 |
|
CG rating |
The Bad
- Intuitive interface
- The journal clue system
- Dubious humor
- Unimpressive story
- The voice-acting
- Nothing new in the puzzle department
Review
Released by Adventure Soft in 1993 and 1995, the first two games from the Simon the Sorcerer series were very appreciated by adventure fans. Their humor was compared to the one in the Monkey Island series, an extraordinary thing if taking into consideration the fact that this was the period of maximum prosperity for the adventure games.
But not even this genre has escaped the painful transition towards the 3D age, one of the important victims being Simon the Sorcerer 3D, released in 2002. Although the story, the gameplay and the humor sometimes rivaled that of to the first two titles, Simon the Sorcerer 3D suffered because its interface, and especially because of the absolute hideous graphic the made the characters look like a pile of colored polygons. Therefore, the adventure fans have waited suspiciously for the release of the fourth game series, this time developed by Silver Style Entertainment.
The story of Simon the Sorcerer 4: Chaos Happens takes place a few years after the events in Simon the Sorcerer 3D. After an argument with his younger brother, Simon is hit by a remote control and, while he is unconscious, he finds out that the Magic Kingdom is once more in danger and is about to lose Alix's affection, Calypso's daughter, characters well-known by the series fans. Just like the other three parts, the humor is both of situation and language.
For the first case, the most convincing example is a modified version of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy-tale: an extremely spoilt girl who doesn’t hesitate to protect her feminist convictions by using a pepper spray, a father completely under the thumb of one's mother, a truly annoying grandmother, an alcoholic wolf, and a depressed... chicken.
The language humor belongs almost entirely to Simon who even here shows a lot of sarcasm, (self) irony and cynicism, plus other allusions, more or less malicious, to other games (Diablo, Harry Potter), the adventure genre, even related to the third part of the series ("I have good reasons not to remember my adventures in Simon the Sorcerer 3D"). Unfortunately, the humor is pretty thin. It has a few memorable phases that can pull more that open smiles, but in general it has childish jokes and retorts, being a true insult to the player's intelligence.
 |
 |
 |
 |
On the other hand, Simon's answers sometimes contain clues for solving quests. As well as any other adventure game, there are three types of puzzles: some based on the player's common sense, those being the easiest. In the second category fall the ones that are related to the manner in which the story takes place. So their difficulty varies, depending on how familiar you are with the Simon the Sorcerer universe. And in the third category we have the puzzles which demand either a very big experience with adventure games, or a random combination of the objects in the inventory.
The good part is that some puzzles are "local"; they only need the objects from the scenes belonging to the place in which the puzzle was started. Moreover, the story is linear, so you will never have to solve more than 3-4 quests at a time. Secondly, Simon the Sorcerer 4 is a game that exclusively uses the mouse, so the actions are context sensitive, depending on the environment.
Therefore, you won’t need to scan in detail every scene to be sure that you haven't overlooked important objects or their description, which can provide information on the puzzles. Also, the moment you get the game map, travel between locations will be made instantly, saving you precious time.
Thirdly, there is a diary which keeps track of all quests, both complete and incomplete. When you don't know how to solve a puzzle, you can get a maximum three clues with the help of the diary, some more clear than other, but generally useful.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Three things need to be mentioned here. One, you can never "fail" a quest, so you won't have to worry if a puzzle remains unsolved for a longer period of time. It doesn't mean you've done something wrong, but that you first need to solve the secondary puzzles to complete the main one.
Second, no matter how often you resort to these clues, the end of the game is the same and you will not be rewarded in any way for succeeding to finish it without any help. Also note that Simon the Sorcerer 4 being a game who uses the mouse exclusively, there are no shortcuts on the keyboard, so every time you want to access the diary you must press ESC.
And third, to see the content of the inventory (Simon’s hat) it's enough to move the cursor to the bottom of the screen, which, on the other hand, disturbs the movement of Simon when he must cross a scene from top to bottom.
When referring to the technical part, the graphics is often more than decent: fluid animations, nicely drawn backgrounds, a color palette of good taste and, in the good tradition of the series, with slightly curved lines where there should be straight ones (like World of Warcraft). Not even the music is disturbing - it's mixed with often periods of silence, so it doesn't become annoying (but it can get boring at some point).
 |
 |
 |
 |
The voices however will seriously test your patience. I wasn't irritated by the fact that the lip-sync is absent, but because the dialog lines are told either in a manner that lacks tonality, or with a serious overdose of pomposity. At the same time, as well as in other cases of games in which the story is written in other language than English, sometimes the voices don't match the text on-screen, which may also contain grammatical mistakes.
The most disturbing thing in this regard is Simon's voice. From the awkward introduction, as presentation and dialogs, you realize that something awful has happened with the main character's voice, which was one of the defining characteristic of the series.
First, it’s American, and every series fan knows that Simon is British. Secondly, Simon speaks as if he were 10 years old. Therefore, it's no wonder that many lines lose their savor - it's disturbing to hear a child’s voice trying to tell a joke whose content is for adults only.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Drawing a line, Simon the Sorcerer 4: Chaos Happens is a game created especially for the fans traumatized by the failure called Simon the Sorcerer 3D. Those who like adventures in general won’t get too much quality humor, though other recently released similar titles excel in that aspect.
We can only hope that Mike and Simon Woodroffe, who have financed Adventure Soft and contributed to its creation, will be more involved in the development of a fifth part.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Comments [Add a new comment]
| Yes | |
 | 59% |
| No | |
 | 27% |
| Haven't decided | |
 | 14% |
Total: 1666 votes
^ Top ^