Rama
Quicklist of game
characteristics
(requested by
Gameboomers members)
-
First person
point of view with mouse-controlled, snapshot-type movement
-
Unlimited saves,
but too many saves in the same folder may cause crashes
-
It's possible to
die in the game, but game will restore you to before your mistake
-
Other characters
seen only during non-interactive cut scenes
-
3 CD's, game can
start from any CD
-
"Timed" puzzle
at the end, which isn't really timed - timer advances according to
your movements
Introduction
Rama is an enormous cylindrical spacecraft which has
entered Earth's solar system. A small crew of astronauts has been
sent from Earth to explore the mysterious spacecraft. Your character
has been assigned to join the crew after the leader of the
expedition, General Valeriy Borzov, mysteriously dies during a
routine medical procedure. Leadership of the team has already been
passed on to the head scientist, Dr. David Brown, but your
assistance is needed in exploring Rama and trying to understand its
purpose.
Rama is a puzzle-driven adventure and the story that
develops during the game is on the sketchy side. You never do gain
much insight into Rama's purpose. Nor do you learn any details of
how or why Borzov died. Nor do you interact meaningfully with the
other characters. Your main concern in the game is to solve puzzles
- inventory puzzles, puzzles involving recognition and continuation
of a sequence, puzzles involving addition and subtraction in other
bases, and a few other types. Much of the first part of the game
involves searching for disks in the environment, which you will use
in door puzzles to gain entry into various buildings that are part
of Rama. The second part of the game is also mainly based on
exploring, collecting and using inventory, and manipulating controls
in order to access new areas. It's the puzzles, not the story, that
drive the game. If you are looking for a story, you'll have to read
the book(s).
Rama the game is not based on Arthur C. Clarke's
famous book, "Rendezvous with Rama." It is primarily based on "Rama
II," the first of a trilogy of books about Rama that that Arthur C.
Clarke co-authored with Gentry Lee. All the human characters found
in the game are in "Rama II" and the story in the game is loosely
based on the story in "Rama II." Playing the game doesn't really
"spoil" the plot of the book, though people who have read and
enjoyed the book may be a little disappointed by the simplified
characters and limited plot of the game.
Rama the game comes on three CD's. Only the first two
CD's are necessary to play. I didn't even look at CD3 until after
completing the game. But CD3 includes a prologue and interviews. The
actress playing the TV reporter, Francesca Sabatini, interviews the
other characters in the game as if she really were Ms. Sabatini
herself, conducting the interviews with the other members of the
crew.
There are also interviews with Arthur C. Clarke and
Gentry Lee. These interviews are broken up into a question and
answer form. You click on a question, and there is a video of either
Arthur C. Clarke or Gentry Lee answering. Some "answers" show Arthur
C. Clarke filming a sequence against a blue background. Later the
sequence is shown as you see it in the game, with Arthur C. Clarke's
image integrated into one of the cut scenes. During the game, you
may see these cut scenes whenever you make a mistake and get
yourself killed. My favorite interview topic was the one where
Arthur C. Clarke demonstrated his computer's shutdown sound.
Characters
At the beginning of the game, you are greeted by the
ship's medical officer, Nicole des Jardins, and soon discover that
the other crew members have each left you a video mail introducing
themselves. One thing that initially confused me was that more than
one of the characters suggested in their vidmail that I contact them
if I had any questions. Yet I was never able to find any method of
sending messages to the other characters. I'd sometimes run into one
of them out in the field, but could never initiate contact myself or
ask a question. Whenever I happened to run into one of them, a cut
scene would play and they'd either give me some piece of information
or give me an inventory item.
So even though there are other characters in the
game, you are essentially by yourself. You learn about what the
other characters are doing through messages left for you on the main
computer, messages in "data cubes," and other evidence of
characters' activities that turns up during the course of the game.
You never seem to be part of the crew at all. Also, every member of
the crew seems to be exploring solo, unlike the book, where crew
members explored in small groups because of the potential dangers of
the Raman environment.
Your own character is undistinguished by either voice
or gender. You must use your imagination to supply these things if
you feel they are needed.
I suppose it isn't really fair to compare the
characters in the game with the characters in the book. Perhaps it
is of necessity that they are simplified and somewhat stereotyped
for the game. But in a few cases, they are entirely different from
the characters in the book.
Installation
The install is very small, and the game will access
the CD frequently. I initially played the game in DOS mode, then
attempted to play it in Windows 95. The Windows installation uses
DirectX, but does not install it if you have a later version. The
game was made to be used with DirectX 2. Perhaps this is why the
Windows version was unstable on my test computer, which had DirectX
7a. I also tried playing the DOS install in a full screen DOS window
on Win 98 and this seemed to work too. But I didn't play far into
the game this way.
