Not as epic in scale as The Book of Unwritten Tales but set in
the same game world and featuring several of the same characters (including
playable characters Nate and of course Critter), with Nate starting out being
pursued by orc bounty hunter Ma’Zaz. The
actual origin of Critter is a surprise, but the fact that Munkus is behind the
evil stuff going on isn’t… he’s a great character, and wonderfully voiced (as
are all the characters in the game).
After escaping from first Ma’Zaz and then a Yeti (well… sort of a yeti),
Nate has to choose – reluctantly – to do the right thing and help the critters.
The Critter Chronicles is not quite as grand in scope as the first
Book of Lost Tales game but it’s definitely an agreeable way to spend a few
hours. The addition of achievements
helps a little with the replay factor, as does the fact that the only real
criticism I had of the first game – that it was too easy – is fixed with having
both Easy and Difficult playing modes (which really does have one or two tough
puzzles). You can turn the hotspot
helper back on in Difficult mode though which is good, since that’s a creature
comfort I’ve rather got used to in the last couple of years!
The plot is pretty good, with a
lot of derivative details but since they’re amusing I was more than happy with
them. There are some laugh-out-loud
funny scenes in this game, both in the gameplay and cut scenes, and although
there are not all that many different characters in the game, they are
certainly memorable. You play either as
Nate or Critter at different times, sometimes needing to work out how to get
them to work together to solve puzzles.
There are some locations revisited from the first game but mostly they’re
new. The interface works nicely and I didn’t
encounter any bugs to speak of.
The visuals look pretty
spectacular (gauging from the fact that I had to set everything to minimum in
order to keep the frame rate decent on my steam-powered laptop and they still
looked pretty good) – from some of the graphics in the end credits that looked
like they were stills from the game itself, on full detail this has got to be
one of the best-looking adventure games ever.
The voice work is very solid indeed and the music creates the right
atmosphere. The quality of writing is
high and the pop references – including an animal rights activist called “Petra”
– are often very funny.
Overall I really enjoyed The Critter Chronicles and, when I can finally
afford to get a decent gaming PC, I’ll probably play through it again to see if
I can unlock the other achievements and see what the graphics really should look
like. As long as you don’t expect
something quite as epic as the first game, you’re definitely not going to be
disappointed by this one.
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