Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals
Score: 78% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Meridian4 Developer: White Birds Media: Download/1 Players: 1 Genre: Adventure
Graphics & Sound: Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals fits nicely into the standard adventure genre and boasts pretty much everything you would expect from a game of this style, but it also offers an intriguing dark-future world and a story that helps to make the game stand out a bit. Nikopol takes on a first-person perspective in a dark, grimy future with sets that look like they could have come from Blade Runner, and the game's presentation (both audio and visual) convey this setting really well. Between the main character's dilapidated apartment or the rundown streets and the constant background announcements about new laws or watchdog programs (designed to keep the public safe of course), in just the first few opening locations, you know exactly the type of world you have just hurled yourself into. The game's voice acting isn't too bad. The main character, Nikopol, has a fairly calming voice that seems a bit introspective, which is nice since most of the time he is talking to himself/the player about the objects you are clicking on and trying to interact with. But I found it odd when he would use the same voice while talking to an NPC. During these events, it really felt like the NPC would say something, Nikopol would think something and the NPC would go on as if he heard him. Like I said, this is mostly due to the tone of the actor's voice and the fact that his inner-voice and the one he used to talk to people didn't really differ all that much. At least not as far as I can tell.
Gameplay: Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals takes place in a future that doesn't look too bright and things have gotten a bit worse since the appearance of a massive pyramid over the city. As you progress through the game, you learn that the leaders of the country have been sending envoys into the ship to negotiate, but no information about who the aliens are and what they want has gotten out to the public. As far as the government itself, it seems to have evolved into one that not only defies separation of church and state, but actually goes to the other extreme by having the religious and governmental bodies be the same. Unfortunately, the rule of the country under the current prophet has left everyone in the current state of dilapidation, and just before the arrival of the aliens, Nikopol decided to join a religious group opposing the current regime. It's not that our main character necessarily believes in the group's scriptures and interpretations of the religion, he is mainly looking at this as an opportunity to get back at the people higher up in the food chain. But Nikopol's life heads off in a strange direction when the head of the group asks him to bring a portrait of his father to the meeting area, and Nikopol is attacked by a strange monster claiming that he is under arrest. From here, our character goes off on a strange adventure where he might learn that he is somehow connected to the alien-pyramid floating overhead. One of the aspects I enjoyed about Nikopol was the inclusion of some timed events that could lead to your character's death. This isn't new, but it hasn't been seen in quite a while. An example of this comes early on in the game when the alien-police officer comes barging into your apartment and you have to find a way to lock it up in order to get out. In this case, there are several times when you simply take too much time to lock or chain a door before it plows through and the screen goes red only to have to restart before the last successful step in your escape process.
Difficulty: Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals has a nice variety of puzzles to throw at players, and they range in everything from standard inventory interactions, to the timed events mentioned above, to logic puzzles. While none are really impassable, there are quite a few that I found to be hard to get through. Unfortunately, the game isn't helped much by the amount of pixel-hunting that needs to be done in order to find everything you can interact with. Long-time adventure gamers will recognize this game for what it is and will quickly pick up their standard pixel-hunting techniques, but even slow scans of the screen with your mouse will cause you to miss important objects. So while the puzzles themselves are an enjoyable challenge, making sure you have everything you need is a bit of a pain.
Game Mechanics: Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals's inventory HUD was a delightful change and while it didn't really offer any unique mechanics as far as allowing me interact with my held items in strange new ways, the look and feel of it really helped with the overall feel of the game and ended up being one of the game's little details that helps to make it stand out in the crowd. Instead of displaying the objects in some boring grid like everyone else does, Nikopol displays a circle with two buttons on it (one marked Main Menu and the other marked Read). Off of this circle, and spread around it, are the items in your inventory. Like I said, nothing fancy, nothing extra added (in fact, the game lacks the ability to combine objects), but the style and look of it really adds the extra bit of flair to the game. As far as everything else in Nikopol, like I said above, it is your standard point-and-click adventure and doesn't really stray all that far from the mechanics that work well for the genre. You move your pixel-sized cursor across the screen looking for the white dot to change into an icon saying you can interact with whatever is in front of you, and a quick click of the mouse confirms or denies whatever the action is that the game is trying to perform. If you've just come from the inventory menu and you clicked on an item from there, then your mouse click will have Nikopol attempting to use the items with the object-of-interest. In the end, Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals is your standard run-of-the-mill adventure game with all the good and bad parts that come along with that (mainly the painful pixel-hunting), but it has the right blend of puzzle-types to keep most genre-fans amused. The game's story isn't bad and the style of the world is pretty detailed. But while Nikopol does do a few things to help it stand out, in the end it feels like just another adventure game and once beaten, it probably won't warrant a second thought.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
Minimum System Requirements: Windows Vista/XP, 1.5GHz Processor, 512 MB RAM, DirectX 9.0c or higher, DirectX compatible 128 MB graphics card, DirectX compatible sound card   Test System: Windows Vista Ultimate, AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-Core 2.20 GHz, 4 GB Ram, ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Graphics Card, DirectX 9.0c
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