Mini-review of Timescape, Journey to Pompeii

Introduction:

	Journey to Pompeii is a Cryo game, which always has me
	wondering what's in store.  Some of them I enjoyed very much
	(Faust, Sacred Amulet), and some of them I didn't care for at
	all (especially Egypt).  Journey to Pompeii is one of their
	historical series, as was Egypt and Sacred Amulet.  Since I
	hated Egypt so much, I didn't expect much from this game, but
	they managed to provide me with a pleasant surprise.

Graphics (quality, animations, cut scenes):

	Everything was pretty well up to Cryo standards for graphics
	and cut scenes.  Not bad at all, and nothing for me to pick
	any nits over.  OK, I lied.  Some of the cut scenes drove my
	CD ROM drive crazy, sometimes to the point of getting less
	than one frame per second.  I am not sure why this game in
	particular did this, but it was irritating.

	Another issue I had with the game was that there were no lip
	movements at all.  This made it difficult at times to figure
	out which character was actually talking.

Sound (music, voices, special effects)

	The music wasn't period based in any way, but then, who knows
	what music was actually played in Pompeii.  However, it did
	suit the mood of the game at the relevant locations and times.

	The voice acting was fair at best, and you had to get used to
	Cockney accents in a game portraying Pompeii in AD79.  I
	would have expected Italian accents, but hey, maybe that's
	how a Latin accent sounded.

Story (plot, theme, depth):

	The entire story was pretty contrived; because you insulted
	the goddess Ishtar, you have to go back in time to retrieve
	your long lost love within the 4 days just before Vesuvious
	erupts.  I guess they did this because they couldn't think of
	any other way for your character to have foreknowledge of the
	coming eruption.

Characters (depth, development, interaction):

	I am afraid I can't give the characters much praise either,
	but I think this may have been due to the sheer impossibility
	of coming up with useful lines when the story itself was such
	a pastiche.  In spite of the shallow nature of the entire story,
	I found the characters to be at least passable.  Mind you,
	I am not much of a believer in love at first sight, so some
	plot lines seemed rather strained to me.

Puzzles (difficulty, uniqueness, suitability, ugliness, linearity):

	Most of the puzzles consisted of talking to people in order
	to get objects or information from them.  The few logic
	puzzles were pretty simple, which may explain why you died
	almost immediately if you got them wrong.  Big hint: save
	often in this game.

	The game contained numerous timed sequences, but none of them
	were terribly onerous.  Most of the time, I had to die first
	before I even knoew I was in such a sequence.  Once I knew, I
	could save at the appropriate spot and almost always get
	through it on the next try.

	Some puzzles were totally arbitrary; throw an object towards
	one spot, and you die.  Throw it to another spot which looked
	just as good (or bad), and you were successful.

	
Controls (user interface, save/restore, sound/video adjustments):

	Usual Cryo excellence here.  No problems with anything.

Bugs or problems:

	Jerky cutscenes due to my CDROM drive spinning down in the
	middle of them.  Cryo should have provided an option to load
	much more of the game onto your hard drive.

	We were completely unable to find one character because he
	was totally invisible until you went to the correct location and
	then turned around to look behind you.

	At one location, one character talks to you when you revisit,
	even though the character is long gone.

Pros:

	Encyclopedia about Pompeii
	Nice graphics
	Reasonable game play

Cons:

	Numerous timed sequences
	Some completely arbitrary puzzle solutions
	A few bugs
	Fairly poor voice acting (pedestrian at best)
	No lip movements during speech segments; tough to tell who was talking

Conclusion:

	Pompeii is not a great game, but it's definitely playable.
	Don't mortgage your house to buy this one, but it will serve
	until a better one comes along.  If you want an actual
	ranking against other Cryo games, then I would say it is a
	bit worse than Aztec, much worse than Faust, and much
	better than Egypt.