Mini-review of Dracula Resurrection Introduction: The good news is that Dracula Resurrection is a game which shows the effect of much money being spent on graphics and character motion. The bad news is that the game play itself seems to have come second best in the fight for development resources. Graphics (quality, animations, cut scenes): Dracula Resurrection (hereafter called DR) is worth buying just for the graphics. This is the first game where the 3D animated characters had lifelike, fluid motions throughout. They weren't perfect, but they are the best I have ever seen in any game to date. Not only facial expressions were good, the characters actually ran and walked like real humans. About the only amusing item is the character of Mina; she must have breasts of steel, since they stuck staight up from her chest even when lying on her back. Outside of cutscenes, the graphics are really, really good. Sound (music, voices, special effects) There wasn't much music, but when it did appear, it wasn't jarring or out of place. The game mostly had environmental sounds which were well done throughout. The game's sound track supports the game in all places. Story (plot, theme, depth): Not much plot here; go rescue your wife from Dracula's clutches. This is a great excuse for you to wander through an old inn, an underground mine, and Dracula's castle. Characters (depth, development, interaction): The character interaction is pretty minimal, and even Dracula is only a bit player in the game. Basically, all of the characters are there to give you information, inventory items, or just act as barriers for you to eliminate. If you want lots of character interaction, find another game, since this one won't satisfy you much at all. Mind you, the characters are extremely unique; you just have to meet the innkeeper. Puzzles (difficulty, uniqueness, suitability, ugliness, linearity): The good news is that there are no mazes, no sliders, no action, and no timed sequences. The bad news is that the puzzles are a bit too simple. In general, you just look around and find items, and then try them in whatever spots are active. Too many of the puzzles were just pointless (or illogical) enough that I gave up trying to solve them all by logic, and just went with the old fallback -- try every inventory item on every active spot. If any thing disappointed me with this game, it was the sub average puzzles. A lot of our time in the game was hunting for hot spots, since they weren't always obvious, and the excellent graphics made it even harder to find them. Controls (user interface, save/restore, sound/video adjustments): The controls were quite easy -- move mouse to look around, left mouse button to move somewhere and interact with things, right mouse button to bring up inventory, and escape key to bring up main control panel. I do have a few comments about the controls though: I wish the main save/load/quit panel had been on the same screen as the inventory. I can't remember how many times I brought up inventory when I just wanted to save my game. There were only 8 slots for saved games, which was usable, but I always want more. The mouse motion had no dead spot in the middle of the screen, so hunting for hot spots could cause some serious dizziness if you didn't have a smooth mouse hand. When the game asked you to insert a CD, there was no way to back out or cancel. You always had to insert CD 1 to start the game, and then you had to wait for the screen of company logos to time out, skip the introduction, and only then could you restore a saved game. When you quit, the first page of credits came up and you had to push a quit button again to actually get out. This was a very poorly thought out start up and shut down sequence, since they could easily put a button on the main control panel for "play intro" and "show credits". Longest Journey had a key to highlight all exits; I wish that this game had a key to highlight all hotspots. Every time we had to resort to a walkthrough, it was because we couldn't find a hotspot. Bugs or problems: I had an extremely bad audio stuttering and cut scene freezing problem on my computer. The suggested fixes on the support site didn't help, so I was reduced to drastic measures. I downloaded a CD emulator program (Daemon CD emulator) and a CD copying program, and installed both CDs onto my hard drive. Not only did it completely fix up my audio problems, it made playing the game a complete joy in comparison. Cut scenes started instantly, and I never waited for the CD drive to spin up to get the next location displayed. This is going to be my default way of running games from now on -- I recommend it heartily to those of you that have enough disk space. At onepoint (in the library), the game allowed an action which should have required an inventory item. One puzzle completely reversed the directions for the solution, and it took a while before we thought to try the opposite of what we *knew* was the correct answer. Install/Uninstall: Clean install and clean uninstall. I really wanted a "full" install, but ended up using a CD emulator program to get it anyway. Pros: Best 3D animated characters I have ever seen Extremely beautiful graphics Good sound effects A few interesting puzzles Forced me to try (and love) a CD emulator Cons: Extreme stuttering problem on my machine Miserable start up and shut down sequences Could only start with CD 1 in the drive Too much hot spot hunting Illogical (and sometimes pointless) puzzles Most puzzles were too easy Conclusion: Overall, I enjoyed this game. The graphics alone made it worth playing, and the game play wasn't bad enough to drive me away. Dracula Resurrection may not be a classic game, but you should buy it to be amazed by the graphics if nothing else.