Titanic: Adventure out of Time (PC)

Reviewed by

T. McDonald

on 11/15/1996

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Page 2

But that's not the real purpose: the adventure game is. And it's here that CyberFlix runs into problems from their past titles, most notably Dust. Their Dream Factory tool set allows the developers to create environments and populate them with "people" that are in effect digital sock puppets. Using a sequence of still photos of actors, they overlay expressions and mouth movements Clutch Cargo-like. (What game reviewers would do without the venerable Clutch as an insult I shudder to think.) The effect is...ineffective. Characters' heads twitch and grimace and talk at you like demented animatrons from the Hall of Presidents at Disney. The system allows writers to create and refine character dialog better than if they just shot and digitized video, which makes for more interactive exchanges. But visually it just doesn't work.

This is a pretty big problem, since a lot of game time and play is based around lengthy (veeeeery lengthy) dialogs with characters. There are a couple dozen characters to talk to, and they will give you clues, help with your mission, and send you spinning into all sorts of subplots, from the Irish maid and her illegitimate baby to the bad steel that may be in the Titanic. Social climbers, bon vivants, third class characters, aristocracy, businessmen, and other spies abound, and there is plenty to learn. I enjoyed exploring despite the twitching, talking heads, but after a time the protracted dialog sequences became tiresome. As interesting as some of these quirky characters can be, I simply got sick of hearing them yatter on.

Aside from talking to people, there are also objects to pick up and use to help solve puzzles and advance the story. For the traditional adventure gamer, there is not nearly enough of this, however, and the inventory management system makes what there is somewhat cumbersome. You'll find yourself running around the ship on a long list of errands and subplots, but most involve dialog sequences, not real puzzle solving. (Thankfully, you can hop from place to place using a map.)

Once you get through all these plots, you come to the actual point where the ship hits the iceberg. From then to the end of the game, you are racing against the clock to perform a number of tasks before the ship sinks, or your mission will fail. This part of the game can be a bit frustrating. I normally don't care for time limits in adventure games (they're just an artificial attempt to lengthen play time while you go through the sequence time and again), but it works okay here and fits nicely with the story. After all, if the ship were sinking, you'd have to hie your ass pretty damn fast to get things done.

Is Titanic a good game? Yes and no. Yes, there is an interesting story, a visually sumptuous and often thrilling re-creation of the ship, and much to do and see. But a disproportionate amount of time is taken up watching twitchy talking heads natter endlessly. How much you enjoy it will depend on how much you like interactive dialog. I was willing to go along with CyberFlix on this journey because they had a worthwhile tale to tell, but it certainly tried my patience at times.