Atlantis: The Lost Tales

Great game, splendid voice acting and game mechanics it is delightfully unforgiving.

At the time this was released, the first 3 games in the "Atlantis" series were very satisfying. If you enjoyed Myst and Riven, you can't really miss with 1. Atlantis: the Lost Tales, 2. Beyond Atlantis II, & 3. Atlantis 3: the New World... after that the series goes of the rails, and the last two games are pretty much pretty to look at, but awful games.

I played the game long ago, and yet since it's available on GOG I gave it a shoot again. The game has mysterious atmosphere and really good riddles along the way. The low-res graphics may seem to be joke this days, but it's not the graphic which is important. The plot is interesing, gives you the impression of "semi-open-world" which you can explore to some extent... however it's linear as most of the adventure games that days. I'm at the moment in the half of the game and it still gives me a lot of fun. I can recommend the game to those who likes the mystery. in point-and-click advanture games.. otherwise you might seem disappointed.

Cryo was a French company famous for making very original and beautiful games, technically impressive at the time, yet plagued by clumsy, unpleasant and often obscure controls. Atlantis fits right in this norm of theirs, with a great atmosphere, appealing locations, immersive narration... and a very annoying system of travel, where you turn around (360 degrees and also up and down) until you face a direction to where you can move. Another weakness is its very linear progression, although you can move to a lot of useless spots and knock on a lot of interactive doors that really don't interact at all. Also present is the oldest designer's mistake in the book: no saves, just checkpoints. And yes, you can die if you don't react quickly to certain events. It also means that you can't explore dialogue options the rare times that they present themselves. I've always been disappointed by Cryo games, this one included. It looks like it's going to be great, which makes the frustration all the worse when it sets in later.