Amerzone: The Explorer's Legacy - Part 2
Score: 78% ESRB: 4+ Publisher: Anuman Developer: Microids Media: Download/1 Players: 1 Genre: Adventure
Graphics & Sound: Amerzone: The Explorer's Legacy - Part 2 is the middle third of the classic Microids title where you are trying to return an old and large egg to its original location, after years of it being secreted away in an old explorer's bunker. Visually, the game looks as good as it did back in 1999. While that might not make it high-end by today's standards, it is still crisp enough to enjoy now. Granted, the character animations as they talk to you are a bit disconcerting since they feel very plastic now, but for the time, it was good. This particular slice of Amerzone will take you to a couple of different islands that have rather different feels. While one location is a lagoon filled with sandy beaches, the other has more of a marsh feel to it. They both come through pretty well on the iPad's large screen. Amerzone's voicework is okay, even if the mouths and faces those voices are coming from feel awkward, and the game's pretty extensive sound effects library continues to do a good job of setting the scene.
Gameplay: Amerzone: The Explorer's Legacy - Part 2 takes you through Chapters two, three and four of the original game. When we last left our character, he had successfully loaded the egg onto the old man's flying/sailing/submersible vehicle and started our trip to Amerzone. Part 2 starts off with your vehicle running out of fuel and you having to hunt down some extra gas at a nearby island. Another island hop later and you are once again finding fuel. Quite frankly, this middle part of the game feels like needless filler. It isn't until you make your third stop in this Part that the story once again feels a bit more relevant to the overall plot. Unfortunately, this third of the game ends in one of the hardest and most tedious puzzles that I've seen in a long time, and while this part of the game starts to feel a little promising after a while, this final challenge really becomes almost more trouble than its worth. I started to seriously consider skipping this part and just jumping into Part 3, but I was able to make my way through the obstacle and watch the app's final cut scene.
Difficulty: Amerzone: The Explorer's Legacy - Part 2 is, for the most part, really simple. While Part 1 was rife with a few magic numbers that you had to make some pretty wild logical leaps to solve, this one mainly involves you simply exploring your locations thoroughly and, generally, trying to keep track of what the game wants from you at that moment. There are a couple of places where Amerzone gets a bit too hard to bear, but there is also a good sense of satisfaction when you finally navigate your way past some of those harder puzzles it presents to you.
Game Mechanics: Like the first part, Amerzone: The Explorer's Legacy - Part 2 translates well onto the iPad. The interface feels close enough to the old point-and-click style that it was originally designed for in order to make it easy to pick up and play. Of course, like the first part, the game continues to tell the player exactly where he or she can click which removes a bit of the puzzle-solving aspects in my mind, but the more games I play like that on the iPad, the less I mind it. All that being said, I still feel like the most interesting feature of this port is the ability to turn on Compass Mode in order to use the direction you are facing to tell the game where you want to look. Since Amerzone uses the 360 degree wrapped style of visuals, this translates fairly well. While Part 2 has a good half hour or so worth of content, at least for a mildly competent adventurer gamer, it also feels like the weakest of the trio. Amerzone starts off with some challenging puzzles and ends with a few more, but the middle part just feels like filler and an excuse to extend the gameplay time. I guess one of the benefits to having Amerzone broken into three parts is the possibility of simply not playing this middle third. In fact, the first and third parts almost flow into each other as if nothing about the middle segment was necessary.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
Related Links: Amerzone: The Explorer’s Legacy - Part 2 on iTunes Game Vortex’s Amerzone Coverage
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