Ah, yes. Revolution software has given us a lot of entertainment over the years. Revolution got a lot of adoration for their Broken Sword series. These games are deep, compelling, and just all around good mysteries. Adventure gamers love this series and for good reason. Revolution has made only six games since it was created in 1990: BS, BS2, BS3, In Cold Blood, Beneath A Steel Sky, and Lure of the Temptress. Lure came out in 1990, just when Revolution was young and full of ambition. I remember reading a review of the game and becoming very interested. The screens looked great, and the gameplay sounded fresh and immersive. And when I downloaded Lure, I was anxious to see Revolution's early days, and now that I've played the game, I can see that Revolution has made a lot of progress over the years.

Here's my review of Lure of the Temptress.








Story: Lure's story is a very traditional Medieval tale, which isn't a bad thing, but being a Medieval tale at the same time makes it unoriginal.
You are a young man named Diermot, who was living a quiet peasant life in a peaceful kingdom until the King conscripted you to serve in his army. It seems that he recently received news of a revolt in the hamlet of his kingdom Turnvale, orchestrated by a young and beautiful apprentice sorceress named Selena. And not being one to let such matters go unquenched, he immediately set off to nip the uprising in the bud.
But much to his and the kingdom's surprise, he was met not by peasants armed with pitchforks, but by a horde of grotesque gargoyle-like creatures: vicious mercenaries known as The Skorl. The king and many of his men were killed. Except Diermot. He was knocked unconscious.
You awaken much later lying on a filthy straw mattress in a torch lit room, with rough stone walls and bars at the high window. You are in a dungeon in Turnvale, which has been taken over by Selena's army.
In fact, the entire town appears to be literally crawling with soldiers. Diermot shudders to think about what will happen to he if he stays here, and what will happen to the good people of Turnvale if he leaves.
Just who is this mysterious Selena anyway? And why has she taken over Turnvale? Ah, but "hell hath no fury like the wrath of a woman scorned"
Though it can be compelling and cinematic, the story is just not very original. However, this game is fortunately very funny and has much humor within it. But the characters aren't very interesting either. By the end of the game, I forgot the main character's name. Also, this game has a very lame ending. Though some of it is funny.
Story gets a 6/10


Graphics: This game uses VGA graphics, and are pretty good. The backgrounds are well crafted, and the rooms are nicely detailed, though they do reuse some backgrounds. Here's the thing I didn't like, I'm not one to complain about graphics. I don't think graphics mean a thing or make a game better. But Lure only has one big area through the entire game, much like Simon the Sorcerer. And I just get tired at looking at the same areas over and over. It's just so boring, though I know this doesn't take away points for the graphics. They do have the occasional cutscene, which are pretty cool. They're sort of like a comic book style.
Graphics get an 8/10


Sound/Music: If you read the official review here at adventuregamers, it says there is no sound on the downloaded version. That is not true. You can't run the sound on Windows XP, but I ran this game on a Windows 98 PC, and the sound worked. But here's the problem: there barely is any sound at all. The only place where there is music is during cutscenes, if there was sound in the game, I missed it. Still, the music has a nice traditional medieval ring to it.
Sound/Music gets a 5/10


Gameplay: Control is simple point and click, but when you left click the object you want to see, it gives you a description of that object. If you right click it, the game will give you options how you can interact with it. This is also the only way to interact with the inventory.
Lure's gameplay was supposed to be ground breaking, but falls a bit short. Over the game, you will have companions with you. If Diermot is unable to do something himself, then he can ask his companions to do it. This would be pretty cool and immersive, but your followers are so damn disobedient, it will take a long while until they get around to it. And sometimes they just run off to a different room in the game. So when you need them, you have to search the whole town for them. The same goes with some of the puzzles. Some require you to talk to one of the people walking around the town. This does make the game feel more alive, though. I kind of get bothered that all the characters just stand there and never move.
Despite your companions, the puzzles are logical and well thought out. Though there is a bug in Lure that pops up in some games. It makes an item invisible preventing you from being able to finish the game! They have these two fight scenes in the game that are surprisingly fun.
Even though this game does let you talk and interact with characters, it's still not groundbreaking. I think The Secret of Monkey Island is the real groundbreaker when it comes to that.
Gameplay gets a 6/10


So despite Revolution's obvious talent with Broken Sword, they had humble beginnings and I think Lure of the Temptress is an interesting start and risk for a company. Lure really is a fair game, and this was Revolutions first game. But frustrating gameplay, dry story, and overused settings make this game only fair. I give Lure of the Temptress a
6.9/10
If you are still interested in this game, it is available for download here at Revolution's website.

