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Amerzone | List Price: $29.99
Discount Price: $8.69
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Platform: Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 95
Brand: UBI Soft
Binding: CD-ROM
ESRB Age Rating: Everyone
Amerzone=amerzing! [Posted on 2001-04-10]
I have read several negative reviews of Amerzone, but after playing it several times these are my impressions. When I first saw the cold grey windswept coast of Brittany I was amazed. I could hear the wind whipping against the rocks, and could almost feel the sea spray. The grey clouds were very low and threatening, and the crash of the waves could have easily been thunder. The interface was very easy to learn. I had trouble seeing in darker areas inside the lighthouse even when my monitor was set to 100% brightness, but that was the only trouble spot. I was glad to get on the way to Amerzone, finding the first level a tad colourless and boring. The puzzles were of medium difficulty, based more on surroundings than on some obscure facts or useless trivia à la Riven. The game is simply chock full of detail, right down to props. My Casablanca-loving friend was thrilled to see that movie poster on the wall in the boat bar (did you catch it as well?). But my favourite part was the animals, plant life, and insects of Amerzone. The journal was full of watercolour sketches of different birds, insects and animals that lived in the Amerzone jungle as well as sketches of the native tribe that lived there. I tried to find all of the species in the jungle, and was missing only one. I only encountered one native woman in the Amerzone, along with a guard and a priest, but you can definitely feel the presence of many, many others. The Spanish village was a nice touch, as was the broadcast in Spanish by the Amerzone dictator. Everything felt totally authentic, and I wanted to book a flight down there for a week or two. There is not much in the way of music, but sound effects are abundant and very well done. There are often several layers of sound for a single location, such as water lapping, trees creaking, insects buzzing, foreign birdcalls, and strange grunts and snorts from unknown animals. The 360 degree panning was excellent and reminded me of "Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time" although in all honesty the graphics are sharper in Amerzone. The backgrounds are photorealistic watercolours for the most part, and the characters are more cartoonlike and stylized. The animation quality was top notch as well. Unlike some, I do not dislike the ending. I thought it was more realistic, more true to the world of the Amerzone and the effects of Spanish colonization and an opressed people. It is not a fairy tale ending by any means but it does provide closure to your mission. Amerzone was an experience from the beginning to the end. True, gameplay was short, but the beautiful locations and thoughtful, engaging storyline should make up for it. Amerzone is becoming increasingly harder to find, and if you can find a copy and you enjoy games along the lines of Riven and Myst don't pass this one up.
Great Game [Posted on 2001-07-20]
I loved this game even though it was short the storyline was great and i think it deserves more than 3 stars. I think this game has wonderful graphics and it was great how you had some envolvement with the animals. Worth getting
Great Game [Posted on 2001-07-20]
I loved this game even though it was short the storyline was great and i think it deserves more than 3 stars. I think this game has wonderful graphics and it was great how you had some envolvement with the animals. Worth getting
Nice graphics but simple game [Posted on 2004-01-16]
It is so hard to find great role playing games like Grim Fandango, Leisure Larry, Monkey Island etc. The game does a nice job with detail graphics creating a real world. The story is typical of a role playing game. The weakness is in the puzzles and shortness. I think this is the first role playing game I finished in a weekend without any cheats or hints. WHile I enjoyed it, it needs some work.
Pretty much a computer adventure game for beginners [Posted on 2004-09-14]
I played "AmerZone" after having enjoyed playing "Syberia" and "Syberia II," so I had heard of the Amerzone, having had to root around the train station at a university town in order to find some flowers from that distant land. So I was looking for a similar sort of adventure game and was surprised to discover some significant differences in this earlier game from Dream Catcher, which I would have to characterize as a "beginner" level computer game of this genre.
Promising "A Secret Place...An Incredible Discovery," this game starts in Brittany in France and then sends you off to the Amerzone, an imaginary Central American country ruled by a brutal dictator. Your goal is to find the fabled egg of the legendary "White Birds" of the Amerzone, who are born to live and die in the sky without ever landing. The egg was taken from the natives and the tribe has been cursed since that day. You are a reporter, who learns the location of the original sacred egg of the White Birds and has to return it to the jungle and put an end to the suffering, which suggests a surprising amount of altruism on your part (although I suppose there will be a story to tell if and when you get back).
Your journey begins with a conversation between your character and a mailman, who asks you to take the letter he left in the mailbox of the house down the road directly to its owner, an old man who will explain to you enough information for you to get a clue as to what you are going to have to do. After the mailman rides off you are into the general interface for "AmerZone." This means a statis screen with a cursor at the center where you move the mouse to have a full range of 360-degree movement. However, you are not going to be able to move around in each environment, but just view everything from the fixed vantage point. Consequently, what you have is more in terms of a slideshow progression than a 3-D environment you can fully explore. This approach tends to make me a bit dizzy from time to time, especially when you are wandering around checking every square inch in all directions to see what it is you are missing to do whatever you have to do next.
You primary mode of transportation is a Hydroflot. You have to find it and get it working at your first location and then it will then fly you to the Amerzone, where it will also serve you as a motor boat, a sailing ship and a submarine as the situation demands. The Hydroflot will get you to each location as you go deeper into the jungle, where you will then get to walk around and do what needs to be done. There are only eight slots in your inventory so you do not need to worry about collecting a whole bunch of things. In fact, for the most part it will be easy for you to figure out what you need to find and what you are going to do with objects when you find them. For example, getting gas for your Hydroflot and finding computer discs are going to be almost constant concerns and relatively easy to accomplish with dogged exploration of each locale. Unlike "Syberia" and other games of this type there are not a lot of conversations with other characters. You will only need one hand to count the number of characters there are to talk to and you just listen to what they have to say (there is no choosing of topics or any talking at all on your part).
Ultimately, the only thing that is going to frustrate players, especially young players, is going to be going through screens looking for the one thing you are supposed to pick up. In my case that happened to be with the penultimate task of the game as I wandered around and around a lava pit trying to find what there was to pick up. But that is a standard concern with such adventure games and young players will not be confronted by complex puzzles beyond their ability to solve, hence the idea that "AmerZone" is a game well suited for beginners. More experienced players are not going to find it much of a challenge.
The graphics based on Benoit Sokal's artwork are pretty good, as is what music there is, but overall "AmerZone" is a pretty simple game and not especially challenging. If that is what you are looking for, then this is an okay choice. The emphasis is on deduction and problem solving, not being big and strong or having good hand-eye coordination. There are over 200 screens to explore, even when there is nothing to do in most of them but point and click on the adjacent screens, which explains why there are four discs in this game although the number of locations you visit is relatively small. Young players who move on to "Syberia" after tackling "AmerZone" are going to enjoy the increased challenge, the superior graphics, and the vastly improved story line.
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