Freeware Game Reviews

Title: The Oracle
Genre: Adventure (Interactive Fiction)
Created with: AGS
Author: Eugene Couto
Download from: Click here
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Download Size: 75Mb

Overview

The Oracle is a first-person adventure (more commonly called "Interactive Fiction" these days) with a plot that wouldn't be out of place in one of the Broken Sword games. At the beginning you've received a message from your friend Alex, who is off in Europe (Portugal to be exact) having discovered an ancient artifact of great power - with only a few clues left to find in order to activate it. He seems to have be on the way to finding these clues, but he needs help. In order to find him, you will have to solve the clues he's left behind for you.

The first thing that stirkes you about The Oracle is how professional it looks. Sporting a slight inventory interface (styled as a PDA) and with each location being a high quality photograph, it looks great. It's not small either - there are 140 or so locations in the entire game. This doesn't make it quite as big as it might sound though, for many screens have very few interactable objects. Still, you're not going to be completing this for quite some time. There are some atmospheric pieces of music in the background and qutie a lot of relevant sound efects - again, all very high quality. The only thing lacking with the graphics is animation, but in this sort of game you wouldn't really expect much. The game itself isn't terribly difficult, at least not if you carefully read the descriptions of locations and objects to find the clues hidden within.

Movement in the game is either by clicking on parts of the screen to take you to a new location, or clicking on a new location on the map. After a while you get hold of Alex's diary, and can browse through this for more clues. The puzzles are well thought-out for the most part adn logical without being conventional. The storyline is really quite absorbing though I found the pizel-hunting on certain screens a bit frustrating.

Even though this sort of game isn't produced very often, and I don't recall ever seenig it done in AGS (though it probably has been), by far the most innovative thing about this game is that it comes with its own hints system. This is multi-layered so you don't get it just spelled out for you straight away even if you do use it. It gives you options depending on how far into the game you are, and personally I think it's a brilliant idea. (Not that I've had to use it... much... cough...) All in all, The Oracle is a very worthwhile adventure game and with its style and hints system, also quite unique. The only downside is that I doubt a sequel will be coming anytime soon as it took so long to produce this one! Even if you're on dial-up, this is one game worth leaving to download overnight.

Pros

Very stylish, great photos, interesting plot and puzzles, help feature is a brilliant idea

Cons

A bit too much pixel-hunting for my liking, some screens a bit barren as far as interactive objects go

Verdict

A style of game that's not done very often, but this time very successfully.

Graphics: 8.5
Sound: 8
Playability: 8
Longevity: 7.5
Overall: 8

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Screenshots:

Screenshot from The The Oracle

Review by CaptainD

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