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So boring and incredibly dull ....

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 19
Date: April 10, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This has got to be one of the most boring pc games I have ever played. It's really tough to keep your attention up in order to keep playing it. This was so not what I expected this game to be like.

It's a typical third person point and click where you click an arrow for your character to slowly move from one area to another, unless you double click the arrow. The characters are cartoony-like with not much detail to them at all and their movements are very, very robotic and slow. The main character also acts like nothing scares him at all. He just seems intrigued by everything. There are also several conversations where you must select from a list of things to talk about and these conversations could easily lull you to sleep.

This game is incredibly slow paced. I mean really slow paced. And, the worst part of it all is that the game is really not scary. The bad third person character animations, the long dull conversations, the main character's reactions to everything, the incredibly slow pace, the bad voice acting of the other characters, and the complete lack of a scare factor all add up to one not very enjoyable gaming experience. If you want a truly scary adventure pc game, try Darkness Within or Penumbra Black Plague instead.

don't bother

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 11
Date: March 24, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Stupid, boring, boring, boring. I've been waiting for this game,esp. after all the 5 star reviews. What a waste. Looks cheap, you can't click past dialog you've already done and the character says the same thing in the same places every time. The worst offence is that it's not the least bit scary or atmospheric. Dark Fall was creepier. The main character is annoying to boot. A waste of 29.99. Going back to Loath Nolder which has much better sound effects, real options you can manipulate, and in first person, much creepier.

games never delivered

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: April 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Can not rate what i never recieved after 3 months it was suppose to ship

Couldn't get game to work on Vista

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: May 22, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Because the game didn't work the first time, we sent it back to Amazon and they sent a replacement immediately. Unfortunately, we couldn't get that one to work, either, on our Vista operating system of our pc. Wrote to the company that put out the game to see if they had a suggestion, but they never responded. We are very disappointed overall, as this title looks quite interesting. We can't recommend this game for any pc owners using the Vista operating system. Would have been nice to have gotten some communication from the game manufacturer. It's not like it's difficult to answer email, people! Poor customer service from the manufacturer, but at least Amazon tried.

Tech Support Unresponsive

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: June 03, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Despite the fact that my system exceeds all the stated requirement, the game would not load properly. The manual gives an email address for tech support however repeated emails never rendered a response.

Decent Story and not much else:

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: March 27, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I agree with the guy who said that the game is boring and not scary. I also played Darkness Within last month and finished the game. My thoughts are that if you want a creepy - scary game play it instead. If you want a decent story with heavy British accents play Lost Crown. I however perfer DW over this title that is not the least bit scary nor exciting.

Pretty cool game but needs to be scarier.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: March 17, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The town of Saxton is interesting and well laid out. The ghosts and mysteries are both sad and interesting and I like the main story. But for a horror game it needs a few more moments that make you jump a bit. Somehow Dark Fall 1 which was a much smaller and somewhat simpiler game had more atmosphere. probably the sound track. That said its well worth playing, with solid programming and only one minor bug so far.

A must for ghost hunter enthusiasts

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: April 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game was on my want list for awhile after I saw news of it on-line. After getting it, I'm highly pleased at the outcome. If you are, like me, a paranormal investigator (when time and people allow that is), then "The Lost Crown" is a must-own for your collection of books, games and videos. I've played through "Dark Fall: The Journal", "Barrow Hill" and most of "Scratches" (still haven't completed that one yet. The cellar music alone will freak you out for quite awhile. Perfect for any Halloween haunted house setup), but "Lost Crown" is the best in the subject of history, characters, locations, imagery, music, sound effects and, most importantly, spectral phenomena (be it EVP, photo or video).

I've seen many state that this is a "very boring game". It all depends on your style of gaming. Sure, "Lost Crown" is slow in pace, but I like that. This isn't a shooter, it's an investigative journey filled with tons of fascinating data about the real town of Saxon. The three games I mentioned before weren't fast-paced either, but that did not make them bad. On the contrary, a slower pace creates more tension in the story. Granted, I would like to have been able to make Nigel run, but the double-click feature of quick jumping to the next location while moving is very handy.