[Eddy]

I don'treally like this review, maybe because I liked the gameplay or beause it's one of the first games I played with my dad on ou're atariST.

But you forgot too say something really importand in your review and that is that you didn't mention the intelligence of the people in the village, you only said they walked around a bit but they also went to the shops in town too get a drink or something else.And most games of today didn't have that.

[Beyond Delphine]

personally, in adventure games, i like my npc's to be thick as pigshit and predictable. Wanting to click on a character to talk to them and have them walk out of range or into a shop or pub just as you click is very annoying. Steel Sky had the same problems. Not major problems. Just a niggle.

[bigjko]

Not trying to be harsh or anything, but you seem pretty determined to pump these bland mini-reviews out each day almost. Why not spend a bit longer and make something more akin to an article, than a mini-review? Don't split it up into boring Graphics, Story, whatever, paragraphs. It just makes the review plain boring. Maybe have a summary at the end, similar to what you're writing now, but reviews are much more fun when they're full articles.

Just my two cents.

Probably because these are supposed to be mini reviews. I hate writing "full article" sh*t because it just doesn't get to the point. That's why I make them mini. Because you get the entire point on all the four most important elements to the game. And no, I don't think they're boring. It's because these reviews are short. I include all the important stuff in my reviews that's in any article I've seen. How would an article be diiferent than what you see me do? How would writing "articles" make it less bland?

Just my two cents. And I ought to know since I'm the writer.

[ragnar]

The problem with such narrow topics is that you can miss the greatness of a game altogether. A game might get low scores in all those topics and yet be rather good.

[Ninth]

Originally Posted by SamNMax

Probably because these are supposed to be mini reviews. I hate writing "full article" sh*t because it just doesn't get to the point. That's why I make them mini. Because you get the entire point on all the four most important elements to the game. And no, I don't think they're boring. It's because these reviews are short. I include all the important stuff in my reviews that's in any article I've seen. How would an article be diiferent than what you see me do? How would writing "articles" make it less bland?

Just my two cents. And I ought to know since I'm the writer.

Some like short reviews, some like long articles. Lengthy reviews bore me (as long posts do), so I like what you do. Keep on the good work.

[Ninth]

Originally Posted by ragnar

The problem with such narrow topics is that you can miss the greatness of a game altogether. A game might get low scores in all those topics and yet be rather good.

Well, if a game hasn't got good graphics, story, sound and gameplay, I don't see how great it could be.

[ragnar]

Well, perhaps if you define gameplay wide enough it may be able to cover things like atmosphere, intenseness, originality etc. But I think a free form article is much more flexible anyways.

[Ninth]

Originally Posted by ragnar

Well, perhaps if you define gameplay wide enough it may be able to cover things like atmosphere, intenseness, originality etc. But I think a free form article is much more flexible anyways.

Yes, it's more flexible, but that sometimes make the writer forget to mention very important drawbacks or advantages of a game, while putting forward his own experience. That's nice, and I understand this is the kind of reviews most people expect to read, but since I usually have no clue whether or not I can relate to this experience, because I don't know the reviewers well enough, I'd rather have a strict and short account like those SamNMax do, with a few screenshots. Those gave me (almost ) objective informations about the game, which are a lot easier to sort out than lengthy articles.
Besides, I like grades. Grades are fun! (and here I am, loosing whatever credibility I had left... )

[Jackal]

Originally Posted by SamNMax

I hate writing "full article" sh*t because it just doesn't get to the point.

If a full article doesn't get to the point, then it's not a good article. Has nothing to do with length. If it's long, it should be long because it's making MORE relevant points. There's a difference between long and thorough and long and rambling. There are definitely a lot of the latter, though.

Anyway, I think it's great you're doing these. Just remember that constructive criticism comes with the territory, and may actually improve your work in time.

Originally Posted by ragnar

Well, perhaps if you define gameplay wide enough it may be able to cover things like atmosphere, intenseness, originality etc. But I think a free form article is much more flexible anyways.

Well, I do cover atmosphere in graphics and sound on some games (ie Monkey Island series) and I cover originality in all my story sections. You have a good point in intenseness.

[ragnar]

Yes, there could be other things too, but there are room for all types of reviews, so go ahead with what you feel most comfortable with.