SCHIZM Mysterious Journey

DreamCatcher has always presented games that were visually intriguing, and a challenge to play.

With Schizm, for the PC in connection with L.K. Avalon, is much the same. However, while the game is challenging, there are drawbacks, and most of those lie with the character acting. The vocal interpretations are somewhat bland, and those character actors providing their talents to this game visually need to feel the role rather than merely walking through the genre.

Let’s get down to game itself.

In the year 2083, humans landed on the planet Argilus. There were cities, towns and industrial foundations built. Now they are all deserted. Those people simply vanished. Science and research teams were brought in to find out the cause. Now a supply ship, with two people aboard, has been sent. The only problem is that those secondary teams have seemingly disappeared as well. On the way down to the planet, all systems on the supply ship failed, and the crew – consisting of Hanna Grant and Sam Mainey – had to hit the escape pods. They landed in different places on the planet, and now must solve mysteries in order to reunite and solve what happened to the planet’s inhabitants.

The control options in this game are fairly straightforward. The mouse is the key controller, and whenever players encounter an item that they can interact with, the mouse cursor changes.

Graphically, the game is quite well done, just like most DreamCatcher games. The environments are fantastic – though not totally interactive, and the animation is very well done. But when speaking of the graphics, character animation must be mentioned. As you progress through the game, you will encounter logs and video left by former members of the planet. Therein lies a problem with the game. Bland, unemotional, and purely bad acting are all terms that come to mind – this in spite of some very nice visual effects.

The sound track suffers from the same flaws.

However, when talking about this game, there is the major obstacle of the puzzles that stand in the casual game player’s way. These comprise a mix of logic, memory and mathematics. You can spin wheels figuring out that you need to find compasses and memorize the directional paths, or configure the machines to apply the right gas to the machine that will carry you from the high-flying platforms to the planet’s surface.

This game likes to draw similarities to mysteries of the past, like the Mary Celeste, a ship that was mysteriously abandoned and found floating unattended in December of 1972, but while the game tries to find those parallels, it does well enough on its own to intrigue players. The game propels itself forward well enough.

And when you talk about depth of game play, consider that there are five disks of game play, with so many varying environments that the game is one visual delight after another.

This is a single player game, and rated for Everyone.

Install: Easy
This game goes on quickly and easily. However, when it comes to saving the game, the usual options (like hitting the Esc key) don’t work, but once you understand the save and load functions, this game isn’t that hard to control.

Gameplay: 7
The environments are not that interactive, and while the puzzles are constantly changing, the game is linear – meaning there is only one direction to go to advance the game.

Graphics: 7
The environments are wonderful, but the character acting is really lacking conviction.

Sound: 7
The vocal acting is somewhat bland.

Difficulty: 8
The player interface is rather easy to decipher, and the challenges are quite stimulating. This game is mouse controlled, and as such, is rather easy to navigate through though options are rather limited in what you can do.

Concept: 7
Trying to tie the game to an event of the past is unnecessary, though giving homage to that works in the overall plan of this game. Some of the items, like the flying fish balloon seem familiar, and DreamCatcher has a lot of the elements characteristic to its other games firmly ensconced in this program.

Overall: 7
The puzzles are very, very challenging, and the environmental graphics are well done. But there are drawbacks to this game, like the character acting, and some familiarity in some of the graphics. For those who enjoy a mental challenge, this is a game that will intrigue and entertain. For action fans, pass on this title.