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Product:
Reah - DVD Edition The Features and The Basics Finally we get a new DVD-ROM title that takes advantage of the excellent space provided on a DVD disk. The game consists of over 87,000 frames of 3D rendered animation plus 40,000 frames of video sequences giving over 127,000 frames in total - this is definitely not an interactive slideshow. These are real numbers not the values "created" by marketing people. There are over 400 sound effects and similar number of spoken phrases - audio data occupies over 280 MB. Actually the developer had problems fitting the game on 6 discs. It was impossible to fit the data on "standard" DVD-5 single sided disc after decreasing compression rate in order to take advantage of better DVD-ROM performance so Project Two have put it on one DVD-10 Disk (Which means you can turn the disk over to play the other side). Here is the list of major features: Plenty of interesting and challenging puzzlesThe high quality puzzles are the true value of gameplay for many adventure game players. Reah has plenty of puzzles - the mix of inventory based, mechanical, and logical ones, ranging from very simple to quite complicated puzzles suiting everyone from people new to the genre to die hard adventure gamers. Reah is puzzle oriented adventureThe players want to solve puzzles not just watch story - that's what movies are for. That's why Reah's developers tried to create a game which primarily concentrates on the process of solving puzzles, not searching for them or watching the story. The player won't have to desperately "scan" the screen looking for hotspots or items or just for clues. He won't have to use any carried item on any other in hopeless attempts to make any progress in the game. The player will just know that he's facing the puzzle and his task is to solve it. Of course there's a story in the game, a world created only with puzzles would look a bit... odd. Great freedom of explorationAlthough the game is entirely based on prerendered graphics, the player experience a very immersive environment, thanks to our V-Cruise™ Engine. The navigation is ultra-smooth, fast and seamless and gives a feeling of "being there". The player can move between hundreds of locations and he has the ability to perform full 360 degree turns in every location with addition of occasional up and down looks and zooms. The engine does not use the popular technology of projecting a flat image onto the inside surface of a cylinder like many other similar products do - it simply shows the picture recorded by moving or rotating the camera. Thanks to this the player clearly sees that he is inside the three dimensional world instead of just watching the flat projection. The effect of 3D is further enhanced with slight eccentric rotation. The navigation is entirely controlled by mouse movement and one mouse button giving the player intuitive and smooth control similar to real-time rendered games combined with the highest quality of prerendered graphics. Highly realistic, beautiful graphicsThe team of five artists created a beautiful and varied world - there're cities, fountains, arches, a jungle with a lake, a desert village, and a futuristic tech center. Although the game takes place in an alternative world which helped the artists to show their imagination but most of the objects in the game resemble real ones forcing the artists to pay special attention to every detail. They created about 9000 different objects, large and small, consisting of over 10 million polygons illuminated with over 500 light sources. Dynamic, animated world.The world in the game is not static - the engine allows the addition of many animations in various locations. Full screen video sequencesThe game features a small cast of real actors who prevent the player from feeling lonely and help the story to develop. The actors were carefully shot on digital video and then composited against rendered backgrounds. The video sequences are displayed full screen at 25 frames per second. High resolution, high color displayThe game works in high
resolution - 640x480 pixels, full screen, in high color
mode - 65 thousand colors. The actual game window is also big -
608x348 pixels and all graphics and video are stored and displayed
exactly in this resolution, there's no scaling and other similar
"tricks" involved in order to cheat the player.
The DVD-ROM version
significantly increases the quality of graphics thanks to doubled data
transfer rate (reduced compression ratio).
DVD-ROM
vs CD-ROM version comparisons (each picture is about 100 kB in
size) All sound effects in the
game are of the highest quality, all in 16-bits of resolution
with 22 kHz sample rate. A virtual world created with amazing
graphics and supported by superb sound effects is even more convincing
and realistic. The game controls the location of the player's character
and all sound sources in the virtual world allowing for precise
positioning of them in stereo and updating these positions in real-time
thanks to QMixer sound engine licensed from QSound
Labs, Inc.
