Mini-review of Odyssey...The Search for Ulysses

Introduction:

	Odyssey...The Search for Ulysses is a Cryo game, which had led
	me to some pretty high expectations for the game.  The last
	Cryo game I played was The Sacred Amulet, and I liked it very,
	very much.  Odyssey didn't live up to my expectations, but I
	guess they can't all be winners.  I am just surprised that
	Cryo got so many things wrong in this game.

Graphics (quality, animations, cut scenes):

	Like many other games these days, Odyssey uses 3D characters
	on a 2D background.  Some of the background scenery was
	extremely beautiful, but the characters themselves were pretty
	crude.  They were all very blocky (few polygons), with no
	mouth movements at all.  After playing The Longest Journey,
	Odyssey was a big let down.

	The cut scenes were up to Cryo's usual standard (very pretty),
	and the animations were acceptable for 3D characters (fairly
	crude).

Sound (music, voices, special effects)

	The music as quite good and suited the mood throughout.  The
	voice acting was pretty sub-standard, with some voice acting
	being almost painfully bad.  Overall, I guess the voice acting
	was acceptable, but they could have done much, much better.

Story (plot, theme, depth):

	Hey, this is Greek mythology, so you know the story can't be
	all that bad.  Penelope (Ulysses' wife) is worried about
	Ulysses' long absence, so she sends you (Heriseus) out to find
	him.  Your character follows in the steps of Ulysses, so you
	encounter many of the same monsters and gods that he did.
	The story itself certainly makes a good basis for an adventure
	game.

Characters (depth, development, interaction):

	Again, this is Greek mythology, so the characters are all
	bigger than life (and some of them are quite a bit of fun).

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

	For a variety of reasons, the puzzles in this game could be
	extremely frustrating.  Here are the major items that annoyed
	me:

	Your character could die with absolutely no warning that you
	had done anything wrong.  You could make a conversation choice
	which killed you immediately, but the same choice with a
	previous character was no problem at all.  Most places, you
	couldn't walk off cliffs or buildings, but in a few places you
	could walk into water and die, or walk into a hole and die.
	Oh, and there was no warning that you would die in those
	spots.  Basically, save often and save early (which is why
	only 30 save slots aren't enough).
	
	There were many timed sequences where the solution to a puzzle
	was to run fast or time your actions to avoid the bad guy.  Oh,
    	and you die if you get it wrong.


	They just had to include a maze, and then they made it even
	worse.  The changing camera angles made it extremely difficult
	to map the maze, and on top of that, there was a timed
	sequence for getting through the maze.

	Several puzzles were randomly generated, with a different
	solution every time you played it.  Not a nice thing to do to
	people who want to replay a section.

	Puzzles where an required action was only valid if you were
	standing in a particular place and/or facing a particular
	direction.  These ones got me using the walkthrough almost
	every time.

	Some puzzles required an amazingly arcane set of actions and
	assumptions on your part.  One of them took several hours to
	get through, even when using a walkthrough.

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

	Odyssey is keyboard controlled, much like Grim Fandango, only
	GF had some nice features not found in Odyssey.  I really
	missed the GF feature of the character "looking" at
	interesting items.  As it was, you had to move up to something
	and hit the space bar to see if it could be picked up.  On top
	of that, your character didn't comment on things around him,
	so you had to figure out things completely on your own.  This
	definitely made the gameplay a bit more frustrating at times.

	Another major "feature" of the game was the camera control.
	The camera switched position depending on where you were, and
	then followed your character at all times until the next
	viewpoint change.  This caused some extremely strange effects;
	when you walked directly under the camera, you could get dizzy
	from all the camera spin and tilt.  Also, when you were trying
	to confront some monster, the camera could actually change
	viewpoints such that your opponent wasn't even visible any
	more.  An interesting experiment by Cryo, but one that I would
	call a failure.

	You were given 30 game save slots, which were easily used up.
	You could erase given saved games, but I don't see why they
	couldn't have just let you save as many as you wanted.
	Artificial limitations like this one don't endear you to a
	game.

	Like almost all Cryo games, be prepared to boost your video
	card's gamma settings, since many portions of the game are
	extremely dark.  I really wish Cryo would add a gamma control
	setting to their games (like UAKM).  It would save me from
	having to exit the game every time I needed to make a gamma
	adjustment.

	The "highlighted" Dialog choice was the only one NOT in bold.
	Very backwards.

	Overall, the game's controls were less than thrilling.

Bugs or problems:

	This game had quite a few bugs.  There were places where I
	could get my character completely frozen and the only way out
	was to restore a previous game.  At one point, I was allowed
	to go somewhere I shouldn't, so I ended up talking to
	characters holding a ten foot plank in front of my face.  The
	graphics boundaries were pretty sloppy, so my character's head
	or feet would frequently disappear completely into a stone
	wall (or another character).

Pros:

	Beautiful graphics
	Fun story

Cons:

	Poor user interface
	Poorly designed puzzles
	Timed sequences
	A maze (with timed sequence included)
	Death without warning or reason
	Buggy

Conclusion:

	Overall, I would call this game playable, but just barely.
	Cryo got so many things wrong on this one, which disappoints
	me because I know they can do so much better.  It feels like a
	game which was pushed into release long before it should have
	been.  It needed better play testing, and a lot more debugging
	before it was ready to release.  Final verdict: don't spend a
	lot of money on this one, but it's worth something just for
	the sheer beauty of some of the scenes and a peek into the
	world of Ulysses.