Graphics
The game graphics were of reasonably good quality as
regards clarity. They were probably very good quality back in
1996 when the game was released. Unfortunately the viewing area for
the gameworld is restricted to a window that is a little over half
the size of the screen. The rest of the screen is filled up by the "Rama
eyes," a compass, and the inventory box.
It's unfortunate that the graphics didn't give a very
good idea of what it would be like to be on Rama. The Rama books
contain many passages about how breathtakingly large the ship is.
Although the game certainly made the "buildings" in the second part
of the game look tall, it didn't convey much of an idea of the
enormous size of the Rama spacecraft itself. Full screen graphics
would certainly have helped, but the gamemakers were probably
limited by available disk space on the CD's and the size of the
necessary files for a full screen game.
Acting, Music and
Sound
Although the characters in the game were simplified
versions of the ones in the book, the acting itself was generally
above average for what is usually found in games. On the technical
side, the FMV images of the characters were seamlessly inserted into
the game environment.
The music was mostly "new age" style. In my opinion,
the music in the intro was the best in the game. Generally the music
was better on the first CD. Later on, on the second CD, the music
tended to resemble elevator music in some locations. Elevator music
might blend into the background, but it didn't exactly set the
proper mood. At times, I'd certainly have appreciated the option to
turn it off. Unfortunately there was no way to get rid of the music
without getting rid of other sound as well.
Sound effects were adequate. They were there when you
expected them to be and none of them sounded ridiculous.
Controls
(the boring section - included for those who want to know about
these details)
Rama uses a mouse-controlled point-and-click
interface. The main menu is accessible from an icon in the upper
left corner of the screen and includes options to Load, Save, adjust
volume and brightness, and Quit.
In the first part of the game, you have access to a
"radar map" from which you can choose various sites in the area to
which to travel. Some of these sites are permanent, and have
buildings you'll need to visit. Others are transient and appear when
there are "biots" or other crew members in the area. The word "biot"
comes from "biological robot." I guess the biological part was
inside because they looked like ordinary metal robots to me. When
you click on a site on the radar map which contains a biot, you'll
see the symbol which matches that type of biot moving across a small
inset. From the inset, you can either click back out to the radar
map, or click on the inset to enter that part of Rama that is
indicated on the radar map.
When another member of the crew is in a transient
area, clicking on that site will show a number in white text in the
inset. You should always click on these insets with numbers because
it's not often you'll have the opportunity to see other crew
members. Even then, you'll only get a cut scene of them, rather than
true interaction. They'll usually have an inventory item for you
that you can get later on if you miss meeting them in the field. Any
cut scenes that are necessary to progress the story will happen
automatically, whether you're at the correct location or not. Your
own number is 002. Other crew members have different numbers.
Sometimes moving around the gameworld could be
trickier than it looked. Rama didn't have as many nodes as I would
have liked. Very often I'd want to move in a certain direction and
no arrow to click forward would appear. The nodes were not spaced at
predictable intervals. I completely missed one important node at the
beginning of the game because I'd assumed nodes were at a minimum
distance apart.
Sometimes turning arrows will rotate you 90° and
sometimes 180°. In the plaza areas on CD 2, turning arrows may
rotate you 60°. The "compass" near the bottom of the screen tells
you how many directions you can rotate at your current node. But
getting into the habit of looking down at it may take time, since
most other games don't use a similar system. As I played the game, I
got more used to what to expect from the movement system. But it was
confusing at first. And in some areas, like the three central plazas
on the second CD, it remained a trial and error process to move
around and find locations I'd previously visited.
Inventory
(another boring section, but not quite as bad)
Inventory is located in a window at the bottom right
of the screen. Eight inventory items are viewable at a time. There
are arrows you click on to scroll the inventory up or down. On the
lower left side of the screen is a picture of three "Rama eyes." You
click items from inventory on the "Rama eyes" to get a closeup of
the object. While in closeup, you can rotate the object. Outside of
the closeup view, when you hover your cursor over an object in
inventory, it is identified by a short text description in a small
box at the upper left of the screen.
You collect inventory in the usual way, by clicking
on collectable items in the viewing area. Sometimes items are given
to you by other characters. Some of the more unusual inventory items
you collect include a wrist computer and a couple of small robots.
The wrist computer is useful for a number of things. Whenever you
find a data cube, you can put it in your wrist computer and it will
play a video or show a text message. The information in the data
cubes is archived in your wrist computer for later viewings while
the data cube disappears.
Unfortunately, most inventory items do not disappear
from inventory when you're finished with them and you'll have quite
a number of useless items by the end of the game. There is no way to
dispose of them and the best you can do is move all the items you
won't be needing anymore to one end of the inventory. Fortunately
you are allowed to rearrange items in inventory, though it takes a
little practice to know where to click.
Sometimes you'll need to combine inventory items.
