Reviewed: October 20, 2003
Reviewed by: Miguel Cervantes

Publisher
Viva Media

Developer
Frogwares

Released: October 15, 2003
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1
ESRB: Everyone

7
8
8
7
7.0

System Requirements

In its heyday adventure gaming enjoyed unrivalled hegemony over the game market, a tenure of dominance in both popularity and sales, spawning legends such as Myst, Grim Fandango and The Monkey Island Series (the latter two both from Lucasarts). Since that time, the adventure genre has diminished in both size and scope as first person shooter and real time strategy games have stepped forward to take the spotlight, limiting the number of quality adventure releases per year.

Nevertheless, despite the decline in activity the adventure genre has continued to press forward, with companies like DreamCatcher, Microids and KnowWonder Digital Media Works (Harry Potter Series) leading the way. And now add to that list Viva Media, whose recent release Journey to the Center of the Earth has taken up the gauntlet thrown down by Microid’s Adventure Game of the Year Syberia to expand and enhance the current repertoire of adventure titles.

Journey to the Center of the Earth puts players in the role of Ariane, an ambitious young photojournalist on assignment in Iceland. While traveling over an uninhabited area of the Icelandic wild Ariane’s helicopter crashes in the crater of an old volcano, triggering a landslide which reveals a hidden passageway deep underground, into the earth’s core.

When Ariane emerges from the passage she finds herself transported to another realm, a forgotten world hidden beneath the earth, a primeval land whose inhabitants have evolved completely independent of the world above. Journey to the Center of the Earth chronicles Ariane’s adventures in this brave new world.

When Ariane emerges from her crash site she manages to recover quite a number of useful items, including her laptop, camera and lighter. The laptop and camera stay with Ariane for her entire journey, and both perform very useful functions. The laptop (much like Kate’s Cell Phone in Syberia) integrates itself to the right of the menu bar, has a very slick interface, and is useful for sending SOS’s, getting news of the outside world, transcribing letters and storing the photos Ariane takes along her travels. Every time an important item is added to Ariane’s laptop, a small icon appears with a gentle sound, alerting the player to its presence.

Journey makes it quite easy to get Ariane around and about, so much so that as players move further into the game, point-and-click movement as well as menu access will become quite intuitive. Interacting with other characters is quite easy as well, as a full inventory of discussion options pops up whenever a conversation ensues.

Ariane glides through the walk, and eases through the talk, and the storyline continues to draw the player in, but the road gets bumpy when we arrive at the items, puzzles and conundrums that stand between her and the completion of her journey. Unlike Syberia, Journey does not ease players gently into the world of item gathering.

Immediately after her crash Ariane is burdened with quite a number of items beyond the laptop, camera and lighter, many of which she must combine in order to use. Depending upon the player’s level of familiarity with adventure games, this may or may not prove a frustrating endeavor. What will prove frustrating is the way in which many of the items must be used, something which had me rushing for the walkthrough provided by Viva Media much sooner than I expected.

For instance, in an early portion of the game, I found myself on a sandy beach, looking out upon the ocean. I had an empty cantina, which – you guessed it – needed to be filled with water. Instinctively however I turned away from the beach water, which as it turned out was the correct answer, because it didn’t seem logical that Ariane would fill her drinking vessel with saltwater. In addition to this counter-intuitive situation, the correct place for “filling”(i.e. clicking the action point) the canteen was a very small tributary running from the beach, with a minutely small clickable area to confirm success. I had to move my mouse cursor around the tributary very slowly and precisely in order to find it.

In other areas I found the visual and audio clues to be insufficient for the player to realize their significance. As I proceeded down a trail in a forest of giant mushrooms my mouse pointer changed, clueing me in on a clickable area right beneath my feet. Unable to determine what the objects where, I clicked on the area, and Ariane said, “Oh, I must have forgotten something.” That’s it. No other clues. As it turns out, these are tiny mushrooms that need to be cut with the use of Ariane’s knife.

Determining the proper course of action from such generalities is very tough, and as with the canteen scenario mentioned above, the only way to discover the right way was to use trial and error, i.e. selecting everything from my inventory and using it. The fact that I couldn’t tell there were mushrooms on the ground just by looking at them was another stumbling block, and it underscores the need in Journey to be very thorough with the mouse pointer – I had to retrace my steps in several areas because of a missed item or two.

This aspect of the game was annoying – in Syberia and The Longest Journey, when the mouse pointer got even close to the periphery of an interactive object the pointer would change, but in Journey a watchful eye is required; moving the cursor slowly and deliberately over the playing surface is crucial in order to avoid missing a valuable item hidden in the background. (This I attribute in part to the excellent detail of the pre-rendered backgrounds, perhaps a little too detailed, as it makes it hard for interactive objects to stand out at times) The same rule applies for ‘close-up’ areas where an item must be applied, a machine fixed, or an object placed in some mechanism or space – the ‘sweet-spot’ for the pointer to change, confirming that the item A does indeed fit with slot B is small and elusive at times.

