User Reviews (1 - 11 of 15)

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Recommend this game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 03, 2008
Author: Amazon User

My husband and I just played this game. The graphics and sound are good. The puzzles are fun. We cheated on a couple since we didn't want to spend too much time on them. Most puzzles and tasks are logically accomplished.

Gets dull pretty quick

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: September 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I played the demo for this game and really enjoyed it. That lead me to buy the full version. Unfortunately, I found that the demo was the most enjoyable level of the game. The level of detail is wonderful and you really feel like you are there in DaVinci's manor (as much as the point and click interface will allow).

But ... after level one, you start to feel like you are the handy fix-it-up man around the house. You start fixing things. Which, to me at least.. can get a little dull. You also start collecting ingredients. There are many times where you have to combine several collected ingredients. Those and mechanical puzzles tend to not be my cup of tea.

After level one, I just was not enjoying my experience with this game. Everything takes place within the same house and surrounding area too. A little diversion would have been ok. I just didn't feel compelled to continue on. It gets pretty dull, in my opinion.

Fantastic

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: July 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Secrets of Da Vinci is another game from Kheops Studio, the producers of Return to Mysterious Island. You play Valdo, a young artist (and occasional forger) who has been hired to Chateau Amboise in France to find a codex that Leonardo da Vinci left there on his deathbed.

Like RtoMI, the game is entirely non-linear and it all takes place in the chateau or on the chateau grounds. There's a lot of inventory to pick up and a great mix of puzzles--mostly logic. Oh, and you can act either "angelic" or "diabolic" to change how some of the characters respond to you.

There are two different endings, depending on how nicely you want to play with the chatelaine of the chateau. I mean that literally--I think the game is rated E but to advance you have to seduce the lady, and there's a cutscene sketch of the two of you in bed together. It's not dirty, but I was a little surprised that they actually showed it.

Overall, Secrets of da Vinci was fantastic, and I can't wait for the next Kheops game to come out (Cleopatra, which is already out in France and should be released in English in a few months).

Can't get it to work

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: June 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Bought the game, it won't load properly. My computer is new! I'm very disappointed. Be very careful about ordering this game. I wouldn't give it any stars but I have to.

Video games that build your mind and feed your imagination

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: May 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

It was a bit of a rough buggy ride actually getting this game shipped but I did finally get it after way too long of a wait.

The game installation was a little rocky as well it failed several times. I just kept installing it over and over into the same directories until it finally worked. The 3rd time was a charm for me anyway. After this it worked great and I played it for days sitting on the taskbar. Toggling back and forth between programs in windows XP was no problem.

This game is a fantasic adventure game with riddles and puzzles at every turn. It really makes you truely understand how the scientific knowledge Da Vinci experimented with truely a man before his time. The player experiences this technology and lives it within the game. All to complete a great quest for science and the greater good.

Smooth animations and transitions in game were never a problem. No choppy movement in the game even after running for 24 hours. I do have a 3 Gz CPU with 2 GB of Ram and a 256MB AGP card however. The game uses bout a 1.5 GB of space on hard disk for installation. Game is played with the mouse only the keyboard is not needed for great game playing experience.

The game was so immersive and entertaining that it played pretty fast. It was over after only a few days. The game has 4 possible outcomes with several ways of getting to the end. A great concept for a game but, the only drawback is prolly that the world of the game could have been bigger. More Quests, more locations, more puzzles just more...
Maybe Secrets of Da Vinci Code 2 ???

Over all a great game that's certainly worth seeing.

DaVinci weaves a code

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: March 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you like puzzles and mysteries, then this game is for you. Challenging and fun.

Pour yourself a glass of Sauvignon, and let the game do the rest...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: February 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

As a fan of the role-playing, mystery/puzzle solving genre, I must say this game is outstanding on all counts.

I am often irritated when playing games in said genre at the lack of a coherent, reasoned story arch. It often seems that the designers force together inconsistent concepts resulting in a kind of patchwork quilt plot, and me having no clue what I have just done.

Not so with this game.

The storyline was engaging, enlightening, and solid. The graphics were beautiful, unique, and true to the period. There were no in-game display options, but I played it on a widescreen LCD and everything looked fantastic. The ambient music had a classical/medieval twist that was pleasant and served to further draw me into the period. The voice acting was also impressive, suggesting to the player that much effort was invested by the designers in this crucial and often overlooked element.

I also enjoyed the puzzles, all of which were logical without any annoying pixel hunting. Whenever I was stuck, I would quit, do something else, and it would not be long before some solutions popped into my head. There was one puzzle towards the end involving a painting of the Mona Lisa which required more manual, random clicking than thought, but nonetheless solvable.
I would compare this game to the Syberia and Agatha Christie series.

Here's hoping for a sequel!

Very fun and interesting

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: January 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Very fun game....a couple quirks but overall it is a good adventure game.

Excellent! I really enjoyed it!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: January 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I read some of the reviews about this game and decided to buy the game. I thought the game was great. I have found a lot of adventure games are too challenging for me. I enjoy the level of the Nancy Drew series. Well, this one was not overly difficult where I had to find a cheat website on it. It was challenging enough for me to get stuck, then come back to it and figure it out. I also like the way the game can have different outcomes because of your conscience. I recommend it for those who like the the Nancy Drew series also.

A Nice Surprise

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 18 / 18
Date: November 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I was surprised by this game. When I bought it, I was desperate for a new adventure game so I decided to give this one a try. I lucked out. This game was actually clever and interesting and had several different endings depending on certain choices you make near the latter part of the game (If you buy it, make several distinct saves during the last quarter of the game.). The main activities in the game are exploring DaVinci's villa and making his devices work in order to progress through the game. Don't be put off though, the puzzles aren't too difficult and most of the time you know what you should be doing. This game has a sound storyline and the puzzles fit nicely into the story. There are no mazes or slider puzzles and you don't have to incinerate any zombies.

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