After I finished this game and started to write this
review, it was difficult to know where to start. Now on good days this
means there are so many positives to talk about, it is difficult to
organize them. Not the case with this game. I feel like someone who
has just attended some highly touted event, much to do about the décor
and the honored guests. When you get there, you discover it is very
different than what you were expecting. I am not sure how the
developers started out with such a great idea and ended up with this
game, but I can tell you that Traitor’s Gate 2 disappointed on a
variety of levels.
We first met our super spy guy Raven, in a great
adventure involving the crown jewels of England. A secret organization
within the US intelligence community learns it has a rogue agent. Our
mission was to replace the real treasure with brilliantly crafted
fakes and trap the renegade. At no time could we be caught or
detected. If we were, then the agency in true covert style, would
disavow all knowledge of our existence. This was a wonderful game for
those who like a stealth, strategy based adventure. The graphics were
exceptional and have held up extremely well over time. You perhaps
spent more time down in the sewers than some would have wished, but it
was a solidly crafted game and one I have enjoyed enough to play
twice.
Now we move onto present day and the release of
Traitor’s Gate Two. Nigel Papworth, one of the founders of DayDream
and the lead designer for Traitor’s Gate One was onboard and the early
news looked very promising. Let’s look at the published pre-release
info. First, we learn our agent has a name, Raven. He has a new
high-risk assignment, code named Cypher. A terrorist threat has
surfaced from deep within the sands of the Middle East. The location
is suggestive of Iraq, with all the Babylonian references. Regardless,
there’s trouble brewing for the world and we have to sort it out. The
bad guys have gotten their hands on a virus that will destroy or
create chaos across the world’s computer nets. They intend to uplink
it to a satellite and transmit it to all the known international
databases and computers. Our mission is to infiltrate the compound,
locate the virus, copy it for analysis and sabotage the system by
replacing the motherboard with one provided by our employers. The
front entrance is out of the question, so we are going to sneak in
through an ancient complex buried and forgotten beneath the shifting
sands. We will have to negotiate its labyrinth of corridors and
chambers, defeat ancient trials and puzzles to gain access to the
terrorist compound. To aid in our quest, Raven has a new array of high
tech gadgets at his disposal. Well this sounds pretty good, but I
found that the reality of the game falls short of the hype in many
ways.
Appearances are not always deceptive
You never really meet Raven in the first game and
after seeing him in this game, perhaps there are some things better
left unseen. There have been a number of advancements in 3D
technology, over the last 4 years since the first game was released.
None of them were evident. I am one of those who think the freedom of
movement in 3D is a plus for an adventure game. When it is done well,
the positives gained offset any minor loss in graphic detail. In fact
with the advanced game engines around, these games now look better
than many older 2D games. Or at least the technical possibilities to
have eye-popping graphics in a 3D world are here. Not to be harsh, but
a game released in todays market should look as good, if not better
than a designers earlier efforts. In Cypher, the reverse holds true.
Traitor’s Gate 1 had superior graphics to its own sequel. The graphics
in Cypher were grainy and blocky. The cinematics in the game looked
great and the opening/closing segments were well done. But the
contrast with the in-game look was significant. The coloration was
uniformly drab, though some of the puzzles and rooms were interesting
and detailed. Let’s just say, I am one of those gamers, who really
doesn’t bring huge expectations to any given game. Didn’t matter, the
game should have looked much better.
Sliced and Diced
If I had to give you just one reason to lock up your
dollars, hide in a closet and run away if this game knocked on your
door, here it is. The puzzles. Not all the puzzles, there were some
amazingly good ones. But there were also some of the most hideous
challenges I have ever been unable to beat in a game. Some reference
is needed here. I am no stranger to keyboard or action games. My first
love is adventure games. But, I do love to stroll on the dark side and
from time to time really enjoy a well-crafted story based third person
shooter. Splinter Cell, Deus Ex, NOLF and Max Payne are lovingly
displayed on my game shelf.
Point being, my difficulties with these puzzles has
nothing to do with the fact that the game is allegedly keyboard
controlled or that they were “action” based. You don’t get to shoot
anyone in the game or use any weapons at all. A shame as I could have
shot something and probably would have felt a bit better. No, these
puzzles were sadistic. Imagine you are in a room. You must retrieve an
object to advance in the game. Fair enough. The object is on a stand
in the middle of the room. As you walk over to the stand you notice
there are holes in the metal floor. As you grab the item, you learn
the reason for all those holes. It is so walls with spikes can crash
down along three sides of the room. The fourth section of the floor,
that lies right in front of the door, has spikes that rise up from the
floor. In the door itself is a swinging blade of death. Should you get
your timing down and survive the skewering and smashing, you face the
corridor beyond the room. Here you have metal spiked blocks that crash
together, with a swinging razor sharp swinging blade between each set
of blocks. Come on!! What were they thinking ?! I didn’t even bother
trying this route of pain. This is now known in WT’s (how did they
ever write them??) as the “slice and dice” puzzle. I tried to get my
youngest son to give this puzzle a go, as he is my in-house console
action expert and gaming partner. He took one look, made some impolite
remarks about the game and fled the jurisdiction. There are a few
others along these lines. This is a shame, as the game has some other
puzzles that were great, assuming you last long enough in the game to
get there. But like the piano end puzzle in Nine, there are some
challenges so horrible they can ruin a game. Or in this case, “slice
and dice” it.
