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Crystal Clearly Superior

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 66 / 71
Date: February 06, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Pros:

1. Beautiful, immersive, atmospheric worlds. Monumental architecture. Eerie music. Breathtaking cut-scenes. Ugly, creepy arch-villain.

2. For the most part, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to solve the puzzles.

3. Great high-tech tools to use, impressive vehicles to drive and fly, creative use of everyday objects. When you pick items up, they zoom off the screen into your inventory with a whooshing sound. The inventory feature is exceptionally easy to use.

Cons:

1. Some locations are too dark and murky. I suggest that for the very dark places, you might want to adjust the brightness/contrast on your monitor to make it easier to locate the hidden goodies.

2. Some mechanical levers/controls respond correctly only if you move the mouse VERY slowly.

3. The game crashed a couple of times, and I never was able to get autoplay to work.

Bottom line: A superior, very entertaining adventure marred slightly by minor glitches.

Less impressed

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: February 29, 2000
Author: Amazon User

White I agree with the first reviewers accessment, for the most part, I found some of the puzzles quite arbitrary. Who'd think of using a radio to (oops), well, do THAT. I never did find the lever near the spaceship because it was so dark; I had to cheat. The only hint that a certain tool has to be used again is that it stays with you; figuring out what it has to be used on and where is extremely obscure.

When the graphics are good, they are almost great; but when they are bad, they are awful.

Take into account that I play few games. I loved Myst and Riven and solved both. When I got stuck, I could always think of something logical, or at least not totally random, to try. I've played several others of the same sort. Crystal Key is the worst of the lot (thought at $20 also the cheapest).

It would not run on a Mac PPC9500 on 8.1. It did run fine on a new (gold keyboard) PowerBook. It hung on an IBM ThinkPad 760e (Win95).

Not Happy

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 5
Date: March 11, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Been to tech support many times to try to load this game. They were of no help to us. Our PC has all the requirements although no success loading. Has anyone else had this problem? Money not well spent.

Falls Short

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 26 / 28
Date: March 14, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game, in the tradition of Myst and Riven, has appealing environments, reasonably challenging puzzles and a solid storyline, and is ultimately fun to play. Unlike Myst and Riven, Crystal Key offers a 3-D environment to navigate via Quicktime movies rather than clicking through two-dimensional snapshots. There are some disappointments, however. Graphics quality is uneven, and while I avoided serious difficulties the software does seem to contain some bugs. The soundtrack has some pleasing snippets of music, but clearly the producers didn't bother putting together much of a musical score. The interface, while easy to use, reveals some solutions through its highlighting of "hot spots" on the screen. The end of the game lacks the payoff sequence you'd hope to see after spending all those hours working through the puzzles and saving the world. Ultimately, one has some sense that this is basically an unfinished product, but at the price offered, its not a bad value.

Disappointing

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: April 05, 2000
Author: Amazon User

As an avid adventure gamer, I found the plot to be less than intriguing and the puzzles to be simplistic and random. Graphics were way too dark, and having to go back to different worlds to pick up items frustrating. I give it a BIG YAWN!

The Crystal Key! (well Done)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: April 12, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I really liked the game. The puzzles are hard, but thats the reason why we buy the games. To let are minds work! But the game Puzzles might be to hard on some people, so i think you should give out HINTS or maybe some cheats for people not to get frustrated, and maybe they'll buy more of your games.

Disappointing

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: April 22, 2000
Author: Amazon User

The Crystal Key does have some beautiful graphics but moves very slow. Way too many bugs still in software. Does not even compare with Myst or Riven by any stretch of the imagination. I finally gave up after crashing too many times to count.

Short and dark

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 25, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I'm not that experienced with adventure/puzzle games, but I do know what I like. I like to be able to see. Maybe it's my eyes or the fact that I play games on a laptop, but this game seemed particularly dark to me. I couldn't find several items except by the "braille" method.

However, it's nice to have the puzzles related to the storyline and not just thrust in front of you because a puzzle seems needed ("I need to use the restroom." "I'm sorry, but you'll have to solve this crossword first.").

The story seemed a bit short. I confess to using a cheat or two, but I don't think doing that sped up the time that much.

You get what you pay for...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: May 01, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Granted, the pictures and graphics are good, but the storyline could have been a lot richer - I felt like I was missing out on a large part of the story - the puzzles were good 9 there was a real-world logic about them, but DO NOT expect an exciting ending...considering how cheap it was, I'm not surprised.

Good First Attempt

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 16
Date: May 04, 2000
Author: Amazon User

It's been a while since I have picked up a Myst clone that has kept me interested. (Riven was the last, and it was also by Cyan.) While the game is sometimes slow and unintuitive, Dreamcatcher Interactive shows promise in this genre of games. Many of the bugs mentioned by afore reviewers have been ironed out, and some limited keyboard commands have been added for saving and quitting. The puzzels range from simple to confounding, and the worlds are well rendered. The only element that is missing is a sense of culture and identity to these worlds, but someone may not necessarily miss that in a game. It's only twenty bucks SRP, and worth the ride if you are a persistant and patient gamer. Diehard fans of 3D shooters may loose their patience, but people who love to delve into unexplored worlds should find The Crystal Key a satisfying experience.

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