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Amerzone=amerzing!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: April 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I have read several negative reviews of Amerzone, but after playing it several times these are my impressions.

When I first saw the cold grey windswept coast of Brittany I was amazed. I could hear the wind whipping against the rocks, and could almost feel the sea spray. The grey clouds were very low and threatening, and the crash of the waves could have easily been thunder.

The interface was very easy to learn. I had trouble seeing in darker areas inside the lighthouse even when my monitor was set to 100% brightness, but that was the only trouble spot.

I was glad to get on the way to Amerzone, finding the first level a tad colourless and boring. The puzzles were of medium difficulty, based more on surroundings than on some obscure facts or useless trivia à la Riven.

The game is simply chock full of detail, right down to props. My Casablanca-loving friend was thrilled to see that movie poster on the wall in the boat bar (did you catch it as well?). But my favourite part was the animals, plant life, and insects of Amerzone.

The journal was full of watercolour sketches of different birds, insects and animals that lived in the Amerzone jungle as well as sketches of the native tribe that lived there. I tried to find all of the species in the jungle, and was missing only one.

I only encountered one native woman in the Amerzone, along with a guard and a priest, but you can definitely feel the presence of many, many others. The Spanish village was a nice touch, as was the broadcast in Spanish by the Amerzone dictator. Everything felt totally authentic, and I wanted to book a flight down there for a week or two.

There is not much in the way of music, but sound effects are abundant and very well done. There are often several layers of sound for a single location, such as water lapping, trees creaking, insects buzzing, foreign birdcalls, and strange grunts and snorts from unknown animals.

The 360 degree panning was excellent and reminded me of "Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time" although in all honesty the graphics are sharper in Amerzone. The backgrounds are photorealistic watercolours for the most part, and the characters are more cartoonlike and stylized. The animation quality was top notch as well.

Unlike some, I do not dislike the ending. I thought it was more realistic, more true to the world of the Amerzone and the effects of Spanish colonization and an opressed people. It is not a fairy tale ending by any means but it does provide closure to your mission.

Amerzone was an experience from the beginning to the end. True, gameplay was short, but the beautiful locations and thoughtful, engaging storyline should make up for it. Amerzone is becoming increasingly harder to find, and if you can find a copy and you enjoy games along the lines of Riven and Myst don't pass this one up.

Pretty much a computer adventure game for beginners

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: September 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I played "AmerZone" after having enjoyed playing "Syberia" and "Syberia II," so I had heard of the Amerzone, having had to root around the train station at a university town in order to find some flowers from that distant land. So I was looking for a similar sort of adventure game and was surprised to discover some significant differences in this earlier game from Dream Catcher, which I would have to characterize as a "beginner" level computer game of this genre.

Promising "A Secret Place...An Incredible Discovery," this game starts in Brittany in France and then sends you off to the Amerzone, an imaginary Central American country ruled by a brutal dictator. Your goal is to find the fabled egg of the legendary "White Birds" of the Amerzone, who are born to live and die in the sky without ever landing. The egg was taken from the natives and the tribe has been cursed since that day. You are a reporter, who learns the location of the original sacred egg of the White Birds and has to return it to the jungle and put an end to the suffering, which suggests a surprising amount of altruism on your part (although I suppose there will be a story to tell if and when you get back).

Your journey begins with a conversation between your character and a mailman, who asks you to take the letter he left in the mailbox of the house down the road directly to its owner, an old man who will explain to you enough information for you to get a clue as to what you are going to have to do. After the mailman rides off you are into the general interface for "AmerZone." This means a statis screen with a cursor at the center where you move the mouse to have a full range of 360-degree movement. However, you are not going to be able to move around in each environment, but just view everything from the fixed vantage point. Consequently, what you have is more in terms of a slideshow progression than a 3-D environment you can fully explore. This approach tends to make me a bit dizzy from time to time, especially when you are wandering around checking every square inch in all directions to see what it is you are missing to do whatever you have to do next.

