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Atmospheric Adventure

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 30 / 32
Date: September 04, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I have been a fan of adventure games for ages, yet have never truly got into those first-person perspective games until recently. The reason I have never understood those games is that despite their often breath-taking graphics, most of them had less of a plot than your average first-person shooter. Now, though, with games like Post Mortem and Salammbo, I can find a reason to play these games.

Salammbo is loosely based on historical events that occurred during the Punic Wars. Don't let the tag line on the box (where it claims to be part strategy and part action game) fool you though, this game is pure adventure. The 'strategy' elements are nothing more than a miniature chess match and feel like a puzzle more than even that. It is true that there are some timed sequences and one location where you are required to shoot a moving target, but the timing is fairly generous and the aiming is forgiving if you have played anything beyond classic Sierra or Lucas Arts adventure titles.

What truly sets this game apart is its atmosphere. The entire world is presented in a dark, gothic manner. Given the fact that this is one of those adventure games in which your actions can cost you your life, I constantly felt like every move I made could be my last. Everything had a feeling of forbodding to it and it made me feel a part of the game. The main character is an escaped slave whose very life is at risk with every turn he makes, and you can easily feel that way with this game.

Furthermore, the characters will stick with you after playing this game. While the voice-acting is forgettable at best, the characters themselves are so vividly drawn and so distinct from each other and any other game on the market that you simply will not forget them soon. For example, the women in the game are stunningly beautiful. Every one of them looks like the woman on the cover (which probably means the designers are lacking in a social life). The mercenaries, on the other hand, all look threatening to one degree or another (in no small part to those red eyes). Some of the characters, though, especially some of those mercenary guards look like they came out of some ... nightmare (which, incidently ads to the atmosphere).

In the end, while the game presents few game-play elements that have not been seen before, the title deserves to be played simply for its ambiance.

Druillet good, programming and support bad.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 16 / 18
Date: October 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is a foreign game, from DCE games in France. The English dubs on the entrance has been too late 2 out of 3 times of starting new games -- in an attempt to get around a bug I encountered in the first chapter.

If you have technical issues, support is next to impossible to find, especially in English. Don't let their English counterparts fool you - The Adventure Company and DreamCatcher Interactive do not support the game! Hello, links to bitty web-sites with too little information and links to "Technic Support." The patch was hard to find, and it still didn't fix my bug.

It's also: fishbowl view, and mouseclicks only, with no alternate option for keyboard controls. Double-clicking usually also requires you to be perfectly centered if you want to enter a new area, so be prepared for quadruple-clicking or more.

While Phillipe Druillet's artwork is great, a couple of puzzles were new, but overall, with its bugs and difficult support, I wish I'd passed.

A brilliant and unique curiosity

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: May 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I was drawn to this game because I so much loved Druillet's original SALAMMBO "bandes dessinee", which were published in France by Dargaud, roughly between 1982-94. This brilliant "comic book" was a retelling of Flaubert's original story, transposing it onto a distant future on a distant planet - a planet with a decadent but effective technology and an alien ecology.

In this environment Druillet flung reincarnations of two of his ongoing heroic figures - "Lone Sloan", a version of C L Moore's Northwest Smith, and "Vuzz", a filthy and violent rogue. These were respectively and very suitably incarnated within Flaubert's transformed book as Matho, the chief of the barbarians, and Spendius, the cunning slave/serveant who aids him in his love for Salammbo.

My enjoyment of this PC game comes principally as a reader of these books. I am not equipped to criticise the game engine, the plotting, or the software, though I have definitely enjoyed the game: but what I really appreciate is the chance to immerse myself again and in a different way in Druillets' utterly wierd, utterly beautiful, dream-world.

Yes, it's just a computer game: it's not perfection. But however flawed it may be, if you have read and loved Druillet's original books you owe it to yourself to buy it.

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