Lost Horizon

Underrated by "experts" (of course, it's not a AAA title), though not by most gamers, it's a very good graphic adventure with puzzles (some logical, others based on chance, and a few almost absurd or nonsensical), an entertaining story, and a beautiful setting. The downsides, in my opinion, are some puzzles that must be solved exactly as the programmers intended and its lack of replayability, since there are no choices or challenges beyond what the game presents. Even so, its script makes it very entertaining. Despite its shortcomings, following the story makes it worthwhile.

Очень хороший квест в духе фильмо про Индиану Джонса. Первые две главы развиваются очень стремительно и не дают заскучать. Дальше игра немного сбавляет обороты и становится чуть хуже на мой взгляд, но игра все равно держит в напряжении и не даёт заскучать. Рекомендую эту игру всем любителям квестов.

Don't expect anything too deep, it's your classical adventure plot. Everything is there, from the hero to the **** to the mystical ancient artefact blablabla. But it works if you like that kind of story. The riddles are okay, though personally, I would've preferred had they been a bit harder. Sometimes they felt a little constructed, for instance, when you need to melt some ice, you use a certain thing, but a few moments later, when you have to melt yet another piece of ice, you cannot use the same thing even though it's still available, but must find another way. There is some complexity, though, you will have to use items more than once, you can do things wrong and won't realize it immediately. (An item you used on something will have to be used with something else first, but the game won't tell you, so simple combining everything with everything won't always help you.) What I didn't like was how the hero always comments on and explains what you're doing as if you wouldn't know it yourself: Oh yes, now that this happened, I can do that, because - And so on. I could see the point if he would give hints about what to do next, but why give hints about the puzzle I just solved? Presentation is okay. The 2D backgrounds are very well painted with a lot of detail, but in contrast, the 3D characters lack detail and look much too cartoony overall. The dialogue in addition to voice-overs is shown in subtitles with a little image of the speaking person, but those are paintings as well. Especially in the case of the main hero, this painting looks almost nothing like the 3D model. (And also is always wearing a hat - I cannot remember a single moment in the game when the 3D model was actually wearing one.) What else - well, the game is pretty long with a lot of riddles, so you get quite some content and the quality is good as well. The areas you visit are interesting and full with items and stuff to combine and so on, it's not like some of the more "modern" adventure games where the inventory never has more than four items in it. Overall, fun game, good presentation, not too hard, so you won't get stuck, but not too simple either - good mix.

A good game for what it proposes, it has a very interesting story, with good twists and a good background. The graphics help, because they are beautiful and very well done. The gameplay is very fluid, with everything working, very creative puzzles and with a good dose of difficulty to solve them and most importantly they are very logical. I recommend this game even more for the price it can be found.

As far as point n' click adventures go, Lost Horizon is totally standard fare, with easy puzzles, and passages where you'll have to try all combinations in order to discover a bizarre one. The story follows well-beaten tracks of **** and Brits competing to find a legendary place (Shambhala, instead of Shangri-La from the eponymous novel, for some reason.) The art is pretty cool, the voice acting decent if often annoying (hope you like these ridiculously pompous Oxbridge accents,) so Lost Horizon could deserve an average score, like a 5 or 6. However, characters are awfully talkative. The watch/play ratio, or passive/active ratio is dreadfully high, frustratingly so for me at times. Some cut-scenes take ages; not that they are particularly worth watching. Moreover, you would like to tell your own character to shut up sometimes. A simple examination of an object in your inventory can trigger an episode of logorrhea. And in fact, I was often under the impression that the main character, the English smuggler, was trying to be humorous, although he would never provoke the slightest smile. As a minor point, the game is also very counter-educative, full of factual errors. For example, the map of Hong Kong is all wrong; its landmarks too; like most countries, France does not use bails, i.e., richer people do not buy their way out of jail; gendarmes do not wear the Foreign Legion uniform; and Moroccans would not call Europeans westerners as they are the westerners, Maghreb means west, Europe is North of Maghreb, and more precisely Europe is North-East of Morocco. Call that nitpicking if you like, but it rattles the locals, damages the immersion, and is so easily avoided with a modicum of research. It's like showing the White House in the middle of Manhattan and guarded by Beefeaters dressed in green.