You primary mode of transportation is a Hydroflot. You have to find it and get it working at your first location and then it will then fly you to the Amerzone, where it will also serve you as a motor boat, a sailing ship and a submarine as the situation demands. The Hydroflot will get you to each location as you go deeper into the jungle, where you will then get to walk around and do what needs to be done. There are only eight slots in your inventory so you do not need to worry about collecting a whole bunch of things. In fact, for the most part it will be easy for you to figure out what you need to find and what you are going to do with objects when you find them. For example, getting gas for your Hydroflot and finding computer discs are going to be almost constant concerns and relatively easy to accomplish with dogged exploration of each locale. Unlike "Syberia" and other games of this type there are not a lot of conversations with other characters. You will only need one hand to count the number of characters there are to talk to and you just listen to what they have to say (there is no choosing of topics or any talking at all on your part).

Ultimately, the only thing that is going to frustrate players, especially young players, is going to be going through screens looking for the one thing you are supposed to pick up. In my case that happened to be with the penultimate task of the game as I wandered around and around a lava pit trying to find what there was to pick up. But that is a standard concern with such adventure games and young players will not be confronted by complex puzzles beyond their ability to solve, hence the idea that "AmerZone" is a game well suited for beginners. More experienced players are not going to find it much of a challenge.

The graphics based on Benoit Sokal's artwork are pretty good, as is what music there is, but overall "AmerZone" is a pretty simple game and not especially challenging. If that is what you are looking for, then this is an okay choice. The emphasis is on deduction and problem solving, not being big and strong or having good hand-eye coordination. There are over 200 screens to explore, even when there is nothing to do in most of them but point and click on the adjacent screens, which explains why there are four discs in this game although the number of locations you visit is relatively small. Young players who move on to "Syberia" after tackling "AmerZone" are going to enjoy the increased challenge, the superior graphics, and the vastly improved story line.

Amerzone Review

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 13 / 16
Date: October 17, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game had beautiful graphics and scenery,but the story was so lame and the ending a total let down.The puzzles were too easy and the game interface prehistoric.Dreamcatcher games are all very similar in their disappointing story lines and poor game interaction,so I recommend buying them only when they are really cheap.I have played many many adventure games and this one is definitely not for the player who likes myst,gabriel knight,monkey island etc..It is way too simple and short.This would be a good game for grandma and junior only.

Amerzone.......Buyer Beware

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 13
Date: December 03, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Amerzone is a good game for the young and/or inexperienced gamer. For anyone else the game is disappointingly simplistic and linear. While the story line is interesting the "puzzles" are not so puzzling. In fact the solutions are handed to you in such a matter of fact way that it's nearly impossible to miss any of them. If you can pick something up you can surely bet that it will have an immediate use in the next scene. Not too challenging. Lastly, the game itself did not play smoothly. I had several instances of broken and choppy graphics...especially as I walked through animated scenes....and the game crashed several times. Amerzone was/is a major disappointment. Recommeded only for begining gamers and older children.

Amerzone...for the beginner

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: November 28, 1999
Author: Amazon User

A good game for the person who only wishes to move forward, Amerzone has a big price tag for not-so-big adventure. This game has a boring-to-annoying sound track, poor resolution and a fairly static environment. Good for the inexperienced or younger gamer, however--the puzzles aren't very puzzling and it's almost impossible to miss clues. 3D shots are excellent, easy to move around--storyline is interesting. If you found Myst/Rivan to be difficult, you'll love this one.

A good practice run if you're new to gaming, but...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: May 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game will disappoint those who are more experienced at adventure games.

Amerzone was the third modern (post-1985) adventure game I played (after Harry Potter and Chamber... and Syberia II). I found the gameplay easy to learn (click where you want to go, click to pick up the object, click to use the object, etc.), but problem-solving puzzles involved scenarios that seemed either illogical or contrived. In many cases, the "problem" to be solved was just within grasping range of the character, but because of the visual perspective, you have to roll your head around and up and down to find the related object. Combined with a sometimes "fishbowl" perspective, I found myself getting dizzy and nauseated at times. To save my sanity, I used "walkthroughs" from other web sites to help me find those objects "right under my nose" but which I was otherwise too sick to start pixel-searching on my own.

Also disturbing was the disjointed way you jump from scene to scene as you progress. Thus, if you face north, and continue straight ahead, you'd expect to still be facing north. But in many cases, you transition into the next frame by facing another direction. In settings like swamps, jungles, and underwater lagoons that have poor visibility anyway, this can be disconcerting. I became lost several times.

