The Secrets of Atlantis: The Sacred Legacy

good
key review info
  • Game: The Secrets of Atlantis: The Sacred Legacy
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: N/a
  • Reviewed on:

A new member to the Atlantis family has been born. The series was started in 1997 by Cryo Interactive's Atlantis: The Lost Tales. Along came Beyond Atlantis (1999) and Atlantis III: The New World (2001). Atlantis Evolution was developed by The Adventure Company in 2004. Eric Safar and Francois Brun decided to create a new company that would continue the Atlantis adventures initiated when they were working at Cryo. Hence was created Atlantis Interactive. And the series lives on with The Secrets of Atlantis: The Sacred Legacy. Previous knowledge of the games in the series is of no importance, so don't worry about it (although these were rather appraised at the time).

Story It's 1937 and you're Howard Brooks, a thirty years old brilliant aeronautical engineer. After attending a conference in Germany, Howard is on his way home on board the Hindenburg Zeppelin (to which he contributed with the design). Out of nowhere he's attacked by two bullies of an occult sect - Thule. They damage the zeppelin on their way out and take off in the emergency biplane. Soon Howard is to meet with a talented entrepreneur in search of offering humankind a great heritage - the secrets of the Atlantean myth. Foster - the influential business man - sends him on the quest of his life. Howard lives Forster's offices in the Empire Building with nothing more than a medallion, vague details about his mission and even fainter knowledge on the people that are supposed to help him. Nevertheless, Howard packs up and goes to unravel one of the greatest secrets of the world. His first stop is China, more to the point a floating boat casino in Macao. Here he meets up with the beautiful archeologist lady Kate Sullivan (also known as Ishtar after the Babylonian goddess of love and war) and eventually with Captain Blackwood. The trio continues the search to an Indian Palace and a temple in Mesopotamia. Each location presents unique cultures and well hidden secrets that spice up the story.

Concept The Secrets of Atlantis is a 1st person perspective point and click adventure game. Howard (that is you) will jump from one area to another. Each of these has some sort of a secret that you will need to solve sooner or later. Following a linear storyline Howard will have to gather clues and useful objects that he'll keep in his inventory until the time comes for him to solve the dozens of puzzles scattered through the journey. There are about 30 characters that will provide Howard with helpful information about different puzzles. They all have strong personalities that could be surprising from time to time. No matter what, the bad guys are always one step ahead and our genuine heroes have to keep up.

Gameplay Prepare for a several hours adventure that immerses you into the atmosphere of the 30's when the world was amazed at the sight of huge zeppelins and they were all in awe with the famous Greta Garbo (she's mentioned). Search every pixel of your screen to discover the interactive stuff. Also keep in mind that some of them only become active once you solved another certain puzzle. Hence you need to constantly go back to previous areas that may yet contain useful objects. You'll have to prove your skills at replacing damaged pipes and cables, match stones and colors, collect bee honey, play poker (don't worry - there's nothing random about this game of poker), solve sudoku and many other logical games. Just a tip - don't try to capture the scarab in the game Foster proposes to you (the game will go into an infinite loop and you'll be sorry you haven't saved). Everything is useful, nothing is there just to look good. The puzzles are all logical so don't try all the crazy things that pop to your mind - it would be a waste of time. Watch out for clues and go back to acquire everything that might come in handy.

Some comical situations spice up the gameplay, thanks to the charming nature of Mr. Brooks. There are also some turnovers that will bring a plus of trouble. The lack of more people is cleverly explained for each of the five locations. I was still a little disappointed, but at least the explanations were there. A rather simple story takes you from one puzzle to the other, providing all the necessary clues and appropriate reasons. Not extremely fun, but intriguing, the game catches your attention from the first to the last second. Oh, I almost forgot: careful as you can't interact with the nearby objects while the inventory is open - that's only for combining the different things you already poses. The good thing about it all is that there are no loadings anywhere in the game - just one swift experience through a mysterious quest.

Video The Secrets of Atlantis proposes a cinematographic approach of adventure games. Short ingame videos introduce new characters in the scene and show the results of appropriately solved puzzles. The camera is free all through the journey, even on the actual solving of the mysteries (this may hinder you at some points, but it offers a more realistic experience). The environments are indeed fantastic and have mysterious auras, but the overall visual aspect of the game is not really impressing. Despite a good enough level of details, it all looks just a little bit above average. With little movement in the scenes, it almost seems too quiet.

Sound The music goes extremely well with the atmosphere. It resembles soundtracks of old detective story movies combined with thrillers - a lot of suspense, you feel like there's always someone on your tail and than you suddenly get another clue. Unfortunately it's not the same when it comes to the voice acting. Everybody is just so calm that you feel like going crazy. Every character is unbelievably friendly (even the competition). Though I have to admit there is some good acting with a couple of characters - I really liked the beautiful Miss Chun Yin and the old man Omarim. Other than this the voice acting doesn't really impress in any way.

Multiplayer Sorry, Howard Brooks is the only playable character in the game and he's unique, so no multiplayer available.

Conslusion You hear the word Atlantis and your imagination goes wild. I don't believe there are too many people that have never heard of the mythical elite civilization that dwelled on this continent. Inspired by the writings of Plato people tried to find at least traces of the lost culture. A series of fantastic stories followed trying to explain the numerous failures. You imagine there has to be a really complicated or at least beyond our imagination explanation to all these. Despite the diversity of inspirational motives, The Secrets of Atlantis: The Sacred Legacy comes with a very simplistic approach. Although you're supposed to almost travel around the world, the mystery is revealed by usually solving trivial modern day puzzles. It takes much more time to find the objects you need than actually solving the puzzle. And all the goings back and forth just to make sure you haven't missed anything (actually see if by any chance something new popped up after a successful quest) is rather frustrating. Not to mention the end of the present adventure that lives you utterly confused (I'm not saying what it is though). If you're curious or you have nothing better to do, than you can spare a few hours for this game. Good thing at least it's logical, unfortunately it lacks the intellectual challenge, concentrating rather on the player's patience and observational skills.

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story 7
gameplay 7
concept 7
graphics 8
audio 8
multiplayer 0
final rating 7.5
Editor's review
good
 
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