Usually this is done by looking at one object in closeup, then
clicking on the other item in inventory.
The small "Puck" robot you are given early in the
game is a useful tool for identifying objects you see in the
environment. Sometimes "Puck" makes remarks on his own, and may
alert you to the presence of a hard-to-see inventory item that needs
collecting. You can also click "Puck" on objects to see if he can
identify them for you. If "Puck" turns red while you're hovering him
over something, he'll have some comment to make about it.
Puzzles and other
gameplay comments
The first puzzles you encounter have to do with
collecting inventory. Much of the first part of the game is
dependent on inventory collection. You won't get very far until you
find the requisite tiles needed to open the doors. So the first part
of the game is almost an Easter egg hunt, only you're hunting for
tiles instead of eggs.
I'd heard that Rama was a difficult game because of
all the math in it. But I found the math puzzles to be the easy
part. I don't think there was even one of them that couldn't be done
with pencil and paper (and sometimes counting on my fingers). True,
you have to know the symbols (or colors) that are used to represent
the hexadecimal (base 16) or octal (base 8) numbers. But this was no
more difficult than any adventure game puzzle that involves using
symbols that you have to copy and apply. You are told which symbols
(or colors) stand for these numbers in the alien displays. And some
of the "tests" you have to pass are as easy as matching a symbol (or
color) to a number. There is addition and subtraction involved, but
no multiplication (hence my use of my fingers). Of course if anyone
is allergic to math and runs away screaming at the sight of it, they
shouldn't bother with this game. There are quite a few math-based
puzzles.
Far more difficult was finding all the tiles that
were necessary to open the doors. I had to inspect each screen
carefully to make sure there wasn't some small spot of color
indicating a tile or some other item. The second part of the game
had similar difficulties. The items I had to spot were often even
smaller than the game tiles. Many areas weren't open for exploration
until I had made some change elsewhere - a change which often
required some inventory item that wasn't available until I'd opened
up some other area. Sometimes "Puck" alerted me to the presence of
an inventory item in a dark area that I'd have otherwise not seen.
Often I wished he'd been a bit more vocal.
It's possible to die during the game, but usually it
is avoidable. The crab biots you discover during the first part of
the game are garbage collectors. If you get in front of them,
they'll think you are garbage and will cut you to pieces for
disposal. So don't get in front of them. If you access a site on the
radar map and it has the crab biot symbol on it, back out of it. Or
better yet, don't. Unless you get yourself killed, you won't see
Arthur C. Clarke's cut scenes, where he advises you not to repeat
the experience. After you are "killed," the game will offer to
restore you to immediately before you got chopped up, even if you
don't have a recent save. The "Retry" button in Rama serves the same
function as the "Second Chance" button in the Nancy Drew games.
In the second part of the game, on CD2, you explore
what is known as the "New York" area. It is called New York because
of it's superficial resemblance to New York City, surrounded by
water and with tall skyscrapers. Instead of having a radar map to
take you to locations of interest, you have to walk there yourself.
There are 3 main central plazas you need to move between, and the
hallways that connect them are confusing. They aren't really a maze,
but they can be as confusing as one because you can easily find
yourself going around in circles.
Also confusing is navigating the plazas themselves.
Some "nodes" have six directions you can look towards, some four,
some two, and some only one. It's hard to tell whether you can move
forwards in the direction you're facing or not until you sweep the
area with your cursor. So unless you are very thorough, you may miss
some nodes and the inventory items they contain. This was also a
problem with the game area on CD1, but you have more to explore on
CD2 and many areas have views that are similar enough to cause
confusion. The compass at the bottom of the screen is of limited
usefulness. It shows you the directions in which you can look, but
not those in which you can move. It is better than nothing, and it
shows you which direction is "North." But it wasn't as useful as it
could have been.
There is a "timed" sequence at the end of the game.
It isn't really timed. The "timer" advances when you move through
the halls, taking into account how long it might take in real time.
Time also advances when you consult the clock on your wrist
computer, but much more slowly. You see the seconds tick by in real
time. The timer did not seem to advance as long as I didn't move
around or consult the wrist computer. Still, being constrained as to
where you can move without using up your time is restrictive,
especially considering how confusing those long tall hallways can
be.
I was initially a bit disappointed in not being able
to interact with the characters more, especially since the acting
seemed decent. But it was still fun and challenging as a
puzzle-oriented game and I enjoyed it. It would be interesting to
see a game about Rama produced today, with more emphasis on
exploring ALL of the Rama ship in a nodeless fully 3D environment,
rather than being restricted to relatively small areas. But the
sequel hinted at in the game never materialized and probably never
will.