Graphically, the game is beautifully done. Even though the views are all in black and white, with sparse coloring of objects here and there, this adds a film noir kind of look to the places. The use of real photography makes the environments much more realistic and enjoyable to experience. I've made a bunch of great desktop wallpapers from some locations (taking Nigel out of the images, of course). Would have been nice to see more 3D insects and animal life additions to the scenes though. There are some here and there, like the seagulls and cats in town or the ravens of Northfield church or the horses of the Ager's homestead, but more would have been better.

Character wise, the third-person perspective of everyone is another well-done addition. Normally you spend the whole game in first-person POV with titles like this. You do have segments of this style in "Lost Crown", but it is mainly used for when you look at objects. A slightly negative point for me concerns the moving of the 3D characters. Sure, this isn't a title that has had thousands of dollars spent on its creation, but everyone could have been less robotic their movements. Other games with characters of less detail have moved more smoothly and swiftly than those in "Lost Crown". It shouldn't have been all that hard to do give them accurate turning and walking fluidity.

Another con concerns the maps. You obtain two in the game - one of the town and the other for the countryside (from a photo taken in the museum). Most games that I have played over the years normally gave you the ability to click on a map location and instantly jump there. That isn't the case with "Lost Crown". Nigel must travel everywhere on foot, no short cuts (except for a few location skips later in the game, but they are involuntary). This makes it slow going when you want to get somewhere quickly. It's not a nasty negative, just slightly annoying.

On the subject of sound, the game makes really good use of it. The music isn't irritating and fits every scene it is used perfectly. As Michail mentioned in his review, turning the music off doesn't take away from the spooky atmosphere of the locations since the sound effects fill in the gap nicely. Now, my one big complaint concerns the voice acting. It's not bad, but it isn't good either. Most of the time, you feel like they are trying to read the subtitles slowly while talking. I keep wanting to yell like a director and say "Talk faster! Put more realism in your voice!" Tonal inflections of emotions during conversations are not always done well. I wonder if the Darkling Room creators just had office personal do the characters. Again, the voice acting isn't awful, but it sure needs some energy put into it.

Now I come to the part that grabbed my interest in the game from the start. Ghosts. Yes, this title does them justice and in realistic ways. The spirit photography taken at locations looks amazingly accurate, the EVPs are really, really good (I should know, since that is my speciality and have hundreds of personally recorded, crystal-clear examples in my collection) and the Night-Shot Infrared Camera POV is spot-on accurate (expect for the scan line, but that's supposed to be something Haddon Industries did to enhance the camera). There are some definite creepy segments while out ghost hunting, like the dark spirit attack on the train rails and when the spirit walks out of the locked room in the museum after viewing the video of the town. Other games only use sound effects and moving objects to startle you. "Lost Crown" brings both of those and excellent ghost effects as well. Now, I don't agree with Michail when it comes to Nigel's enthusiasm on searching out the spectral places of the town and countryside. The character reminds me a lot of myself, for I am like that. :) Michail says, "If I knew that the place I wondered around was haunted and there were evil ghosts everywhere kidnapping cats, I 'd get my a$$ outta there ASAP, not stay and even sleep in it!" Well, that's your viewpoint, definitely not mine. If a place is haunted, that just makes me even more excited to check it out, even if a sleep over is needed. Not alone, of course. You should also have a partner or more with you when doing an investigation, for safety, in case of an accident and help with various equipment.

Though the ghostly aspects of the game were the real draw for me, I have found learning about the history of Saxon and other knowledge obtained about it very, very interesting. Until I played "The Lost Crown", I wasn't aware that nearly every location in it was a real place. This really makes the game special, like a virtual trip to a city you might never get a chance to visit. Another reason why virtual city games like "Driver3" (yes, it was poorly done, but the cities were accurate and fun to drive/walk around in), "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and San Andreas" (more so GTA4) and other titles of similar style are fun to explore. But, in the case of "The Lost Crown", you are learning and visiting a real place that is graphically displayed in accurate details.

