Journey to the Center of the Earth

I played through a game called Journey to the Center of the earth. As you may expect from me, it is in adventure game. You explore a world, talk to people, collect everything that isn't nailed down, solve some puzzles, unravel the story and eventually get to some kind of conclusion. I love these type of games.

The game is inspired by the classic Jules Vern book. I had never read the book, but I understand the game re-visits many of the locations in the book. The book is used as a jumping point for the game makers to tell their own story.

Unfortunately, Journey to the Center of the earth was extremely frustrating. It wasn't as bad as Lighthouse (a really bad Myst rip-off), but it was still pretty bad.

First off, some of the hot spots were missing. Most of them were walk hot spots. In some cases it made it hard to find new locations. But, mainly it just made it hard to walk across a board from one point to the next, even if you knew where you were going. There were a few particular sticky spots where it took 50 clicks or so to get to the another screen.

A lot of items that were not clickable at first became clickable after you triggered their need. There was no hint that said "You might not need this right now, but come back later". The hotspots just didn't exist. Often-times getting the correct tool required traveling backwards through 3-4 previous chapters. I think at one point, long ago, I would have reveled in this type of puzzle. But, I don't anymore. I liked the old typing style adventure games that made you think up how to use items. Nowdays it is just continuous point-and-click until you hit on the right combination. Hiding hotspots is an interesting way to extend gameplay, but not an enjoyable choice.

A few of the puzzles were random at best. When the Universal Hint System is telling you that the in-game hints for the puzzle have no bearing on the actual soltuion and you'll only figure out it out via trial and error, then you know you're screwed. Even using the hints, I had trouble solving a few of the puzzles. Sometimes, I'd click 3 or 4 times before something would happen.

I do have to give the game credit for something. The visuals were stunning. That was my first impression. It's a shame that impression could not last.