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The plot thickens till goopy.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 33 / 33
Date: July 14, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is a PG-13 game. With lewd comments and implied sex scenes, it's not for kids . I was okay with it, but I got a bit embarassed when my son asked me why the wagon was rocking and why the character left his clothes outside the wagon for Morgana to steal. You also have to kill people ruthlessly by ambush, often them seemed innocent guards. The plot is pretty dumb, and even though it is unusal the hero is female, everyone goes on, and on about it in the cut scenes. The misogyny got to me after a while. She ain't no Lara Croft, her dialogue was annoying rather than clever. There are ample opportunities to die throughout the game. There is no automatic save if you quit, so save often!

Aside from that, the game has awesome graphics, but no "warp" mode like in Myst/Riven. The background sound was also too obviously looped. You get around clumsily by using a map in your inventory. The cut scenes have really bad sound quality (French speakers faking English accents) and after a few times I wanted to hit the space bar whenever I saw them coming on. They should have put a captioning option in there. Perfume urn sounded like "Peersfum Yeeern" As you get items, things that you would use them for or people who would react to them will appear in places you thought you had finished. The puzzles are easy, but not logical. Why would I use a crossbow on one lock and then later use acid, and then later use a spell if they all look the same? Also there is a really boring dictaphone that provided few clues to drone through. It was like Uncle Morty's slide show of his vacation through Hell. Then there were the magic chests to store your inventory. Heck, if my pockets had limited space, but all I had to do was to fly via map to the next chest and all my stuff would be in there, why didn't they just make my pockets bigger? Where's the suspense in that.

I hated swapping CDs. Wish there was a complete install option (I have the storage space) to avoid swapping copy protected disks midway.

Excellent

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 26 / 29
Date: June 21, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Very addictive game. Hours of play as nothing is easy. Interesting use of different timezones for one location. Not quite as unfocused as Riven as you know what you are trying to find, but just as much requirement to look into every nook and cranny. Puzzles come in different formats, including some very complex ones. Highly recommended.

Could Have Been *MUCH* Better

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 15 / 15
Date: October 15, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I had heard a lot of good things about _The Messenger_ and had been looking forward to playing it for some time. ALthough I did enjoy it somewhat, I'm sorry to say this game did not meet my expectations.

You play Morgana Sinclair, a woman of unspecified origins whose line of work seems to include a lot of equipment for breaking and entering, as well as other covert activities (Hmmm). In a brief prologue, Morgana learns from a taped voice that an evil cult is getting ready to bring about Armageddon using 4 objects known as "Satan's Keys." Morgana must locate the keys first and stop the end of the world. She does this by visiting the Louvre in Paris at various points in time: the 14th century, the 17th century, the 18th century and the present. All in all, standard adventure game premise and one that easily explains wandering around in unfamiliar places picking up stuff.

There are lots of good things about the game. The environmental and character graphics are pretty good. Not as good as today's standards (this is an older game), but better than a lot I've seen. You are given complete, 360-degree views of every thing from every point, which I like. There were one or two pixel hunts, but most hotspots show up readily and you generally have a pretty good sense of what you're doing and where you're going. The puzzles were generally pretty easy once you had all the parts in place and most of them made some kind of sense.

However. There are numerous things about _The Messenger_ that make playing it a less than absorbing experience. The first -- and this one bothered me right from the get-go -- is the interface, which is slow, slow, slow! and overly-complex. Accessing your inventory, checking your map, saving a game -- all those things that you'd like to be able to do quickly and then get on with it -- take for-bleeping-ever. They all take place on these separate screens that have been designed to look like some kind of weird gadget, with wires and switches and such all over. Well, all I could think was, "I don't care what my inventory LOOKS like, I just want it to function!" It seemed a lot like the designers put excess effort into the look of the game that would have been better spent on actually making it run better.

You can die in this game and there are at least two timed sequences per "level." Generally dying happens completely unexpectedly. The timed sequences are particularly annoying, as they give you about 20 seconds to figure out what to do before you're toast. About half of them are relatively easy to prepare for -- i.e., you get a hint that they're coming and can have the proper equipment ready. But half of them can only be solved by going through them over and over and seeing as much as you can in the 20 seconds left to you. Personally, I find it really hard to find hotspots or even to think logically given that short period of time. That kind of puzzle really ticks me off, and it cost _The Messenger_ a star in my rating.

If/When you die, you are re-loaded to the beginning of the current level. That's another thing that makes saving important and would have made a quick-save feature handy. Speaking of saving, you only get 8 slots, and saving happens in that weird round room format that so many designers seem fond of. I wish they'd get over that.

This is a 2-CD game, but you have to start from CD 1 every time -- which brought up and interesting bug. Every time I inserted CD 1, the installation screen came up -- even kicking me out of the middle of the game to do this. Yikes! What was that? There were a couple of other bugs, too -- notably one that let me do something I shouldn't have been able to do in the middle of a timed sequence, but then automatically killed me when I tried to get back to complete the sequence. Most of the bugs could be resolbed by exiting and restarting the game, however.