In conclusion, "The Lost Crown" is a very enjoyable game that is leaps ahead of other titles with similar stories of paranormal activity and exploration. The length of it is also a plus in my book. Whereas the three games I mentioned before were fun, they were also very short. If you like a slow paced ghost investigation game with real history intertwined throughout the story as you explore real locations, then "The Lost Crown" is for you.

Lots of game and art to enjoy - abrupt ending though

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: May 20, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Know that I love to watch people play point-and-click games because I love the graphics and like the feel of the game being like a movie. I buy point and clicks so that both my wife and I can enjoy them. We also like a game that has a good mystery and a jump factor like any good thriller should. The lost crown does have a cohesive and `long' storyline. The only problem that I found is that the back-tracking and picking up clues is a little over the top. There was only 1 point where my wife and I jumped (no spoilers here) and the characters for the most part were well done. For sure well worth the price simply for the length of the game if not the beautiful landscapes displayed. Note, the environment is black and white which is a little much to get used to, but I for one love black & white photography, so it was a pleasant surprise with the implementation of watching the main character travel through the beauty displayed.

Here's how I conducted my start rating:
1) Pretty good scripting & dialog, the voice acting was well done
2) Graphics performed well, the implementation of actual black & white photo's was fun
3) Overall performance of the game to include installation was solid (only one glitch)
4) Storyline was good, long, but extremely convoluted; hard to keep track of, disappointing ending. Nixed a star over this point.
5) Clues, hints, and adaptability for the most part easy to follow (having a walkthrough will greatly help)

In the end, both my wife and I were not satisfied with the ending; however we did feel that we got what we paid for when it comes to game content and graphical eye-candy. I would for sure encourage other's to check out the game; in no way did we feel disappointed in paying $30 for this game.

Scary enough for me!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Just to respond to the negative reviews which generally speaking find two main flaws - the game isn't very frightening and its too slow going.

On the scary factor, this is going to be very subjective because different people have different reactions to supposedly supernatural events. Maybe I am very easily frightened but playing this game in a darkened room there were several moments that made my heart race. One was when you are using the camera in Northfield church and the wandering spirit of Thomas Ager pauses to stare straight at you while doing his 'rounds'.(Those eyes!). Another was in the museum where the silence in the butterfly collection room gets shattered for just a couple of seconds by some shadowy figure clumping from one room to another. Just finding out how many of the 'people' you interact with are actually dead caused me to freak out a little too. On the other hand,the spirits that you need to ward off with a special charm on the railway track weren't particularly frightening, as it didn't appear that they could harm you at all.

So we've established that I am a scaredy cat, what about the pace of the game? Once you have mapped out the game in your head (the actual maps provided don't let you teleport to anywhere) it doesn't really take long to get from one location to another and I didn't find any of the conversations to be too long winded or irrelevant, certainly compared to other games in this genre. The voice acting it has to be said, is generally abysmal, you can tell there isn't a single trained actor doing any of the voices and Mr Boakes himself is appalling as the main character. Not since fifth grade high school have I heard such misplaced emphasis on unimportant phrases,lack of inflection and badly timed pauses in the reading of a script.

My main gripe with the game is that there so many unanswered questions at the end. Yes, you find what you were supposed to be looking for and yes, you clear up a few supernatural mysteries related to the lost souls that inhabit Saxton, but nothing explains why Danvers ended up there in the first place or who the mysterious Mr Haddon and his corporation are and why he is so concerned that the lost crown should be found.

I only gave it 3 stars for 'FUN' because it wasn't fun listening to the dialogues and I genuinely found some parts of the game disturbing. 4 stars overall though because it looks great, is easy to play, lasts a long time and has a story with numerous sub-plots that draws you along until the rather disappointing ending.

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