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Once you reach the human colony, the difficulty eases up. Most of your time in the colony is spent walking around, talking to the inhabitants. Actually, most of your time in the colony is spent just walking around. The inhabitants move around a lot. So, you must seek out key people, then get them to talk to you. Most will only talk to you in specific locations, so once you get their attention you must walk again, this time to whatever predetermined locale they feel safe in. It wouldn't be so bad if the colony didn't have so many rooms. Worse still, Walker lives up to his name. There's no way to run, and so you must wait for his slow-as-molasses gait to carry him from one side of the screen to the next.
At the colony, you'll learn about the previously mentioned abductions, as well as some history about the aliens, their technology, and, to a lesser degree, the story of the Ward. There doesn't seem to be much of a story behind the Ward, other than that he's legendary. Even so, the rest of the story in the game is generally intriguing, particularly the bit about the drones and the memory replacement. Unfortunately, these ideas are presented as a series of brightly colored sentences told to you matter-of-factly while you're standing around in bland rooms. As such, it's hard not to imagine a better game, telling the same exact story from a different perspective. The one-dimensional characters themselves don't add much to the ambiance of The Ward, as they have an emotional range that seems to be stuck somewhere between sarcastic and hostile.
The colony isn't all dialogue. There are a few puzzles, some of which are good. Unfortunately, the majority of them are slider puzzles. Apparently, the advanced technology of a race called the masters (the precursors to the grays and reptoids) didn't include any means of securing cabinets. There are several slider puzzles, and what's worse is that there's no way you can solve them without a key--a picture diagramming what the final outcome should look like. The keys can be less than helpful, and they are often creative interpretations of the final picture. There's also a very restrictive time limit on some of the puzzles, which makes them even more frustrating.
The Ward has some good ideas. It has some good puzzles and some interesting points in its story. But these moments only punctuate a very bland game. There are no voice-overs and the graphics are dated. If the story unfolded in a more exciting manner, these problems would be less obvious. But as it is, The Ward is like sitting at a boring party, listening to charmless people drone on and on about fantastic, faraway places.
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