[MystGirl]

This game had the potential to be another Syberia, or of The Longest Journey caliber, but it doesn't quite get there. It's one of those games, that has some really great elements, which could have made it an all time favorite classic, but misses in some other areas.

However, it's still an enjoyable game. You play Ariane, a photojournalist, who crash lands on Iceland, near a dormant volcano. (this is the first area where you learn how to pick up and use a few items before entering a dark cavern nearby.)

After entering the cavern, she finds herself on an island near a mine (in the center of the Earth) where she meets a colorful character who shows up here and there in the game, giving her clues, advice, etc. Of course, the game is filled with "fantasy" areas (like a giant mushroom forest for example) to explore, puzzles to solve, new characters to meet. The graphics are great, and the story is interesting enough. She must complete little assignments along the way, and various tasks to figure out what to do next, or move forward.

There is only one town she visits in this game, but you spend a good deal of time there. (there's a lot to see and find here, so explore everything!) You also visit the Land Of The Giants, to speak to the folks there, find things, figure out puzzles, etc.

One of the cool things about the game, is you get to carry a laptop with you, and when you get messages or other info of importance, you get a little "laptop" symbol in the corner of the screen to click on, to open the laptop and read whatever you need to read. The laptop screen, takes up almost the whole screen. I liked that. It was something different.

You also get to have an item tray of course, where collect items go when you pick them up. You open this tray to select items, read their descriptions, or combine items.

Unfortunately, with all the positives with this game, there were also some negatives. First off, this game has some technical glitches. You may play it thinking, some of them are so obvious, how did the beta testers for this game not catch these? However, the trick to dealing with some of the glitches, is to print out a walkthrough that mentions the glitches. A good walkthrough will help you avoid them completely, or help you to work through them.

Personally, I didn't have too much trouble with technical stuff with this game, but I had a great walkthrough that helped explain them, if I ran into any. Apparently, there are some places in the game where it can crash, but luckily, I never had that problem. (save the game frequently, to help avoid losing progress if it crashes for you)

The movement of Ariane can be very glitchy in certain areas. PM me privately if you get frustrated with this game's glitches, and I will recommend the website where I found a great walkthrough for this game.

Other then the technical glitches, the only other complaint I had about the game was that you'll have mixed feelings after playing it. It had so much more potential. The voice acting is pretty bland overall. As I went along, I kept thinking, if they had just put more effort into the character development, this could have easily been another Syberia. While it is an enjoyable game, it falls short of being the truly amazing game, it could have been.

This is another game, that was far too short overall. But I notice many adventure games, seem too short these days. I suppose with spiraling costs, game companies can only afford to spend so much on games they develop. Longer games, can be more expensive.

This game is suitable for very young players as well as adults.

[tsa]

I just finished JTTCOTE. When I just started the game I thought: 'O no, another Paradise!' Ariane never showed much in the area of emotions and she wass never surprised about anything. When she meets a live T-Rex feeding on an Iguanodon, the only thing she says it that the pictures will look good in her story. But later on this changes a bit and she turns into a real person. I agree with MystGirl that the developers should have put some more effort in character development, however.

What I liked very much about the game was the fact that even the dark areas were not so dark that you had to increase the brightness and contrast of your monitor to maximum just to be able to see anything. Too many games these days are far too dark. This game has bright colours and beautifully drawn backgrounds. I ended up enjoying the game after a while, and I was really curious about the ending. There are two endings, one of which is not very satisfying because it leaves a lot of open questions (although the ending is completely logical and just). If you choose to play the second ending Ariane will go on yet another long quest, which is very satisfying and fun to play. Howver, unfortunately a few new open questions are introduced at the very end.
Most of the puzzles in the game were quite simple and logical, although some pixel hunting is involved here and there. Sometimes hotspots are not showed which makes the game confusing at times. However, three or four of the puzzles are so infuriatingly illogical that you really need a walkthrough if you dont want to solve them by trial and error. And believe me, solving them by trial and error takes a very long time. I was happy with the very good walkthrough MystGirl gave me.
All in all, this is a nice game, but IMO it deserves 3.5 stars at max instead of the 4 it got in AdventureGamer's review.