The voice acting was okay, with moments of incomprehensibility - subtitles would have been helpful. Several puzzles had what seemed really random solutions; _The Messenger_ features a couple unique ways of getting through locked doors. There are some adult situations and sexual innuendoes, so this game is not for small kids. There's also a lot of gratuitous killing, which I don't particularly like; I prefer some other solution. The best I can say about the ending is that it's anticlimactic and the "epilogue" is downright trite.

Despite everything, I enjoyed this game, which I completed in under 20 hours. I could have enjoyed it a lot more if some of the flaws had been addressed. Worth the money? You decide.

Pretty good game; pretty bad programming

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: February 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I've read the other reviews and can't disagree with most of what's been said. I actually liked the story (I think I've played every game in existence that features the Templars as a part of the plot) and found the integration of the aspects of the Louvre's development into the game play a nice touch. As others have mentioned, this is one of those games that, like Syberia, went for looks rather than character development or truly challenging puzzles. My big problems with the interface were that a) there are only eight save slots (and you do tend to get creamed without warning now and again) and b) the inventory management feature that only lets you cart around eight things: even Zork 1 allowed you to carry more stuff around. Also, I ran into one section where you could screw up so badly (again, not since the days of Zork 1 has this happened) you effectively had to start that time period all over again. I play these games with my little boy (5), so I have to admit I didn't like that the viewpoint character has to kill now and again (I think this is the reason for the rating, although there's some bawdy dialogue) but the tricky twist at the end did start us on an interesting discussion about the origin and persistence of good and evil.

Violent, with timed puzzles

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 21 / 26
Date: March 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Games in this genre are not normally violent, but the main character in "The Messenger", one Morgana Sinclair, is as bloodthirsty as they come. To win this game, you'll assassinate three people from ambush, in cold blood, and poison half a dozen or so more.

The animation in the cut scenes is clumsy and badly drawn, and there are several timed puzzles, all sprung on you by surprise and all fatal. Hope you happened to save the game recently...

The ending manages to be anticlimactic, disappointingly easy, unsatisfying and banal, all at once.

This game is set in the Louvre museum, though you don't get to see most of the museum itself, nor its exhibits. You may learn a little about its history, though this would be an accident with no real relevance to the story.

The puzzles were reasonably clever, but not enough to make up for the rest of the game's shortcomings. Its one saving grace is that it's very cheap. Buy only if you're addicted to the genre, and don't expect much. Except violence.

A fabulously fun game!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: March 15, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This was an absolutely enjoyable game all the way!! The graphics were absolutely marvelous, it had a plausible story line, and lots of puzzles which were not absolutely mind-boggling. The really neat thing with this one was the way the time travelling was treated, by moving forward a period of time but remaining in the same geographical location. I found it an absolutely interesting piece just from the architectural angle and the time zones covered. The puzzles were well done and in keeping with the periods of time being dealt with as well as in keeping with the story line. I have had this game just since Christmas and already I am on my third time through--just looking at the sights and being amazed. I hope you enjoy it!

Got up early every day to play some more!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: December 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

What a blast! An adventure game with a female hero, a decent plot, costume drama (you visit several time periods), and challenging but solvable puzzles.

This would be a great gift for a young adult or teenage girl on your holiday gift list.

SAVE SAVE SAVE

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: December 08, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is great. It's addictive. The puzzles are not impossible to solve if you are patient. BUT the game freezes extremely easily so SAVE SAVE SAVE every 2 minutes SAVE. If you have the patience this can be a very very enjoyable game. Just emember SAVE!!!

Worth Under Ten Bucks

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: November 22, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game is not nearly as bad as some of the previous reviewers make it sound. To each his or her own, I guess, but I liked it. The 360-degree graphics are well done. The story is interesting, if you like history, mysticism, and romantic adventure. The puzzles make sense. If you don't like the cut scenes or watching Morgana change clothes, you can spacebar over them. Personally I think they add atmosphere. There is no blood, gore and shoot-em-up idiocy. Yes, you do kill enemies, but the game is mostly of the "stealth and cunning" variety, which I liked. I thought the Dictaphone stuff was kind of interesting (history of the Louvre), although non-essential to solving the game. It was one of those little "ambiance" elements that added to the value of the game, for me. I will agree with the criticism about the dubbing of bad English accents over what should have been French-speaking characters, but I could live with that. Geez, the game only costs ...! Well worth it in my opinion. It was entertaining, just challenging enough, and nice to look at. Not Myst, or even Obsidian, but a worthy lightweight effort. Go Dreamcatcher!

LOVE THE MESSENGER!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: April 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

THIS IS ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVORITE GAMES-just to begin with-the story line is fantastic and the ending is anything but disappointing-i cannot understand anyone giving this game a bad review-it is a brilliant story with a surprise ending-i am tired of playing games and the end is a let down-this game delivers from beginning to end-i love this game so much i have given it as a gift to 12 different people so far-plus-you get a whole lot for your money-and the price is more than right on this game!

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