Minimum specs
The specs listed on the game box are
For the DOS install
DOS 5 or higher
486/66+ (66 MHz or
greater)
8 MB RAM
Local bus video
Sound card with
DAC
3X CD drive
For the Windows install
Pentium 75+ (75
MHz or greater)
12 MB RAM
Local bus or PCI
video
Sound card with
DAC
3X CD drive
For those who don't know, DAC stands for digital to
anolog conversion and all sound cards except very ancient ones have
DAC.
Tested computer
Win 95b (DOS mode)
Pentium II 230 MHz
96 MB RAM
Diamond Fire GL
1000 Pro 3DČ 4MB PCI video card
Creative AWE 64
Gold sound card
8X CD drive and
32X CD drive (both tested)
I also did some brief testing on three other similar
speed computers to test for a problem with static in the sound.
Bugs and Potential
Problems
All the computers I tested on had at least occasional
problems with static in the sound of the videos. Sound effects and
game music were fine and had no static. It was only during the
videos that I'd often get regularly repeating static bursts. The
static was worse on the two computers with Win 98 and considerably
less frequent on the computers with Win 95b. None of the computers
was completely free of it. The sound cards on the computers were all
Soundblasters - two AWE 64 Gold's, one AWE 32, and an SB16. It
didn't seem to make a difference whether I played in Windows or DOS,
the static bursts were still an occasional problem. On the PII 233
that was my main test computer, the static seemed mainly restricted
to cut scenes toward the ends of the CD's.
When I reached the second CD, I had problems with the
game crashing when I tried to save. This seemed worse in certain
locations, such as in the middle of the plazas, but it happened at
other times as well. My brother suspected that the problem was
associated with the game trying to read music files off the game CD.
After copying the contents of the sound folder on CD2 to a folder on
the hard drive, he figured out how to make the game read music files
off the hard drive by editing the Resource.cfg file in the Ramados
folder. After that, no more crashes. So my brother's theory seems to
have been correct. We couldn't figure out how to make the game load
entirely off the hard drive. Since we were using DOS mode, a CD
emulation program wasn't an option.
From checking around the Net, I discovered a "fix"
for crashing that involves moving most of the saves to a different
folder. I find it strange that such different solutions could
produce the same result, but whatever works. I like my brother's
solution because it helped reduce lag time.
After completing the game in DOS mode, I attempted to
replay it using the Windows install. The Windows installer doesn't
use Dos4gw.exe. It does use DirectX, so you don't have to set up
your sound card for sound in DOS as you do in the DOS version. I was
hopeful that the game would play more smoothly in Windows, without
any distortion of the sound. Instead it proved to be too unstable to
play.
It started off well enough, but crashed with an
out-of-memory error as soon as I attempted to enter the area just
before the radar map. My brother thought all the cut scenes and
vidmails I'd viewed at the beginning of the game might have used up
the memory. So I rebooted and tried again. It repeatedly crashed in
the same place. I decided to try the trick of copying the sound
folder to the hard drive and editing the Resource.win file in the
Rama folder so the game would look for the sound files on the hard
drive instead of on the CD. That seemed to correct the problem.
But then I had a problem with the radar map. The
computer had a slowdown while the map was displayed and the sound
was terribly distorted. Also, I was not able to access all of the
places that were supposed to be available on the map. I soldiered on
for a while, accessing the places I was able to access. But an
illegal operation error that immediately dumped me to the desktop
was the last straw. I finished my second playing of the game in DOS
mode. Fortunately the saved games were transferrable between the
Windows and the DOS version.
The game had a readme with some troubleshooting tips,
none of which applied. The suggestion to move saved games to another
folder was useless, as I had only one saved game at the time of all
these crashes. I don't know if the problem is something to do with
my particular computer's configuration or something to do with the
game wanting DirectX 2 instead of DirectX 7a, but I'd suggest
playing the DOS version if possible. I did try playing the DOS
version in a full screen DOS window within Windows, and it seemed to
run OK from there. But I didn't play through the whole game that
way.
Inferno's XP site has instructions for installing
Rama on Windows XP. Interestingly, she uses the DOS installer for
the game rather than the Windows installer. The game seems to work
OK using emulated DOS and the big problem on newer computers seems
to be with the sound card compatibility. VDMSound fixes that in
Windows XP. Someone on the adventure newsgroup reported playing Rama
using a Geforce 4 TI 4400 video card, so there doesn't seem to be a
problem playing it with newer video cards.
Recommendations
Rama is an interesting puzzle-type adventure game.
But if you want a gripping story that will hold your interest every
step of the way, read the book(s) instead. Don't bother with it if
you are "allergic" to math. It may have a few technical problems,
some of which may be correctable by copying audio files to the hard
drive and editing the Resource file in the game folder. For playing
on newer systems with XP, consult Inferno's XP website for a setup
walkthrough.
Overall grade: B
(graded as a puzzle-type adventure, not a story-adventure)
design copyright ©
2003
GameBoomers
Group
