Reviewed: September 11, 2006
Reviewed by: Jeff Gedgaud
Publisher
Got Game Entertainment
Developer
Shadow Tor Studios
Released: August 22, 2006
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen
5
5
6
4
5.0
System Requirements
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Circle is a point and click adventure game released by Got Game Entertainment and developed by Shadow Tor Studios. Got Game Entertainment is the same company that released the very popular adventure game Scratches while Shadow Tor Studios is a relative newcomer to the adventure game industry.
Barrow Hill puts you in the center of an adventure that is more of a mystery you have to solve if you want to continue on your unknown road trip to wherever in the Cornish country side. Many of the things you have to do in Barrow Hill won’t make much sense at first but at least they have given you things that are connected to the mystery of why you can’t go anywhere.
Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Circle has you driving from some city to the Cornish countryside when suddenly your car stalls and you are blocked from progress back down the road by a pair of rocks. Well, actually they are called standing stones with an energy shield or some such blocking all access routes out of the area surrounding Barrow Hill and you have to find out why.
With you stuck at Barrow Hill you need to find out why you can’t leave and the bigger mystery of what has happened to the people here. The main area you will be visiting and getting sick of is the motel and gas station. There are a dozen or so others spots within walking distance you will be visiting to find the clues and items needed to solve the mystery.
Barrow Hill is a point and click adventure game that has you going around finding clues to the mystery and you have to piece together what happened and what you need to do to undo it. The biggest difficulties with this mystery is twofold and both are equally problematic, many of the screens do not lend themselves to the point and click ease of the game and the story is not exactly believable or easy to grasp from the clues.
You have the help of two people who are contacting you in a round about way as well as all the clues lying about. One person is in an office of the motel where he barricaded himself in and the other on a cell phone who is a broadcaster for the very small local radio station.
Other than the clues these two give you need to search in a slightly scary and often very dark setting for the rest of the clues and objects to help you solve the blocking stone mystery. At random times these wandering stones will block you while you’re moving around to find the clues so having some ten ton stone suddenly blocking your path does get a little boring after the second or third time.
As in many adventure games the cursor changes when passed over things of interest to you and this was one of the problems. Many times the area that the mouse had to be on to find things was right next to your menu area of the screen and you had to move slowly to capture the different areas. This occurred a few times where the areas you needed to have the cursor was too close to the menu areas.
The story follows some archeologists digging an ancient barrow of standing stones and the protesters trying to stop them. The barrow and stones themselves turn against the diggers and take over, leaving you to restore the balance using things found in the area. But taking the leap of Pagan religion and some of the books and notes found to the offerings you have to come up with are pretty much a huge one.
In true point and click fashion the screens are still images with an occasional animation but no people are in the area for any kind of variety or help for you. The graphics while both dark and eerie in some scenes and well lit yet still spooky in others did lend itself to the scary mystery side of Barrow Hill.
The graphics were pretty good as long as the animations of things like the guy stuck in the office or an occasional moving object did not mar it. Using both still scenes and some flash animation combined to give an amateurish effect overall to Barrow Hill.
The biggest problem with Barrow Hill though was the screens and having to hunt and peck for some of the clickable areas. The spots you clicked on where just too close to menus and often had you slowly moving your mouse over and over again in an area to find the spot you needed. You can see the cursor change but it would just as quickly open the menu up blocking the area you need to click on.
The still scenes are very well rendered and looked good but the flash animation they used was not well added to the scenes so it detracted from the game as a whole. That problem along with the menus in the way of clickable areas brought the graphics enjoyment of Barrow Hill down for me.
While sound can add a whole new dimension and enjoyment to a game or take away from it as a whole the sound here was both at different times during gameplay in Barrow Hill. The game did have some very eerie and nice sounds like when you’re at this old barn and exploring. The crickets and eerie noises like creaking boards or some other non-identifiable sounds added a real sense of being there and chills while playing.
Then there would be scenes that were totally silent and nothing would happen. You would expect something to jump out at you due to the background music slowly fading away and having no sound at all, then nothing. This happens over and over again depending on what area you’re in and it was more of a let down. But the sounds they did have added immensely to the theme and mystery of Barrow Hill.
Playing through Barrow Hill will take upwards of twenty hours to find enough clues for you to find the solution you need to “restore the balance”. The bigger question is not will you restore the balance but will you stick it out to the end to do just that.
With the on again off again things like sound and graphics with enjoyable parts and others that are frustrating finishing the game is sometimes a choir. If you’re a die-hard fan of adventure games Barrow Hill is not bad but some of the areas have problems that make it less of a value and more of a pain.
Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Stones is a pretty neutral adventure game that may be worth playing if you’re a true fan of adventure mystery type games. Starting with a story that could have been told in a bit more believable fashion the game follows Pagan type religious beliefs that fall apart using wandering stones as the big scary thing you need to watch out for.
You do have some good clue finding and having to piece together the story from several different sources for your adventure mystery fans but you also have problems. With some areas of fun and accomplishment you add in good and missing sound and some troublesome point and click maneuvers to get a game that will have you owwing an awwing at the end graphics.
For true fans of adventure games Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Stones is a fairly decent game but nothing much for gamers in general.