A little on the easy side...
If you have played previous Simon games the majority of the cast will be familiar, with returns for Goldilocks, the drunken wolf, Little Red Riding Hood and unfortunately swampling. There is a smattering of new characters as well and although there are some in-jokes new players shouldn’t feel too left out by what is going on.
Point and click games usually stand or fall on their puzzles. There is a very fine line between too simple and too cryptic and annoying. The puzzles should make you feel good when you solve them without feeling like you are being treated like a child. The puzzles here are little too much on the simplistic side. As the game goes on the puzzles do get a little more cryptic but there is nothing that is going to challenge anyone familiar with the genre. This makes for a pretty easy game. There is a brief section where you have a choice of three routes to take, but this is only for one puzzle and then you are back on to the same path again.
Simon the Sorcerer has always followed the humorous approach to point and click games which when done right can lead to real belly laughs. The problem here is that the game was originally made in Germany and then later translated over to English. While there are some funny moments for the most part the humour feels strained and there wasn’t a moment where I can remember laughing out loud at the game.
The voice acting is adequate, although at times verges on the annoying. Swamplings Voice is really annoying but then this is to be expected as he is an annoying character. Simon sounds ok although I still think I remember Chris Barry`s Simon and that just fitted better. The mole spy voices are the perfect example of the voice acting on a whole. One of the voices sounds like you`d expect a cold war spy to sound while the other sounds like someone attempting a really bad Austrian accent.
Graphically, the game isn’t going to win any awards but then this is a genre where photo-realism has never been the main draw. The majority of locations are well drawn and well detailed and the character models for the most part look good. It’s good to see the developers moved away from the 3D engine that failed in the third game. My only slight gripe is that at times some of characters and locations can seem a bit angular when you`d expect them to be smoother.
This isn’t the best point and click game around, it’s not even the best Simon the Sorcerer game, but it is a decent game. At less than 10 hours this isn’t the longest game out there and the genre has never really leant itself to multiple play-throughs, at least not straight after completion. There is a number of Easter eggs listed in the end credits but these don’t add much to the game at all. There is also the chance to see what the aliens were saying throughout the game which is a nice extra, but doesn’t really add much to the experience. If you enjoy point and click games and need some to tide you over until the new series of Sam and Max then you could do a lot worse than this.
