Product Description

The next giant leap for Mankind awaits you! / For Windows More than 55,000 frames of stunning 3D screens and animation The mystical ambiance will surely captivate all who enter

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17330 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Dreamcatcher
• Model: 2022900
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platforms: Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows 98
• Format: CD-ROM
• Dimensions: .31 pounds

Features

• Prepare yourself for an exhilarating 3D graphic adventure
• Your mission is to travel to the Cydonia region of Mars to survey the planet for the prospect of human colonization, but your mission takes an unexpected turn
• Engaging 3D puzzles
• Seamless 360 degree navigation
• Over 70 hours of non-linear gameplay with multiple endings

Amazon.com Product Description
Prepare yourself for an exhilarating 3-D graphic adventure. Your mission is to travel to the Cydonia region of Mars to survey the planet for the prospect of human colonization. But your mission takes an unexpected turn.

Manufacturer Description
Your mission is to travel to Mars. The setting is the year 2012. Assume the role of one of three astronauts sent to Mars to explore the mysterious Cydonia Mensae region, best known for its mile-long land formations thought to resemble a humanoid face. Upon entering the Martian atmosphere, however, your spaceship is severely damaged by an unexpected force field. With your ship crippled and fellow crew members critically injured, your journey becomes a struggle for survival.

Customer Reviews

An unfortunate failure
This is probably the only item I have reviewed here or elsewhere that has received such a dismal rating. It pains me, but I must agree with the other negative reviewers in calling this game quite dissapointing.

Pros:
1. The game starts off quite well and the graphics really are beautiful.
2. The alien language translation system developed in the game is extraordinary, nay unique and stands apart as arguably one of the best adventure game features developed.

Cons:
1. The slow animations (not performance-wise; simply stylized) get irritating after a while.
2. A lot of pixel hunting at times. The puzzle where you have to hunt for "pieces" is pure torture.
3. The translation system is not perfect and this actually affects gameplay quite a bit. The usual case of too many ways to interpret the problem and one "magic" answer.
4. The story is intriguing to begin with and slips into mundane "overlord" fantasies in the end. Gamemakers: GIVE UP ON MARS. It is just not mysterious anymore. Also, the talking alien head has HORRIBLE english, but perhaps that's just because it's an alien?
5. The combined irritations led me to actually give up on this game even though a part of me wanted to continue.

I would say, give it a try. Maybe it just wasn't for me :(

I should mention that I had no technical problems at least. This was a couple years ago on Win 98. Dunno how it works on XP.

Choppy and annoying game play, may not work with XP Home
I purchased this product without having gone to the Dreamcatcher website first to check XP compatibility. Unfortunately they describe this software as being NOT compatible, and there is no form of patch available at the time of me writing this review.

Despite this, I installed the software, and began playing the game. Although swapping the 5 CDs becomes cumbersome very quickly (there needs to be an option to load more on the HDD to eliminate the swapping and choppiness caused by frequent cd access, but there is not), the colours and images seem crisp, though all pre-rendered. When characters talk, their mouths just do a random open close motion, but that really wasn't a big deal to me.

You can't interact with a lot of the environment, and wide open spaces that you'd think you can move towards aren't available. There are three major zones of interest for your character, and I had no issues with exploring two of them, with no game play issues. Every so often, the game will "zoom out" and show your actual character doing something, like getting in or out of the hovercraft, or running across the desert. I'm not sure what the purpose of that is, other than to add a little cut-scene to the game. You can't play the game in 3rd person like that.

The puzzles are mostly easy, and do not provide brain killing challenges like those in Schizm for example. Ringing gongs in a certain order based on translations of the martian text using your in-suit computer was interesting. I like the concept of the in-suit computer, it's got a dictionary, translator, mission logs and archives, as well as real data from the NASA programs.

The showstopper for me, which I've yet to find references to on their website (because XP isn't supported), was when i went to the third location and used the remote arm to remove the top of the capstone, allowing me down into a chamber to perform an incredibly tedious process to get a translation disc.

After performing the same process 9 times to get the pieces of the disc, i wanted to leave the building and move to the next phase of the game, unfortunately, my hovercraft, which had no problem climbing up the mountain to get to the capstone, is now stuck on top with no way of moving. Therefore, game over for me. My character can't walk down by himself, and since the hovercraft won't move, it's all over.

Another issue is that when you use the jumpers in your hovercraft, the craft spins to the right because the mouse is so close to the right of the screen, it thinks you want to move right.

If you want a Dreamcatcher game with better graphics, get schizm on DVD...the graphics are very crisp, but the gameplay is disappointing and the puzzles are too einstein-esque for me. Perhaps they will come out with a new game that blends good dvd imaging and gameplay with an actual lengthly storyline and indepth characters. Unfortunately, this one isn't it.

As an addendum, I tried the website recommendation to set win98 compatibility mode on the program. This did not change the gameplay, or allow my game to continue. Nor did installation of the patch (the patch actually caused my game to crash, as you apparently must start a brand new game to use it).

Pretty good for Dream Catcher
I own several of the Dream Catcher games and this one is by far one of the best. The rating is more 31/2 than a four, however I enjoyed the graphics and the story line. The puzzles were challenging but not to hard. Further, the game wasn't hampered by continual technical problem like some of Dream Catcher's products. The game was boring in places, and the game could have used more dialogue. Over all, I thought it was worth the investment.