With Christmas preparations complete, I’ve started playing the first title from that Animation Arts Collection: Lost Horizon. It blends nice 2D backgrounds with 3D characters (and some 3D objects) and mostly looks pretty good, even if the 3D models show their age. The puzzles are okay so far, if perhaps a bit contrived. Locations are sufficiently exotic, from Hong Kong to Tibet to Marrakesh to Berlin (oh, well …). Haven’t made it further yet, but so far, so good.
Where it is a bit disappointing is in the writing. It looks like they took plenty of inspiration from Indiana Jones, but without reaching its class (unless you include that Crystal Skull thing into the reckoning).
The biggest failure is that neither the male protagonist nor the female sidekick come across as very likable. I can somewhat sympathize with her, given how she’s being treated, but instead of giving the guy the hiding he deserves she’s just sulking most of the time. There isn’t any funny banter or any other sign of chemistry between the two (but we can already guess where this will surely end) and dialogue in general is pretty cringeworthy, too. I mean, B-movie cringeworthy, and it’s not helped by the lackluster and/or unfitting voice overs either.
The plot itself could be considered good, but unfortunately is a bit at odds with the adventure gameplay. Like “action” scenes that allow puzzling out the solution under no pressure whatsoever, or the fact that we’re permanently in need of cash to buy items or make a phone call, yet at the same time travel across the globe using public transportation with no apparent problem (though no idea how we got onto that plane in the middle of the Himalaya). All in all, it just doesn’t add up.
It’s also the first old Windows title I had trouble getting to run in wine (hardly the game’s fault, though!). It ended up consistently crashing in a very early (Monkey-Islandesque) scene, until I installed the actual 2010 DirectX runtime instead of relying on wine’s own implementation. No issues since.
Guess it’s no big loss I haven’t played this earlier. Still enjoying the puzzles and artwork, just not so much the rest.