In the realm of puzzles, I found a lot to like, and little to loathe. Most of the puzzles in Journey are challenging and very much in keeping with the context in which the story takes place. Never once did I feel that a certain puzzle was without purpose or not in line with what Ariane should be doing at the time. In addition some of the puzzles were very cool, such as the Amulet Tangram found in Adam the Shaman’s hut, a Tertris-like puzzle that engages and amuses simultaneously.

One puzzle which I took great exception to occurs very early on in the game. Arian is confronted with a large door, upon which 12 seals must be arranged in proper sequential order. The only clue lies in an insanely obscure collection of verses inscribed above the door – cryptic sayings that are meant to guide the player to the correct placement of the seals but will more likely guide you to the insane asylum. This is a major puzzle too – without solving it you can’t proceed into the lost world itself and it begs asking why the developers would place such a frustrating enigma in the player’s path so early in the game.

Like all adventure games, Journey to the Center of the Earth contains its fair share of fun and frustrating puzzles. Players new to the adventure genre however will want to have a walkthrough guide handy.

Depictions of lush green jungles, sandy beaches and dry desert savannahs form the backdrop for adventures outdoors, and once we get inside the view gets even better. The interior of each building – from mining caves to city dwellings – is crafted to look both unique and memorable. The desert hut of Adam the Shaman contains a motley assortment of books, beakers and furniture, while the interior of an Askiam merchant’s shop (Heracles) practically gushes with late 19th century charm.

The team at Viva Media and Frogware Studious must have had a fun time creating Ariane’s adventure world, which exudes inventive charm and strikes one as a cross between Jules Verne’s imagination and Dinotopia. We’ve certainly come a long way from Zork haven’t we?

And don’t think that just because the backgrounds are pre-rendered means that the entire world is just a static, pretty painting. Much like the Resident Evil series (which also uses pre-rendered backdrops) Journey utilizes a nice mixture of 3D objects and backgrounds to create the sense of an active world, teeming with life. The 3D modeling that constitutes all the interactive movables within the environment (basically Ariane, other characters, animals, special effects) is right on par with today’s graphics, something we can appreciate when Ariane is walking through the streets of Askiam with Pterodactyls flying overhead, pedestrians mulling around her and plodding Triceratops with their riders on top forming the noonday traffic. Players who arrive at the back of Heracles shop in Askiam absolutely have to see the Dino “Telelogram”, an amazingly cool animated 3D image of a triceratops. Where can I get one of those for my room?

Taking a cue from Syberia, the music in Journey to the Center of the Earth displays an astute sense of timing, refraining from playing constantly in the background and opting instead to introduce new pieces every time a new area is accessed or an important event is triggered.

When the music fades, pleasant ambient noises fill the air, from the gentle chirping of crickets amongst clusters of tall grass to the mechanical hum of machinery within a dark coalmine. Some may find these aural interludes a bit too brief; at times the intermittent nature of the musical score and ambient sound prompted me to wonder about this, but as in Syberia, striking a balance between creating music to suit the situation and simply bombarding the player with constant background buzz can be a delicate tightrope to walk, and in my opinion Journey does this quite well.

Another area in which Journey excels is the voice acting. Because so much of the storyline’s integrity rests upon the ability of the characters to sound authentic within an imaginary environment it is crucial that voice communication be lively, varied and interesting. Journey accomplishes this task with great aplomb, allowing each character to sound unique and quite fitting to their appearance and background. It made clicking each voice dialogue box a very pleasurable experience.

To paraphrase a famous philosopher, ‘The journey itself is much more important than the destination’ and “Journey” (pardon the pun) takes that concept to heart, pouring all of its value into the single player experience. Like a film, your first experience with this game will be the most memorable, and put within the context of that criteria, Journey scores high marks. No, there may not be much point to replaying the adventure once you’ve finished, but Journey does offer a bit of a twist.

Journey to the Center of the Earth provides two different endings based upon Ariane’s moral dilemma within the game. Will she reveal the existence of this hidden world and risk its exposure to the perils of our modern world, or will she keep its secrets and lose the career making opportunity of a lifetime? Essentially what this means is that at the summation of your adventures you will have a decision to make, based upon that decision the story will play itself out accordingly. This adds a nice touch, and though it doesn’t come anywhere near the replay value offered by other genres, is a step in the right direction, one that more adventure games will need to take in the future.

Journey suffers from certain segments of its gameplay – at times the puzzles can be much too frustrating and item interaction leaves something to be desired. This can lead to an intermittently hit-or-miss gameplay experience, although in the end individual experience will dictate the level of difficulty presented by Journey’s in-game puzzles - even the most skilled player will need to take a peek at a walkthrough guide every now and then, and as such is definitely recommended for most players. Dedicated adventurers looking for an adventure to hold them over until the release of Syberia II would do well to give this ‘Journey’ a try.