Like the earlier Access games, Amazon runs mainly from a third-person perspective, with the keyboard used to move the character around the screen and the mouse to interact with the environment. When entering some important locations, the perspective changes to a first-person point of view, but in both cases all the actions – Look, Move, Pick Up, Climb – are performed through an icon-driven interface that replaces the verb-based one seen in the first two Tex Murphy titles. Unfortunately, this interface has its share of problems: the keyboard movement is clunky and imprecise, making it difficult to correctly place the character, resulting in several “Move closer” or “You’re not close enough” messages. Moreover, when the player picks up an item from the inventory and uses it on the screen, the cursor retains the object’s shape whether the object was correctly used or not. This little annoyance sometimes makes it hard to determine if a certain action has succeeded.

The most annoying flaw of the interface, however, is the way it deals with dying and restoring. Amazon has several ways to die, and each time Jason fails a sequence of actions the game prompts the player with a death screen. Thankfully this contains some clues on how things need to be done, but the game then restarts from the very beginning. It’s only then, after the animated introduction, that the player can load a previous save. In a particularly tricky timed sequence, I died almost twenty times and, after the tenth restart, I began to hate the allegro opening theme and I had to turn the music down.

Did I mention timed sequences? While hardly an uncommon feature at the time of release, Amazon totally raises the bar in this regard, since more than 70% of the game consists of timed actions that sometimes give the player only a short time to figure out the right thing to do. While many solutions are puzzle-based, on at least one occasion fast reflexes and good hand-eye coordination are required. But just when you think that the bad part is over, there is also a stealth segment where, in a very confined space, Jason has to perform a linear sequence of actions while avoiding a patrolling guard. It goes without saying that the uncomfortable interface makes these sequences even more frustrating. Worse, there are three arcade sequences involving canoe-riding that, whilst quite easy to master, quickly become annoying and serve no other purpose than to artificially lengthen the game.

Actual deaths, and there are plenty of them, aren’t the only problem, since the game is equally unforgiving in other ways. An unattentive player can reach multiple dead ends, not only by overlooking important objects but even by failing to carefully examine all the well-hidden hotspots, thus forcing a thorough pixel hunt in every location. Having played many Sierra games, I’m used to these kinds of obstacles, so I saved early in the game and often throughout it, but for some players, especially the ones not used to such old-school adventures, this will be a major flaw and a serious detriment to their gaming experience.

It’s a shame that the gameplay is so muddled, because the actual puzzles are great. They are mostly inventory-based but although never groundbreaking, they are clever and prove to be a real challenge even for the seasoned adventurer. They never become frustrating, though, because the developers built an in-game hint system that can be used to receive clues about objects and hotspots. It’s mostly in this regard that Amazon feels like a warm-up for Under a Killing Moon. As in that game, if a player continuously uses this feature in Amazon, the overall score of the game is lowered, resulting in a different, less satisfying finale. There is no reason to worry, though, as it’s unlikely that anyone will need the hints more than three or four times during the whole game, because the puzzles are always logical and well-integrated in the gameplay.

Dialogue puzzles also make an appearance in Amazon. Not as developed as they become in the following Tex Murphy games, here they are never difficult nor require much thought from the player, since it’s always pretty obvious which answer is the right one. Nonetheless, they are a nice addition and incredibly funny: Jason can be a real buffoon and his lines are often stuffed with all kind of jokes and puns, so I tried even the most politically incorrect answers just for the fun of it. Late in the game there are also a couple of puzzles where the player has to switch between Jason and Maya in order to progress. Amazon uses these scenarios cleverly, with lots of interaction between the two characters and an over-the-top humor that makes them a real pleasure to play.

Rating Amazon: Guardians of Eden is a tough job: the game is a solid, old-fashioned aventure with clever puzzle design, an engrossing B-movie story and very likeable characters. The overall experience, however, is harmed by serious problems in terms of gameplay and interface, not to mention production values that have aged horribly, at least in the absence of SVGA compatibility. The final score must account for all these flaws, and yet this is a game that I can’t help but recommend to old-school adventurers. Not only does Amazon represent a fundamental passage from earlier Access Software titles to the more mature games heralded by Under a Killing Moon, it has much to offer as an adventure in its own right. It may be dated and may be flawed, but it’s undeniably entertaining.