RIPLEY GAME IS FUN; BELIEVE IT OR NOT !
A Review of Ripley's Believe It of Not: The Riddle of Master Lu
by Rich Cunningham
Picture in your mind the Sahara Desert in Africa, boiling hot sun, ancient ruins. A single man is running, pursued by two individuals intent on doing him bodily harm. He is trapped in front of some ancient ruins, when suddenly the wind comes up and........ Does this sound like the beginning of an Indiana Jones film or game? Well, it isn't. It is the opening sequence from the Sanctuary Woods' game "Ripley's Believe It or Not: The Riddle of Master Lu".
Set in the mid-1930's, this game is based on the real life adventures of Robert L. Ripley, who in my opinion, is as close to a real life Indiana Jones around. Ripley gave the world the renowned Ripley's Believe It or Not cartoons that have been popular in daily newspapers for over 60 years. These cartoons featured little known or odd facts that appeared to be too odd or unusual to be true. But they were, BELIEVE IT OR NOT. The collecting of these items earned Ripley the title the "modern day Marco Polo" and he took great pride in never having one of his facts disproved. Throughout the game, the player has a chance to see some original cartoons, as well as items that Mr. Ripley collected throughout his life.
This game is not an attempt to recreate history, but to have fun with it. Ripley is set up as a struggling museum owner (Ripley's Odditorium), and is looking for more exhibits to draw crowds so he can pay the bills. With his assistants Mei Chen and Leng Li, he tries to unravel the Riddle of Master Lu. I won't go into great detail here for risk of giving the game away, but it involves a lot of travel to exotic locations and several puzzles to unravel. Oh, yes, there is the usual cast of villains, henchmen, thugs and troublemakers along the way that make this an enjoyable game to play.
The artwork is excellent, far superior to any of the other role playing programs of this sort I have played. Real actors were used as models for the characters, but when they were animated, the programmers didn't use real video, but cartoon drawings. They look very life like and are very enjoyable to look at and watch. There is no jerkiness in the motion of the figures, which makes the gameplay more realistic. The sets are very detailed and have a 3-dimensional quality about them. There is an interesting feature that adds an enjoyable nostalgic touch. Whenever the game pauses, the scene fades to black and white from color. This is a very nice touch that I enjoyed. The voices are of good quality, the music is suitable to the script and the period.
The game interface is very user friendly, and is not difficult to master. The entire game can be played by point-and-click, with no keyboard interaction required. There are some keyboard commands described in the manual, but they really aren't needed. The manual that comes with the program is very good for the basics, describing the installation and interface. There is also a short player's guide to help get the user familiar with the game controls. In the edition I purchased, the full version of the official player's guide was included at no cost (a $14.95 value). This can come in handy, but is not really needed.
Installation was no problem. The game can be installed as a minimum (5mb), standard (34mb) or full (620mb) set up on a hard drive. I used the standard and it worked fine, no major delays in finding the data from the CD needed to run the game. I installed it under Windows 95, and it ran flawlessly. There are detailed instructions for installing it under Win95 for those that are technically challenged, and they are accurate. The only problem one may run into is with the publisher themselves. Sanctuary Woods has recently gotten out of the entertainment software, and is concentrating on their excellent educational titles and products. They say they will continue to provide technical support for all their products, but haven't said for how long.
I was very impressed by this game. I have enjoyed playing games of this sort ever since I picked up Police Quest 1 for my Atari ST. This game more than holds it's own with any of the Sierra On-line or LucasArts titles that are currently out there. I am sorry that Sanctuary Woods is not in the entertainment software business anymore, because I was looking forward to a sequel to this one. Oh, well, I guess this one will have to do. My advice is to buy this one and enjoy it . I did.
Gamer's Zone Scorecard
| Product: |
Ripley's Believe It of Not: The Riddle of Master Lu |
| Company: |
Sanctuary Woods
|
| Cost: |
$49.95 |
System Requirements:
Available for Macintosh, Windows 3.1, Windows 95
platforms. Requires CD ROM, sound card, 640x480x256 color display, 5mb hard
drive space minimum. System tested on: Pentium Overdrive 83mhz, 28mb ram,
NEC 4X4 CD ROM, Creative Labs Soundblaster 16, Paradise Bali 32 vlb video
card.
Breakdown:
Fun Factor 4
Graphics 5
Sound 4
Interface 5
Replayability 3
Overall Score:
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