LGR - Arctic Adventure - DOS PC Game Review

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enAahhh!Arctic Adventure.You know, why do we say the name of the game when we're reviewing half the time?I'm not doing that anymore.So I'm starting over.This old game was released by Apogee Software,developed by George Broussarda year after Pharaoh's Tomb in 1991.I had honestly never even heard about ituntil just a few years ago whenI was just perusing their websitewhen you could still buy these games.Arctic Adventure is pretty much the exact same game.It's definitely the same style of game.Uh, just a different color palette.Instead of the warmer, orange, whatever colors,you have the cooler, bluer, pinkish colors.So that really does give the gamea nice sense of being in the Arctic.This time around, George Broussard actually gothis name spelled properly on the main screen,which is a very nice touch.You are Indiana Jo– uh...Nevada Smith again,in search of adventure.Ha ha! Of the Arctic genre, so it seems.The story goes that since your discovery ofthe Pharaoh's Tomb in the previous game,you are quite pleased with your accomplishments.And who wouldn't be?!THAT GAME WAS FREAKING HARD!But it turns out, pretty muchnobody else thinks that much of you,blaming it on beginner's luck,and making it really not that big of a deal at all.Wait...So you're telling me that the entire first game–ALL OF THAT–was for NOTHING?!It doesn't matter and nobody cares!That's fine!I don't care about YOU!Stupid GAME!Ugh...So it seems that in a bid for a chance to prove yourself,you go in search of an ancient Viking treasure.Somehow, these brilliant Vikings got theidea to hide their treasure in the Arcticbut on the way,they got greedy and stupid, crashed,and ended up splitting the map into four parts,which is just wonderful, sincethere are four parts to the game.What a coincidence.You try to convince your professor,Dr. Jones, to go with you,but he says he has too many other things to do,plus he hates the cold.But he does give you his.38 caliber revolver as insurance,and from there you go on to...go to sleep.And then dream of the adventure.Wait, so...You're telling me that this entire gameis going to be a dream?A dream?So this one isn't gonna matter either?Stupid...AAAGGGHHH!The game itself is almost exactlythe same as Pharaoh's Tomb.It does feel a little bit smoother, I guess.The hit detection is a little bit better this time around,although you'll still die for ridiculous reasons.The puzzles are more puzzley this time around,with more traps and more obstacles to get around.You have things like ice,tons of spikes,ice,hardly any creatures,ice,Barney.These things that are supposed to be Eskimosin the, uh...you know, Arctic.Puzzles are pretty much straightforward,and honestly, I haven't really had any problemsgetting through the puzzlesmentally.The problem is getting yourcharacter to obey the commands,which is essentially the same thingthat I had with Pharaoh's Tomb.Half the time, it justwill work against you.You will continue moving when you shouldn't.You'll have these ice.Sometimes you'll be able to jump, sometimes you won't.Sometimes the enemy will touch you,sometimes you can hop ontop of its head and get away.So that's where the challenge comes from.In a departure from Pharaoh's Tomb,instead of just going from level to level,you can actually, sort of, choosewhich levels you go to in what orderby way of a map screenthat you can peruse at the beginning.And in between levels.Collecting keys along the way to unlock new areas.This is basically the same method thatApogee used in a lot of their later games,like Crystal Caves and Secret Agent.Wait.You see what I see?Yeah.So apparently not only is George Broussard a sadistic freak,but he's also a Nazi.One huge complaint I have about the game,other than the annoyance factor of the controlsfrom time to time is the sound.On Pharaoh's Tomb, there was hardly any.You just had little \"bleep, blip,\"or something, you know, here and there.Not much at all.But on this one, it seems like everything makes a sound.And not only that, but a really obnoxious sound.On the PC speaker,these are probably the least enjoyablesounds that that thing can make.And it makes them all the time.I'm surprised there's not a sound for him breathing andhis food being digested.Another HUGE improvement of thegame is the fact that there are no lives.So you can die as many times as you want.Or as many times as you don't want,because you'll die anyways.It's just mean as crap still.And thankfully, you don't have to worry about reloadinga saved game every time that you die,so that you'll actually have some lives left overonce you finally beat some stupid puzzle.I just also want to make a little bit of acomment about the level design itself.It does seem a lot more...adventure-y, I guessthat's how I can put it.I don't know, it just seems like moreof the traps on this one and the layout–Some of the things that are going onseem more like a tomb would, you know?An actual adventure movie-style tombwhere you have all these things going on with the–the spikesand the stuff trying to shoot at you and kill you.You had that in Pharaoh's Tomb,but there's just more so in this one.And yes, of course, there's even agiant stone which rolls after you.Quite curious is the addition ofa bit of a Mario element now.Even more so than it already hadwith the hitting your head onthe bricks to get coins thing.At the end of every level, instead of goingthrough a moving door like the tombs,you have giant pipes.Okay...It's already a bit of a stretchfor the Vikings to have theseentire huge chambers made of ice, spikes and stoneto hide the way to their maps and treasure,but to have giant sewage pipes?What kind of Vikings are these?And in between the end of a leveland the map screen, you'll also have this bonus levelwhere you can collect coinsand gems.Which is also very familiar for us Nintendo fans.Not to say it's a bad thing,It's just it's another blatant ripoff that's quite amusing.Oh, and of course, what would a game in this series bewithout completely evil traps.The way you get through theselevels is to break blocks of iceby collecting pickaxes.Apparently, these pickaxes are made of balsa wood,as they only work for one block of iceand one block of ice only.Once you use it, you can't use it again,so if you have more than one block of ice,and you've only collected one pickaxe,well,you are quite simply screwed, my friend.But, keep on doing that chicken.Eventually you'll get it.Arctic Adventure is a pretty sweet little game,and the fact that it runs on basically ANY PC EVER–yeah, it runs perfectly fine on my IBM 5150.That's great.So, you can get some nice,solidly-made, for the most part,platforming fun in on anysystem that you can throw at it.Would I wholeheartedly recommend it?If you really can't play anything else on your 4 MHz PC,then sure!But otherwise, there are so many moreplatforming games that are so much better on DOS.And honestly, I still kind of like the aestheticof Pharaoh's Tomb a lot better, so...It's a good game.And I wouldn't kick it out of the bed for eating crackers.\n"