Dead Mountaineer's Hotel ski
resort for a two week vacation, intent on enjoying his time away from a
busy schedule. Almost immediately, he learns of the hotel's macabre
history and the mysterious occurrences that have been plaguing the resort.
Just as Glebsky starts to get to know the other hotel guests, a nearby
avalanche blocks off all exit roads. A refugee from the avalanche, coupled
with the suspicious death of one of the guests, increases the intrigue.
Glebsky seeks to find the answers behind both mystery and murder.
Dead
Mountaineer's Hotel is a point and click
adventure from Akella and Electronic Paradise.
At the time of writing, the
English language version is only available via
Steam download.
“Dance, dance, dance!”
What a rum old do. An enigma, a
twister, a riddle. I'm not referring to the story behind Dead
Mountaineer's Hotel here, insomuch as asking the question: why, when
an adventure such as this has been lavished with superlative graphics
which are rich and sumptuous, and a vast, sprawling labyrinth of a hotel,
is the game itself such an irredeemable clunker?
First things first, though. The
hotel truly is a beauty, with its polished marble floors, beautifully
detailed bedrooms, greenhouses, hallways and lounges. There are countless
corridors to explore, stairs to climb and yet more rooms to admire.
Outside, the gamer can enjoy the view, the snowfall, trek the
circumference of the hotel, and take a very considerable while in doing
so. And it is only some time later that the player might begin to think:
wait a minute, now that I've finished exploring this place, what's left
for me to do here? The answer: well, not very much at all, unfortunately.
Without the necessary tromping around, critical gameplay would have
clocked in at perhaps a couple of hours.
Russian and German language
versions of Dead Mountaineer's Hotel were available long before the
release of the new English language variant. One might have hoped that the
localisation would have been more professionally executed, for the English
translation is really very poor, with numerous grammatical and spelling
errors, and odd turns of phrase. The voice acting for many of the main
characters is weak, notably the hotel owner, Snevar, and our protagonist,
Glebsky, whose tone was excessively aggressive throughout.
Once the exploration is out of the
way, then, here's what is left. Wandering around, searching for people
with whom we might engage in conversation. Undertaking errands to find a
bottle of whisky; looking for a screwdriver; looking for so-and-so who
might be here, there or anywhere. It's like an upmarket version of
“Where's Wally?” Find 'em! And don't be whinin' for a legible map with
jump-to spots, because you won't be gettin' one! Wear out that shoe
leather, Glebsky, it'll make the game seem all that much longer!
Ostensibly, we shunt our hero around to question the hotel owner and his
guests about the peculiar occurrences which have been taking place of
late, before things take a more sinister turn near the game's conclusion.
The new development seems tagged on, somehow; there is barely time to sink
one's teeth into it before we're stumbling upon the culprit and the
credits are rolling. End of game. There are four possible game endings;
the one I received stretched all plausibility to a taut, transparent
ribbon of “nuh-uh?”.
Dead Mountaineer's Hotel
plays in third person, with no panning. Right-clicking will access the
inventory, diary and menu tabs. There are various hot keys: Esc to go to
Main Menu, M for map (such as it is), and P to pause the game. Dialogue
can be fast-skipped by hitting the spacebar. Double-clicking on a
directional arrow will fast-move Glebsky to the next scene, although he
cannot run. He is on holiday, after all.
For the English language download
version, there is a PDF manual inside the Steam folder in Program Files
which contains further information about the game.
The Pain of the Mini-Game
There are very few puzzles in
Dead Mountaineer's Hotel, the game focusing rather more on dialogue.
What we do have are a slew of optional mini-games: billiards, skiing,
darts and cards. It is not mandatory to play or win these games, but
failing to win at billiards, for example, will have an impact upon which
of the four game endings you receive. With the exception of the cards, the
mini-games are all a little tricky and, for me at least, not especially
enjoyable.
There are no sound puzzles, mazes
or ticking timers.
“This is just horrible, Peter.”
The Steam version of Dead
Mountaineer's Hotel downloaded, installed and ran without any problems
on my Windows 7. However, some gamers have since reported issues with a
disappearing cursor at the start of the game, disabling any progress past
the opening screen. This problem can be solved by downloading and
installing DivX codec 6, available here:
http://download.divx.com/divx/DivXInstaller.exe
Grade: C+
I played on:
Windows 7 Home Premium SP1
AMD A6-3650 APU @ 2.60GHz
4.00 GB of RAM
Radeon HD 6530D Graphics
November 2011
design copyright©
2011
GameBoomers
Group
