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Nonsensical puzzles. Get the DVD version.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If I had played this in DVD, perhaps my experience would have been a better one. Not that the puzzles would have made any sense- they wouldn't. Not that the ending would have wrapped things up more satisfactorily- it wouldn't. But, at least the ride would have been better.

After years of devotedly playing adventure games, I've become discouraged. Seems that designers think that the harder the puzzles, the better the game and the less sense it makes, the better the puzzle. I suppose there are gamers who like that sort of thing, but not me.

For the opportunity to wander in gorgeous other-worlds, immersed in graphics that takes my breath away, I am willing to put up with nonsensical puzzles...provided I have a walkthrough and did not pay a lot for the game.

Schizm, being an older game, still has beautiful graphics. There is no snow- my personal favorite- or rain, however there are some lovely, if limited, vistas with excellent detail.

Thankfully, the designers used video for the few people you encounter, and not computer rendered characters. The voicework is done very well, and the music and sound effects go excellently with the areas you move about in. However, the differentiation between sounds for two puzzles should have been better. There are no captions for the sound puzzles.

There are a couple of enjoyable puzzles- the train tracks was fun, but hard. It made sense and you had to think your way through to solve it.

The rest were best left to the walkthrough. The markings on one puzzle were poorly rendered and difficult to see. Another made no sense at all for your actions- there was no reason given for what you had to do. To make it worse, you can complete only part of the solution before having to go hunt down a tiny missing part...with no clue as to where to find it. (A note: From one website, it seems that there should have been a character asking for this item, however the CDRom did not show this request)

As noted, the CDRom version has too many problems to make it worth buying. Overall, unless you are playing the DVD version, I would recommend you find something else to play.

Good story, nice graphics, very hard puzzles. "Expert" game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The story line is nice. The design concept is really great. The video resolution isn't all that high so there isn't as much detail as you'd like to see in all of the cool visuals. One other factor that sets this game apart is that you play 2 characters and you have to play to both to win the game.

The puzzles in this game are difficult. If you are good at patterns and linguistic type puzzles then you'll have a good time. If you are better suited to the physical object puzzles, you're not not going to have as good of a time.

My taste is that I want the puzzles easy enough to allow me to make progress but hard enough that I don't finish the game in an hour. As a beginnner gamer, the puzzles in this game were just too hard to keep my interest and I gave up half way through.

Good Graphics, Average performance, Bad User Friendliness

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: January 18, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I bought the CD-ROM version.

Graphics was Good, but not as good as Myst. I run on XP, program freezes occassionally. No clean way to exit when the video is active.

Operation wise, once the character starts going in one direction, it is hard to make him/her stop and take a turn using your mouse.

Another very annoying thing is that even after doing a complete install (3 GB), it still insists on having the CD-ROM (Disk 1) in the drive All the time. I mean, what is the point ? If you use a laptop like me, your Game CD will have to follow you wherever your laptop goes. And as you have to take this CD with you everywhere, it is very easy to damage/ lose it and that makes the remaining 4 CDs useless. Your only option is to go buy the entire set again. Did I mention that the CD is copy protected as well ??

I wish game developers spent less time on their paranoia about copy protection and rather spend more on improving performance and user experience.

I heard the DVD version has better graphics. I am not sure if you always have to have the DVD in the drive, though.

Schizm: Mysterious Journey

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: November 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Why aren't you offering the DVD version of the game? It is available from Dreamcatcher--but they have been having problems at their website and it is impossible to order either on the internet or by phone. One wonders if they have this much problem with their ordering process, how good can the game be. ???

Schizm DVD

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 24
Date: September 04, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I too would like to pre-order the DVD version. It looks like a wonderful game and I'm anxiously waiting. However, I'm not going to settle for the CD version.

Schizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzm

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: January 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is of minor interest only if you've ever spent any time staring at a Yes album cover by Roger Dean and thought: "what would it be like to walk around in there?" But then the meandering gets very tedious, the puzzles get more and more convlouted, the crappy graphics start to lose thier luster, etc etc. Someone PLEASE tell me that MYST is better than this(?)

Pshaw, ignore it.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: November 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is a nice game, but somewhere around the second or third puzzle I had to cheat to figure out how it worked. No sane person could figure it out. I NEVER would have.
I wouldn't recommend it. I never even finished it. How can I if I have to cheat to do the puzzels?

Schizm is full of bugs

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: March 14, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Had to contact their tech support, loaded 5 cdroms, but it NEVER worked without constantly swapping cd's over and over and over and over again!

It might be an interesting game, but having to constantly reswap cdroms is really a big WASTE of time...

ps: their tech support sent me a zip file supposedly that would fix the cdrom swapping problem, now, not only does it STILL have the same problem, but it also FREEZES and send error messages.

No more games from these DreamCatcher, The UNAdventure Company! That's 4sure...:-(

Don't bother! Just throw your money away instead!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: April 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I purchased thsi game in the discount section of a local retailer thinking I would have a good alternative to the usual first person shooter clones that are flooding the market.

After starting up the game and watching the two main characters do their thing It became quickly apparent that no matter what I tried to do the curser indicated that no action was possible for me.

I guesss the game consists of installing it, watching the intro, and then uninstalling it. Not as I expected at all.

Moreover the game is unsupported. My copy is in the trash now!

I Wish I had the money I spent on it instead!

In my opinion a genuine Rip Off!

As good as the Myst series

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 15, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I bought the DVD version from Dreamcatcher. It installed without problems, and there is no evidence of choppiness (at least so far). I'd say we're about two thirds of the way through.
The puzzles aren't easy - just about the right level, I think. Note to other reviewers: if you are trying to solve them by trial and error, it means that you either haven't actually solved the puzzle, or are still missing some information. Without giving anything away, I can think of at least two puzzles where the 'obvious' answer is not the correct one.
Another reviewer mentioned the multiple number schemes - you mean like decimal numbers and clock faces which count in twelves? Seems fairly natural to me.
Graphics are stunning, and the scene transitions are smooth and convincing.
One slight niggle - the rotation control was a bit too sensitive. Some means of adjustment would be nice.

Definitely worth buying

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