Xbox 360
The Fall Trilogy - Chapter 1 : Separation, is the first part in this new series of hidden object puzzlers from Kheops Studio, the people who recently provided us with Return To Mysterious Island 2.
Narratives for this genre of game are always pretty inconsequential, which is just as well as in this first episode you play an unnamed man who has awoken inside an ancient temple (probably South American as it has a certain Aztec type atmosphere to it) with a hat, a whip (how very Indy of you), total amnesia and a desire to escape. That’s all you really know, although you will experience flashbacks now and again that reveal more details about you and your family as you progress to the exit.
While the game is described as a hidden object type game, it doesn’t actually feature any traditional hidden object puzzles where you are expected to click on numerous everyday objects hidden within the on-screen pictures. Yes, there are times where you will have to click on hidden pieces of broken stone tablets, or pieces of cogs in order to assemble a machine, but you will more often be expected to solve logical conundrums, which will have you playing around with multi-sided dominoes, arranging pulleys, or calculating which objects to put on a set of scales to balance them. This is all well executed, and reasonably engaging to play, but certainly not original, and nothing you won’t have encountered before if you like playing this type of game.
The difficulty level for this game is suitable for newcomers to the genre, and with the standard recharging clue function you have in most of these games, it should be possible for everyone to get to the end without too much trouble.
Having said that, the game is insistent that problems should only be solved in the order and manner that occurred to the designers themselves, and it is this intransigence that makes game-play frustrating at times. For example, at one stage you are required to scatter some sand to progress, and earlier on you used a hat full of sand for a different puzzle, and this hat is still sitting where you left it. Now strangely the game won't allow you to pick it up, so instead you must wander about looking for another source of sand, only for that method to eventually end up in failure. Just when you're thinking of tearing your hair out in frustration, the game helpfully suggests you go back and get that bloomin' hatful of sand! Aargh! Open game-play isn’t really a strong point here.
Graphically, it’s quite pretty, having apparently used the same engine as Big Fish's popular Mystery in London game, thus allowing a full 360 degree view of each scene. There just aren’t that many scenes to view though, with under half a dozen that you can actually rotate and look around in, which is indicative of the diminutive size of the game. This wouldn’t be such a striking problem as it is advertised as part of a trilogy, but as it costs around £14 per episode, it’s simply not competitive compared with similar games, such as the aforementioned Mystery in London, which costs under £5 and is a far bigger & better game to boot.
Perhaps once all three episodes are released, Kheops may look at the pricing structure and offer a better value package for the whole thing, as part one is not a bad game, but at this price you’d be advised to look at the cheaper, and not necessarily inferior alternatives out there.