At a glance...

Reviewer	Platform	Publisher	Developer	Players	Screenshots
Dave Wickham	PC	The Adventure Company	AWE Games	1	Here
Requirements					Buy from Amazon.co.uk
Minimum: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, 850MHz PIII or compatible, 256MB RAM, 32MB DirectX 9-compatible 3D card, DirectX-compatible sound card, 1.5GB HDD space Recommended: Windows XP, 1.8GHz P4 or compatible, 512MB RAM, 64MB 3D card, Creative X-Fi sound card					Click here to buy And Then There Were None.

And Then There Were None review

And Then There Were None is AWE Games' interactive interpretation of Agatha Christie's 1939 novel of the same name. For those who, like me, who have not read Christie's original text, the basic premise is this: ten strangers are invited to an island in Devon by a Mr. U. N. Owen. Some time after they arrive, each of the guests is accused—via a recording—of a wrongdoing that has, either directly or indirectly, claimed the lives of other people. Shortly after, the first guest chokes to death, being the first in a chain of deaths as foretold in a rhyme.

For reasons and brevity and so as to avoid spoiling the story, that's as far as I'll go. Apparently the game sticks fairly closely to the original novel (though as mentioned, I have not actually read it), with a number of exceptions; for example, the inclusion of a player character (the boatman, who gets stranded on the island with the rest of them when a suspicious guest wrecks his boat), and the change of "Indians" to "sailor boys" in the rhyme, presumably for political correctness. Oh, and let's not forget the completely different ending; so as to give some more play value to readers of the novel, AWE Games decided to change the outcome of the story, depending on how you complete it. Before you shout "HERESY" and destroy the offices of AWE, though, the original ending is still included after you have seen the (in my opinion, inferior) new endings.

But anyway, enough about the story line; being based on the Agatha Christie novel gives ATTWN a free pass when it comes to plot quality. How fun actually is the game to play? It gets off to a bit of a slow start, with you—Patrick Naracott—going through every room, examining every square centimetre of the house, and talking to everyone, all in the traditional adventure game manner. Saying that, part of this perceived slowness is probably just getting used to the (simple) controls and game concepts. Once the first victim is killed, the game starts to kick off. From then on, it progresses at an enjoyable pace, with the exception of the odd traditional "adventure game frustration syndrome" moments.

ATTWN feels like it is missing a layer of polish on top of it. Its voice acting is good, models are fairly detailed, backgrounds are high quality, music is correct for the period, but there are just some niggling details that stick out somewhat. Most obvious when the game is loaded up is that you are limited to 800x600 full-screen. Whilst this is perfectly acceptable for most people, my native resolution is 1600x1200, and 800x600 has a noticeable "low-quality" look to it on my monitor. For people with LCDs, I can see this being a more major problem, as they will either have a horrible looking fullscreen display, or a small rectangle in the middle of their screen.

The second area which could do with polish is that of animations; specifically picking up objects, and opening doors. Whilst purely aesthetic, both lack a degree of realism. When Naracott obtains items, he extends his arms, moves them in the general direction of the item, and it disappears. Door opening is less obviously disjointed, but still far from highly realistic; Naracott puts his hands on the door, but it doesn't actually open. In fact, in general, transition animation is missing—objects tend to go directly from one state to another.

So as to offer a slight diversion from the main plotline, there are a number of "sub-quests" within ATTWN; for example, at one point you can find the parts to mend a radio. These offer a welcome change from the main plot when you inevitably become stuck, but their almost complete lack of change within the game makes them feel like a generic welded-on addition. In other games, they also would have caused the problem of having more items in your inventory than needed, but ATTWN already gives you a lot of useless items. Quite why, nobody knows.

If you are a fan of adventure games, or were in the genre's heyday, you may want to take a look at ATTWN. Moving aside the minor issues such as animation and unneeded items, it's an enjoyable game with a good plot.

Ratings

Graphics	Good quality models and scenery...but 800x600? Why?	7/10
Gameplay	It's an adventure game. Like them? You'll probably like it. Hate them? You'll still hate it. Still, within the adventure game genre, ATTWN is pretty enjoyable.	7/10
Value	At £20, ATTWN is worth the money for fans of the genre, just don't expect any replay value.	8/10
Lifespan	It lasted me about 7 hours of play, but that was fairly dedicated. With more relaxed playing, it should last well over 10 hours. Obviously there isn't much replay value, until you've completely forgotten it all.	7/10
Audio	Not having X-Fi hardware, the full quality of the audio cannot be accurately gauged; however, the music fits in well with the period, and the voice acting is suitably convincing, with fitting voices for each character.	8/10
Overall	An enjoyable adventure game based on a good story, just missing a layer of polish, and with some distracting political correctness changes.	7/10

Click here to buy And Then There Were None from Amazon.co.uk.

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