The DVD-ROM version uses the
newer version of the sound engine - QMDX - which supports
hardware accelerated 3D sound card allowing for full three dimensional
positioning of sound sources. The music was composed by
leading artists from the Polish techno scene. The result is a mix of
trance, psychedelic, ambient, trip-hop and drum'n'bass styles.
The DVD-ROM version uses
MPEG Audio Layer 3 (MP3) technology licensed from Fraunhofer
Institut which allows for an improved soundtrack of full CD quality
and increased length. Next to that, an extra track, especially composed
for that version, is added.
The
standard CD-ROM version for the North American market features all sound
enhancements of the DVD-ROM version. All movements are handled
with the mouse and one of its buttons. The interface is simple - the
inventory items are automatically highlighted and ready to use when an
appropriate hotspot is discovered - there's no need to guess what item
should be used at a particular point. All other options are available
via an auto-hiding top menu bar. There are also keyboard shortcuts
giving access to the most important functions. Installation and
In-Game Options Installation is easy,
first you just put the Reah DVD disk into your DVD-ROM drive and let
AutoPlay do the rest. Next you'll get a list of options - you click on
install, choose the directory you wish the game to installing into and
in a few seconds installation is complete. Finally you can choose
whether you wish to install DirectX. Once loaded you are
greeted with a few options: Continue
Game - This lets you load up the last game you
saved When you begin a new game,
you are greeted by a nice looking introduction to the world of Reah.
Once the intro has finished your quest begins, you are presented with
your first look at the interface that you will use for the rest of the
game. Gameplay You have been sent to
investigate a mysterious artifact on an alien planet. The artifact turns
out to be a portal to an alternate reality. As the portal becomes
unstable, you get sucked in to it, and you find yourself outside the
walls of an ancient city. Your first challenge is to
enter the city. This first puzzle - studying symbols on sundials, making
logical connections you open the gates and walk into the city - is
typical for the rest of the game. The puzzles throughout the game can be
mind-numbingly difficult to figure out, thankfully though there are a
few "Beginner" puzzles for you to get used to Reah's way of
thinking, but they are few and far between. Completing puzzles usually
results in a short cutscene and then another puzzle for you to solve
will crop up elsewhere. You also have an inventory
which lets you hold a number of objects which you use during the game,
unlike most point and click adventures that lets you choose the object
you wish to use, in Reah moving your mouse pointer over a certain
locations means that inventory objects are automatically highlighted
when they are needed. Graphics & Sound How It
Grades As is expected for a
DVD-ROM title - both the graphics and sound are superb, there is no
doubt that these types of graphical puzzle games are perfectly suited to
DVD. Every location has 360-degree views based on pre-rendered images.
In certain locations you can look up and down, while in others you can
zoom in on important maps and the suchlike. The video sequences which
are played back at various points in the game when you meet people you
can talk to were a little blocky, but far better than has been seen in
the majority of FMV adventure games. The DVD soundtrack is
excellent, wish suitable music played in each new location. The speech
is well spoken and clear, but unfortunately isn't well written which is
a little disappointing for an adventure with a good story. Reah DVD
edition also supports a number of 3D Sound cards such as the
SoundBlaster Live! And it makes very good use of the 3D sounds in the
game. Final Comments Reah is one of very few
DVD-ROM titles currently available, it does though make very good use of
the medium. Improved graphics and sound are both apparent, but the main
plus point is the fact that there is no longer any CD swapping that can
spoil many adventure games these days. On the gameplay side it can be
very hit and miss, while some puzzles are enjoyable to complete and
figure out, others can be annoyingly frustrating and the badly written
dialogue is also a little disappointing. But I can say that I recommend
this to all of you puzzle lovers out there, and judging from sales of
Myst and Riven, there are a lot of you. Also those of you looking to
show off a DVD-ROM title can't really go wrong with this (Overseer was a
big let down as a DVD title). Obviously if you don't enjoy puzzle
solving - avoid this at all costs. |
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