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does not warrant the bad reviews

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: March 31, 2001
Author: Amazon User

lets start by saying im far too old for computer games, but riven and deus ex are my favorites and the standards by which i compare others. i bought crystal key (ck} months ago because of the box but didnt do it until recently because the reviews indicated it was a waste of time. this was wrong. i have an imac and the game never crashed or had "mechanical" problems, never was too dim to find objects, did not necessitate boosting brightness, was not slow or buggy. although the graphics were grainy at times, the pictures were pretty and the puzzles were engrossing, though a couple were far fetched. people complained of a stupid ending, but the disposition of ozgar was quite logical and clever. incidentally myst and riven had stupid endings too, but they are still great games. the point is getting through ck, not the ending. its the satisfaction you get from seeing a clue finally pay off. ck was not short; myst and riven took 3 days and one week respectively, and ck was in line. in summary, ck is all about puzzles and working through to the conclusion. the game runs well and the visuals are fine. its also cheap, so if you like myst types, give it a try.

A spectacular romp!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: September 16, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I thought this was a georgous game, the graphics splendid, the storyline logical, and the puzzles not so impossible that one must have a walk-thru always at hand. The game's ending was a mixed bag, on one hand it seemed as if the developers were facing some sort of deadline and just cut the story off and closed out, the congratulatory message was an unsatisfactory ending. On the other hand, the final disposition of Ozgar, the villain of the piece, is a deft touch.

I have read a good deal of commentary on how this game is buggy, crashes often, and in general is difficult to run. I have a mid-level machine, a Compaq Presario 1692, a Lap-Top, and while I got the feeling it was all the machine could do to keep the game running, I had only one actual problem, in putting some books on a bookcase early on in the game. Even so, on the next try I was able do do what I needed to, and proceed. Some of the transitions from one scene to the next would hang up for a few seconds, but there were no crashes or real difficulties; I never had to download any patches or anything of this sort.

Antoinetta

ugh

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 08, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This definitely was not one of your better role playing puzzle games. There was no real goal for the game. You just sort of wandered around trying to find your way out. Many good graphics, although many of the scenes were way too dark. There was no incentive to go on except that you were hoping something interesting would happen. In games like myst and safecracker, you have indirect interaction, people leave you messages so you know there is life out there. Here, you're on your own. And the end was disappointing, there was no cute little mini-movie making sense of it all. The only reason I gave it two stars instead of one is because there were a few interesting surprises like an alien guy who walks passed you (the only time you can possibly die in this game). Also, there were too many nice graphics that couldn't be grabbed or touched. I thought that was disappointing. No easter eggs in this one. I recommend the Myst series (Exile is a little rough on your computer), safe cracker, riddle of the Sphinx (excellent!). Time machine and Harry Potter are very good too but they are third person and you can get zapped in both.

Beautiful, but lacking a story and a good payoff

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The Crystal Key has environments just as breathtaking as the ones shown on the box. Exploring them is a joy. However, there is practically no story. You crash land on a planet and basically puzzle your way "out", which involves transporting to other worlds, etc.

The puzzles are interesting, but often too easy and too linear. This is the type of game where finding a screwdriver on the ground means you'll be needing it for a puzzle around the corner.

Some environments, like the subway and the corporate skyscraper in the lake, are so well designed you want to see them populated with people. At the very least, you want some sort of character interaction. But there is none whatsoever.

Don't expect a good payoff ending. An anticlimactic ending is a pretty common complaint with most adventure games, but this one is pretty bad. It just suddenly ends. The only adventure game with a more abrupt ending is "Lighthouse", but at least that one had a few mythical characters living in its rich environments.

Still, if you love exploring awesome settings, this is the title for you. It's definitely worth the low Amazonian price. Just don't attempt to compare it to the great adventure games, like Riven, Morpheus, and Obsidian.

does indeed fall short

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: June 28, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Crystal key has terrific graphics, yes. The storyline has a promising beginning. There are occasional snippets of good music. However, the game is horribly slow on my computer. It often took 30 seconds or more to move to the next scene, which made it cumbersome to use. The storyline falls apart after the opening and, while you go about seeking things and solving puzzles and such, the storyline virtually disappears. The creators have created a nice universe, but leave you with no information about it. The ending, as well, is horribly anticlimatic. You finish the game wondering what happened and why.

Plotless, pointless, and pretty

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 05, 2000
Author: Amazon User

As a Myst fan I looked forward to this game and was sure that since it was so difficult to find in my local store that it must have been great. Boy, was I wrong. I played through and found that the puzzles were pretty difficult simply because were totally unrelated to each other and the rest of the game in general. Running a PII 600 MHz machine the game gave me no problems and the graphics ran fine. I am not an extremely picky gamer and with a bit of a plot this game could have been tolerable. ... .

A Big Letdown

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 21, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game because I had finished Myst and Riven and was hungry for a new adventure game. I spotted this while browsing in the store and thought it looked similar to MYST/RIVEN and would keep me occupied until the Miller brothers came up with more Myst sequels. That will be the last time I ever buy a game without checking online reviews of the game. While the graphics and puzzles are pretty good, I found the plot and characters two-dimensional. I also had a technical problem with one of the puzzles and had to download a patch that solved it for me. Gee, how fun it that? Dreamcatcher should've known better than to release a game with so many bugs in it.