After playing Syberia II, also by Benoit Sokal, I anticipated Amerzone to have a richly engaging story, but was disappointed to discover that I didn't much care about my mission or the characters. Also disappointing was that the game is played in first-person so you never see yourself, and that nearly all personal interaction is with characters you'd normally avoid under other circumstances. There were no engaging personalities, no witty dialogue, and--just like Syberia II--no chance to repeat a dialogue if you missed what was said (unless you reloaded a saved game). At least with Syberia's Kate Walker, the character you play sometimes speaks charmingly to herself so that you have somewhat of a personality and don't mind spending time by yourself. In Amerzone, however, most of the time you're alone, with no dialogue, and no "inner dialogue" of the mind like Kate Walker had--I felt as lifeless as a doorknob. I guess after a stellar game like Syberia II, my expectations were way too high.

On the upside, Amerzone's storyline was imaginative, there was no violence (only one instance where someone points a gun at you at close range and then he expires of infirmity), no sexual content, no coarse language (except one instance where the aforementioned character alludes to the lovemaking practices of disinterested women--this is mentioned very quickly and under a drunken stupor so you might miss it if not paying close attention), no nudity (except some journal's line drawings of natives in sparse clothing), and the scenery was filled with fantastical creatures and lush landscapes.

The cut scene movies were illustrated dreamily and smoothly--although I had some technical difficulties on Disk 1 with the first major cutscene as you take off in the Hydraboat-thingy: the music and visuals were choppy and kept blacking out. This may be because I am running Windows XP with advanced hardware and software--too advanced for the aging nature of the game. There were a few other minor technical bugs in the program (such as the inability to perform certain actions when I know via walkthroughs that I was supposed to be able to), but they resolved themselves. I also discovered that it is best to play this game with as few other software programs running as possible--otherwise your mouse movements will be choppy and difficult to control.

For imagination and originality, I'd give this game 5 stars. For interface, puzzle-solving, and value for your money, I'd give it 2 stars. Overall, a 3. Not really bad, just not really good.

Fun but not memorable

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: January 21, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The graphics were ok, the story was ok, and if you like journey games with lots of weird animals this is definitly up your alley. But the game itself was rather short and abrupt, taking you to the next phase in the game before you quite understood what you had done in the first. The gameplay was shamelessly easy. (I'm one of those who had to cheat my way through Myst) Well, you won't need to cheat your way through this one! Combine all this up and you have a game that I at least didn't mind wasting five hours on. (It was so easy it only took 5 hours to play.)...

Truly enjoyable game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: March 15, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Not on par with Myst but still a very enjoyable game with some really nice graphics. The puzzles weren't overly challenging and some were downright too easy but all fit in well with the story line. This is the type of game to play when you just want to sit quietly and do a quiet activity. The ambient music and the settings within the game tended to be very soothing. I know that I will probably be playing it again as soon as I have forgotten enough of the solutions or I may just play it through to look at the graphics and experience the technology...

Great but needed more

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: March 01, 2000
Author: Amazon User

First off - this is a great game. The graphics are fantastic, no question. Unlike usual game animation, which can be jerky, this was surprisingly lifelike. The sound effects are great and the puzzles are reasonably easy. The only thing missing is a more detailed story. You come, you see, you conquer. There is one instance where you get clubbed in a village and thrown into jail - but you never find out why, who did it or what you might have done wrong. This could have been a great Indiana Jones type game but it's just too easy. You only get hindered once, and it's no fun if nobody's after you. All this needed was a bit more of a plot, like Zork Grand Inquisitor, and it would have been a five-star game, no questions asked.

As linear as a yard stick

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: June 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game's packaging made it look promising, but while the graphics are beautiful, the linearity of the "puzzle" solving astounded me (I have NEVER played a game before that required such an absolutely linear progression) and the puzzles were far, far too simple for experienced gamers. I had my pad of paper and pencil all ready, and only ONCE did I actually record any information there.

My husband and I (we always play games as a team) were also amused by the fact that while you retrace this man's steps from his journey in the 1930s, at each step of the way, you pick up a computer disk to help you to the next stage. Marvelous 1930s technology, those computer disks.

Even for one of the mass-produced games coming out of Dreamcatcher, this one was disappointing.

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