The other side to this game is that about two thirds
of the way through, you gain entry to the lair of the bad guys. Where
the majority of the game at least had the varied chambers of an
ancient temple complex, this side of the game is a maze of drab
industrial-military rooms and hallways. This is also the area of the
game where your high tech gadgets come into play, but it was
predominated by eye scans and pre-gassing rooms. On the plus side,
there was more plot details imbedded here and the game actually
started achieving some personality. I wonder if the game would have
fared better, if they had focused the entire game on this side of the
story. There were items to read, examine and look at. It felt more
like an adventure game to me at this point. But it also seemed too
little, too late.
Story, uhhm what story?
We have been spoiled lately by a number of adventure
games, flawed or not, that had decent to great stories. I can’t recall
a game ever released in this genre that has less of a story than TG2.
If you read the box and watch the opening cinematic, that’s about all
the story you are going to get, except for at the end of the game when
you finally make entry into the terrorist compound. For those who
thought The Longest Journey was dialogue heavy, here is your
alternative. Normally as you move through a game, your character will
comment or objects will highlight. I am not exactly sure, but I
believe I had only 5 or 6 moments where Raven said anything at all.
And his comments were about 4 or 5 words long and amazingly dense.
Plus you have no smart cursor, no items that highlight, no reaction at
all to anything as you walk around a room. You are left with moving
Raven up to items and then clicking the “action” or “enter” key. He
either does something or he doesn’t. This is something you must go
through, over and over and over again.
Now there is a journal belonging to some long gone
explorer that provides bits and pieces of clues to rooms and objects
within the ancient compound. But here’s another poor design choice.
You cannot access this journal from within the game. No instead, you
have to exit to the main menu to, bring up the journal. Now once you
do this – it pops up inside the game. But still, this is a major
inconvenience. On a positive note, the clues are so cryptic that you
really won’t miss using the journal anyway. If the game had held my
interest better, I might have worked around the interface and copied
the journal’s 100+ pages in my game notes. But since what I read was
of little help, I ditched the journal and never went back. I fared
better just blundering my way through. I should add that wandering and
blundering is common throughout this game. You see, they designed the
ancient complex as a vast, multi-level maze. It has three levels as
best I can tell and secret doors that take you all over the place. If
you are a maze addict – here’s your environment. It is a large place
and has some great rooms, passageways and places. But with so little
plot, no characters, scant dialogue and a poor interface, I have to
admit maneuvering through this maze was not a high point.
Technical Babble and Interface
I ran into a number of glitches while playing the
game. For one thing you are supposed to retrieve a copy of the virus.
I re-loaded 3 different saved games and got the copy. Raven in one of
his rare verbal moments even commented on it. Despite this, at the end
I was rated a failure, as I hadn’t copied the virus. I gave up on even
the thought of a successful ending, enjoyed the end cut scene for the
last time and closed this game down. There are also moments when the
game just won’t work. There are a few timed puzzles where the time
slips, other moments where the graphics went wild, I stepped into
nothing or the device just didn’t work. Now the game never crashed –
it just didn’t work. I don’t have the expertise to describe it any
better than that. I got a saved game and trudged on. You can also get
stuck in places, if you don’t maneuver well. There may be other
glitches, but these are the ones that stand out for me.
The interface is awkward at best. For one thing
there was no description in the manual or anywhere else of what
keyboard commands you have in the game. I kept thinking there had to
be a “look” feature and searched the manual, the game files and the
internet. There are only the arrow keys and the “enter” or action key.
Raven always runs by default, if you want him to walk you need to push
the shift key. The space bar makes Raven leap or jump. That’s it. On
the positive side, this is the simplest keyboard configuration out
there. On the minus side with all the action parts – I could have used
more options. Positioning your character to interact with things was
not always an easy task and made gameplay awkward at best.
The good parts, yes there were some.
In some ways the best part of this game for me was
the final cut scene. One, it contained the first human voices I had
heard in hours and two it meant the game was over. But I have to admit
there were some interesting places and puzzles in the game. It was
suggested to me, that the game is better appreciated if approached as
a pure puzzler. After reflection, it does make a difference. Is it
enough of a difference for me to recommend this game? Probably not.
But, I do think that people who have are not easily
frustrated, don’t mind using saved games to finish, love intricate
environments and tons of puzzles might consider getting this game. It
does have some intriguing challenges. There was one where you used
fans to maneuver a boat that was a bit obscure as to which key or keys
you needed, but you couldn’t die, it wasn’t timed and it was an
interesting chamber. You have to observe the rooms, note their
structure and visual clues. I found the journal less than helpful. But
those who have a patience and love for the obscure, would probably
read the entire thing and gain a lot from it. Many of the mechanical
puzzles were well designed and unique from what you find in other
games. Though the graphics lacked clarity, the individual chambers
were varied with giant statuary, vistas and ambiance. The musical
overlay helped create some of the better points of the game. I ended
up saving some of the music files to my hard drive, for later
enjoyment. I think if they created a patch for the glitches, created a
saved game download for several areas and created a detailed map for
download, then I would say there are those who will find value in the
game.
How do I put this?
Well let’s keep it simple. My bottom line on
Traitor’s Gate II: Cypher is, don’t buy this game. Or at least, don’t
buy it now. It does have some great puzzles among the debris and if
you like wandering around for a long time, it is one vast place.
Otherwise save your money for some of the great titles already
released or coming soon. With Broken Sword 3, The Black Mirror, Jack
The Ripper, Jane Jensen’s game and many more, the Adventure Company
has an impressive game list. They can’t all be home runs or even just
a solid hit. Everybody has their lesser moments and Traitor’s Gate 2:
Cypher is it.
Review Grade: D
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2004
GameBoomers
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