A very bad Myst clone

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: June 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Overview: Succinctly put, if you liked Myst, then you will probably like The Crystal Key. If you didn't then stay very far clear of this game. Unlike Myst, however, there is at least some slight semblance of a plot at the beginning of the game instead of just being thrown down in the middle of an island and expected to figure out what is going on. With The Crystal Key, you, the player, are expected to help save your people from an alien race, but that is about the extent of the plot. Like Myst, however, more of the background story begins to unfold during the game, but not by much. In The Crystal Key, you have to navigate through deserts, jungles, meadows, underground worlds, and alien ships, most of the time jumping from one place to another without any real sense of direction or idea what to do next. This game would have been greatly improved if there had at least been a narrator, or a method to look at items and get a description of what items were being picked up, or what the player is looking at. Nearly all of the puzzles are illogical, and require tinkering with switches until something happens. Sometimes there are hints, but they are generally so vague, that it is easy for a gamer to miss them. Another thing which greatly annoyed me was there were a few parts in the game where if the player didn't find an item (like a screwdriver) and they later progressed through the game and found out they couldn't go back to get the item, they were pretty much dead. I HATE puzzles like that, especially if the gamer is just wandering around and can't figure out what went wrong because the player never found a particular item, or didn't write down a particular code. There was hardly a moment during this game where I pondered through a puzzle, and a nice big light bulb went off in my head and I would say 'that was a clever puzzle'. If you want a decent adventure game, go find an old Sierra game, ANY of them provide more entertainment and better game play than The Crystal Key did. If this is the future of adventure games, then maybe adventure games should roll over and remain dormant until the big players like LucasArts or Sierra decide to come out with more adventure games.

Pros:Beautiful rendered scenes (when they aren't so dark that you can hardly see them). Made for both PC AND Macs, so that earns another couple of bonus points. Also, it's an adventure game, so that earns a few brownie points. The game was fairly short, so it wasn't TOO painful, and it cost only ... I've read about bug problems on the PC, but it worked with absolutely no problems on my G4 Tower Mac.

Cons: Some of the scenes (like on Ozgar's mothership) are so dark that it is very difficult to see what is going on. Nearly all of the puzzles are highly unintuitive, and involves plenty of poking around until something works. Sometimes objects are difficult to even find, and require more poking and prodding than most people would like to spend time on. Also, this game is very linear, so if you get stuck on a puzzle, you are stuck for good until that puzzle is solved. And one pet peeve I have with all games that just jump from screen to screen like Myst and The Crystal Key, is this is a very lazy attempt, and moving about like this might have been okay in 1984, but it wasn't acceptable in 1994, and it is certainly NOT acceptable today. For the ending note, the ending is very, very, VERY lackluster, and just shows a screen that says congratulations. Very disappointing ending if that was it. No fanfare, no party, not even a Golden Mop as a token of appreciation!

An Absorbing, Cohesive Experience

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: September 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

A colony has suddenly evacuated its cities in order to avoid the wrath of an angry Ozgar. The player's object is to locate Ozgar and stop him before he destroys this planet. The colonists have developed a remarkable technology for hypertravel from one world to another. Through the course of the game, the player gains control of this technology in order to find and defeat Ozgar.

By virtue of this narrative, the player is afforded the opportunity to jump freely (after gaining the technology) from any of four worlds. The worlds are quite disparate and very beautifully rendered. It does take some time and effort to obtain the technology, but the process of doing so is engaging, interesting, logical, and rewarding.

There are very few non-player character interactions. In fact, in most cases an encounter with another character usually means trouble--some encounters result in a sudden "game over". This game, consequently, is a very solitary experience, with very little dialogue and with most clues being found intuitively and through exploration. I enjoyed this aspect of the game very much. Some reviewers have felt that the sudden "game over" encounters were unnecessary and distracting. Perhaps, but if you save often (as you should anyway), you can easily return to the gameplay, and the game makes it fairly clear fairly quickly that you should avoid ALL beings. Once the first serious encounter is made, the player is fairly well clued in that nothing about these worlds is particularly friendly.

The scenery is just splendid. The worlds are very different--one lush and green, one arid and dry, one partially submerged underwater (and in which the player enters one building and goes several floors down beneath the surface of the water outside). The player's progress is extremely linear--most things must be done in a particular order, and in some cases the player may be significantly hindered if she has missed some element. However, the ease with which the player may jump from world to world more than makes up for the linearity. Exploration is multidimensional in this regard.

Toward the end, I did find it necessary to go to a walkthrough online. The puzzles became to some degree inhibitive rather than contributing to the game experience. Once solved (by cheating a little), the storyline and graphics were rewarding enough for me to forgive myself my indiscretion. The final puzzle, I must agree with other reviewers, is unnecessarily convoluted and the end is rather seriously truncated. In this way, I was a little disappointed.

I give this game four stars for its creative way of mitigating the problem of linearity by giving the player free rein (after gaining the technology) to explore several beautiful worlds; for its inventive artwork in rendering the worlds; for its pensive, solitary feel; and for its science fictional (as opposed to fantasy) concept. I give this game no more than four stars because I sense that it was cut short, because the linearity sometimes interferes with how much exploration the player may engage in each world, and because I felt it necessary to turn to walkthroughs in order to complete the game. All in all, I come away from The Crystal Key feeling mainly that I spent my time well in these worlds.

Good beginning, [bad] ending

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: March 27, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I actually really liked this game -- or most of it. The scenery was beautifully rendered and the locations were interesting. The story line was not really very compelling, however. It was more of a reason to put you in the game in the first place than a driving factor, but that didn't bother me too much. I also liked the puzzles, many of which involved lateral thinking and looking around the environments for hidden clues.

However. There were an awful lot of bugs in this game and it crashed frequently. And it seemed that just when things were starting to get interesting, it was over. The ending was abrupt and dissatisfying.

If you're jonesing for an adventure game, go ahead and play it because there are many enjoyable moments. But you might want to borrow a friend's copy rather than buy it.

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