The 11th Hour is the long awaited
sequel to The 7th Guest. As was the case with its predecessor, The 11th Hour
is a graphical tour de force and contains yet more mind melting puzzles, which, if you do
not use the help feature, will keep you thinking long and hard. THE GOOD
There is quite a bit which we found to be good, if
not great, about this game. The easiest to comment on is the graphics. All frames within
the game are beautifully rendered 640x480 works that are a sight to behold. Being four
CD's in length, there is plenty to look at. There are approximately 20 rooms in the game
(all with multiple 'areas'), many minutes of digital video and music, and all sorts of
sound effects.
The acting was actually very good. The only cheese factor was Stauf and his spawn
Marie. However, she definitely got her part across: evil slut with bad teeth and all. I
was charmed that they presented Carl (the character you are in the game), not as a knight
in shining armor, but as a jerk who is trying to make up with his missing girlfriend. The
introduction scene really explains his bizarre relationship with Robin and how they split
on bad terms right before she left to check out the Stauf mansion and disappeared.
Beautiful graphics and a wonderfully comprehensive intro make the beginning of this game
not only impressive but intriguing as well.
The puzzles were, for the most part, interesting and
difficult. Matching your wits with Stauf can easily be frustrating; the computer doesn't
forget things as a human opponent would. Some of the puzzles sparked little thought
processes in my brain that had at least a quarter inch of dust on them. The help function,
or psycho\technic ally as it were, is a lifesaver. She reveals rules to the puzzles as
well as cause and effect of moves, etc. She will also move for you or even solve the
puzzle if your head is spinning from the effort. As for the treasure hunt clues that Stauf
sends, her help is invaluable.
God bless the ">>" button.
As wondrous as the graphics are, it is delightful to be able to fast forward through the
lengthy process of looking at everything and get to wherever it is that you are going.
Ahmen.
THE BAD
The movement through Stauf's house could definitely
be improved upon. If you have already seen a room in the mansion and simply want to go
back to check out an item, you are forced to go back, inch by painful inch. Again the
>> button is a life saver. It would make more sense if you could merely click, in
the map, on the room to which you want to return. I almost finished the game but could not
because I could not find my way to the nursery. The map indicated that I had already been
there (I'll eat my hat if we actually had), but when called upon to find it by searching
every single room three times over, I simply gave up after spending fruitless hours at the
task. And I was not going to call the help line again. Which brings us to the
next bad aspect.
The clues were by and large either inane or really stretching
it. Talk about grasping at strings, how about this clue? "fruit loop on stove".
Would you believe that the answer to that whooper is "orange"?! According to my
psychic ally, loop is round and therefore indicative of an O and another word for stove is
range. Ohhh, it makes perfect sense now, not!!! (The chef in me is screaming about
the stove and range bit). There were inscription codes which I did not even bother with, I
just let my "ally" figure those out for me. To be honest, I only figured out a
quarter of those clues on my own. Most of them were just way to far out in left field for
my puny, insignificant brain to grasp.
The "Spooky Mode" sucks. Period. You have
an option when you start the game to use it and when I tried it I thought my video card
had gone the way of the great white whale. It simply presents everything in black and
white. Dull and not very scary, except for that initial shock of thinking that you may
have to buy a new video card. Now that frightened the dickens out of me!
The last of the bad before we go on to the truly
ugly. The game was unnecessarily gory. I'm not saying it was as bad as Phantasmagoria
but it certainly made an effort. I have a delicate stomach and although I never actually
lost my lunch it did make me think about it a time or two. But hey, if you're into that
sort of thing put this comment on the "good" list.=).
THE UGLY
I experienced some nasty bugs in the game. Two were
there throughout the whole game. The first was a video bug that that ran about one half
inch wide and across the entire bottom portion of the screen. It resembled a static or
"snow driven" television set. Only when you moved or when there was motion on
the monitor somewhere did it activate. It got worse when any sort of sound was played. The
music was garbled and distorted as well. Conversation was interesting to listen to and try
to decipher.
The puzzles were intriguing but to move a single
piece took about as much time as it does to chew a mouthful of peanut butter and jelly
sandwich. Yes, I realize that Trilobyte wanted to show off all of its wondrous graphics
and that they must be very proud and all, but wouldn't it be better to make us want to
play the game rather than skip over the puzzles? I let my techno ally finish many of the
puzzles simply because they were so tedious to do on my own.
What I found to be almost the most annoying part of the game was the fact that
you cannot fast forward through the "Let's pat ourselves on the back and make you
watch the intro every, single time you restart the game". Beautiful it was,
but after having watched it at least thirty different times I desperately wanted to skip
the minute, minute and a half introduction.
Last, but not least, how in the nine hells do you
get to the #$@!*%#!! nursery!!!!
SUMMARY
As much as I enjoyed playing Connect Four with Stauf
on a slug shaped cake with bonbons as pieces, not to mention little slurpy noises every
time you moved, I think that this game could be improved upon. Namely, there should be
clues with a little more logic (Spock would have been stumped by a number of them),
puzzles where the pieces did not take an eternity to move into their positions, a movement
system which showed you where you were on the map, as well as the "point and
click" idea to allow you to move from room to room, escape through the intro, bug
fixes, and detailed instructions on how to get to the #$%@%#$* Nursery!!! Boy, that was a
long sentence; make of it what you will. We give The 11th Hour a tentative
thumbs up...
--Kevin & Jennifer |