The Mystery of the Druids

In these days of adventure game hunger, every new release is reason enough for a celebration. Add to that, that the game in question is a third person adventure and it's story is set to be a mystery about one of the world's most intriguing cultures, I think it's fairly safe to say that The Mystery of the Druids was destined for success.

Story

We play the roles of Scotland Yard Detective Brent Halligan and anthropologist Melanie Turner as they stumble upon a series of ritualistic murders bearing a striking resemblance to the human sacrificies made by the ancient society of the Druids. Of course, everybody knows that the Druids have been extinct for over 1000 years but the question is; is everybody right? It's up to us to find out as we conduct our investigation in today's London and, eventually, in the ancient past.

Opinion

As you can see, I tried not to reveal too much of the story - as usual - because it's best to discover that for yourself. I will, however, tell you my opinion of it.

I had very high hopes for this game and especially the story. The opportunities it presented were really exciting and I was looking forward to a gripping, third person mystery game at last. Unfortunately, contrary to the title, I found little mystery in the game. This is not to say that the story is obvious, which it isn't, in fact, you're in for quite a shock but for the most part, what keeps me going and motivated in an adventure game is suspense. Sadly, there wasn't much of that in Druids as things got revealed too early in the beginning and suspicions were shattered too fast.

I was also a little bit disappointed in the dialogue of the game. Again, the opportunities were enormous with two characters to control and dozens of other to converse with, not to mention the relationship between the two protagonists. Unfortunately, these opportunities were not utilized too well and most of the dialogue seems a bit clumsy. The jokes are out of place, conversations are rushed (not necessarily short, though) and credibility is lost over dialogues that, simply put, seem fake.

As for the physical features, the graphics are based on the well-known 3D on 2D system which combines pre-rendered 2D backgrounds and 3D characters. We've seen graphics like this before, for example in Grim Fandango.

The backgrounds are absolutely amazing. Beautifully rendered, maybe just one step down in detail from The Longest Journey, but then The Mystery of the Druids takes place in the real world which does tend to be a bit duller than fantasy.

All things considered, though, I'm not at all satisfied with the way the characters look. Their animation is nicely done but up close they don't look anywhere near realistic enough and often appear to be just rough sketches of real life characters. The same thing can be said for some of the movie sequences too. A couple of cutscenes are truly gorgeously crafted but the average movie sequence falls sadly short in detail compared to the backgrounds. Surprisingly, I found that the characters look more detailed in the 3D movie sequences than in the rest of the game. I would've thought it was the other way around.

Moving on to music and sounds. The ingame sound effects and voices are very good, sound quality is excellent and the music is generally the kind of professional musical score we've come to expect from modern adventure games. Again, I could probably compare it to that of The Longest Journey. You probably won't find yourself humming a tune from this one but that's only because this music wasn't meant to be hummed. It fulfills its role perfectly, which is to say it complements the story with a nice (and sometimes dark) undertone.

Another feature worth mentioning is the quality of the puzzles. I found them to be very clever and not too easy as is the case with most of the new adventures nowadays. There is very little pixel-hunting involved, which is particularly nice to see. Admittedly, you're going to find yourself using the trial and error method of puzzle solving a couple of times (at least, I did) but that's more of a design flaw than the puzzle's fault. The reason I'm bringing this up is that while I did enjoy the puzzles very much, there were times when I found their goals a little far fetched and sometimes even ridiculous. A Scotland Yard Detective, at least in my opinion, should have been given a little more serious goals than trying to find a working telephone that he could use or gaining access to the resources of the police force. For a game set in the real world, in very much real surroundings, some of the puzzles show surprisingly little connection to reality.

Reading this review might give you the impression that I didn't like the game. I got this impression myself when I proofread it but this is far from the truth. The Mystery of the Druids is a great adventure game and the only reason I was so critical with it is that I had such high hopes for it. With a little more care and writing talent, it could've been so much more than it turned out to be, which is an excellent game but only one of many. It is, however, greatly appreciated and is definitely a fresh spot in the world of adventure gaming.