Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Titanic: Adventure Out of Time

Well folks, my apartment is filled with boxes and I’ve been going through all my old stuff preparing for my move, so it’s time to go nostalgic again!  Today I’ll be talking about a little known game called “Titanic: Adventure Out of Time”, one that I had a blast playing as a kid and still holds up pretty well today as a graphic adventure game.




Yes, this came out in the wake of the huge success of Titanic the movie.  And yes, by this point I was obsessed with the history of the Titanic.  I read books, watched documentaries, you name it.  That fascination hasn’t died either.  Really, it helped start my interest in archaeology and history.  So when I heard my friend had a Titanic computer game, I had to check it out.

The game starts out in the 1940’s confusingly enough.  From what you can gather you are a washed up British secret service agent who was let go after you botched a mission on the Titanic.  Then the game begins in a series of flashbacks as you ruminate on your last mission…oh, wait, no it doesn’t.  That’s a far too common storytelling method.  Instead, as you wander your dingy apartment the air raid sirens sound and the resulting explosion sends you hurtling back in time to the Titanic to right your past wrongs.  That’s right.  All you need to time travel is a nazi bomb.
If you haven’t already guessed, this game does not have much to do with the movie other than the ship itself, and that actually works in its favour.  As a secret service agent, your goal is to retrieve a stolen book called the Rubaiyat, a priceless jeweled book of Persian poems. But it's a far less simple mission than anticipated, with far reaching political consequences for the entire world.

You meet many characters along the way.  Some are connected to your primary mission but most are side quests that are somewhat optional and don't have to be solved in any particular order.  There's the rich steel tycoon who needs your help because his Irish maid stole a compromising letter, the old flame in an abusive relationship, and the Reverend who just wants someone to listen to the word of God.  And that's just a few of them.  Other characters pop up at random if you're in the right place at the right time, and they'll often give hints that you might not have otherwise gotten.

Although you'll have to listen to these two go on for about ten minutes before getting anything useful



The story is deliciously mysterious and immersive.  What makes it work especially well though is that the sinking of the ship is more used as a wrench thrown into your ultimate plan rather than the main focus of the plot.  The characters (presented in a sort of animated photo style) are also well fleshed out no matter how minor they are and there is some fantastic voice work to support them as well.

More importantly though, despite being a voicless faceless presence, you start to get a sense of your own character.  This is a key method of game storytelling.  It worked for Portal and Bioshock as well.  If you want your faceless protagonist to have a character, you have to depend on how others treat you.  It's quite clear playing the game that you are a suave 1912 version of 007, and this comes from your interactions with other characters. 

A lot of what made the game fun for me was simply exploring the ship and interacting with the various characters.  The designers clearly did their research, recreating the ship beautifully and providing a character or two to relay historical facts in case you're curious.  A few areas are obviously restricted, but only a few.  There is a huge amount of the ship to explore, and thankfully the game provides a map that allows you to zoom from area to area (more on that later). 



As I sort of said before, the gameplay is pretty non-linear.  You don't have to pursue any one storyline in a particular order, but this does affect how your game will play out.  Timing really tends to be a factor in certain sections of the game and you will never know which sections until it is too late.  It doesn't mean your game is over necessarily, but it does mean that there might be certain information or an item that you will have to work without.  It's tough at points, but well integrated.

Really...this whole game is fun.  It's an edutainment type game with a great spy thriller feel to it, and it took me about two minutes to get fully immersed into it.  The interface is easy to use, the characters are fun to talk to, the main plot and side plots are engaging and the few puzzles there are make sense to the story and don't feel wedged in.  There are a couple of needless "action" sequences but mostly...I was happy wandering the ship, solving mysteries and being charmingly suave.

And then the ship starts sinking and everything changes.  Don't get me wrong, the sped up pace and tension of the game added to my own tension, but boy did the game become unpredictable after that point.  For one, the timing of the game turns itself upside down.  Instead of events of the game moving the time forward, the time now ticks away regardless of what you do.  And you had better hope that you learned the layout of the ship throughout the game and didn't depend too much on your map.  Because your warping ability is taken away to heighten the time constraints.

Then it gets incredibly difficult to get everything you want for your ideal ending.  Only three or four oppurtunties to escape the ship will present themselves, and if you don't have everything you need at that time, that oppurtunity leaves regardless.  And at first you think okay, so I didn't get this notebook.  Big deal.  There's one freakin' lifeboat left.  Well, it turns out that these items can stop both WWI and WWII.  Seriously?  Really?...Well, crap.

Did you know that your highschool crush was the reason WWII happened?  Well?  Was she worth it?


But other than that?...It's honestly a really solid game.  The story is interesting, the characters are interesting, the ambience and atmosphere is perfect, and while it's very possible to fail at several points it doesn't detract too much from the experience.  Every couple of years I like to replay it, and it's unfortunate that now I have an operating system that won't support an older game and I can only hope that GOG gets it on their list.  It's definitely worth it.

2 comments:

  1. Actually they are a dying art but I don't agree with shoot em ups being better. It is the gaming industry that thinks PC's are dying due to Iphones and Tablets so they are working hard to convince people.

    Go to any store and you'll find almost nothing but Smell Phones and Tablets and I don't mean the kind you swallow for you're headache from seeing all the flashy devices and salesmen who are young adults who know almost nothing about computers but pretend they do.

    You have to go to second hand stores now if you want to either fix you're PC or find a refurbished one to make a gaming rig.

    I am looking for an old 32 bit computer to play old Sierra Art adventure games and some RTS games but nobody has 32 bit computers. My best luck is looking around at some second hand stores scattered to see if anybody is willing to sell some old clunkers.



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  2. I wish I could go to Apple's HQ and create an *accident* tho those responsible for the crash of the PC's.

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