Gemini Rue [Wadjet Eye Games + Joshua Nuernberger] - $3.99

I will admit that I’m not a huge fan of Point & Click games, but there are a few that have grabbed my attention over the years. Of course, the classics; Myst, Riven and The Last Express, but also a few that I had the chance to play primarily because of their appearance in the AppStore; Machinarium, Another World, Yesterday and The Walking Dead. Well, now I can add one more title to this very short list of games that have completely blown me away. Gemini Rue. Originally released for the PC back in 2011, Gemini Rue has made its way to the touch screen and, even on the smaller iPhone/iPod screens, it’s a perfect fit. 

Developed by Joshua Nuernberger and published by Wadjet Eye Games, the same developer/publisher team that released the PC version, the iOS port is basically an exact copy of the original. Aside from the controls, iOS gamers now have the option of playing one of the best Point & Click titles to date. Gemini Rue has won multiple awards, being named Gamespy’s Adventure Game of the Year, Aggies awards for best story, best setting and best independent adventure, as well as winning the AGS Awards for best gameplay, best original story, best player character, best background art, best character art and best sound effects, not to mention being named PC Gamer’s Adventure Game of the Year, all in 2011. If that isn’t enough to push you into dropping the measly $4 for the game, I don’t know what is. Even gamers who are not fans of Point and Click Adventure games have a very high chance of falling completely in love with Gemini Rue. 

It is surprising that no awards were given for the games soundtrack, as it’s one of the best compositions I’ve heard in a video game. Nathan Allen Pinard composed the BGM, and it’s fantastic, adding immensely to the dark and dreary atmosphere found within the game. The dark buildings and rainy cityscapes definitely add to the tense feeling and cyberpunk themes found throughout the story. Even the brightly lit hospital like areas of the game have a creepy feeling of solitude, even when other characters are present. This also fits in with the plot, as you never know who you can trust or what the NPC’s are going to do or how they’ll react to you, helping to make it feel like you are completely alone in the world of Gemini Rue. 

The game takes place in the 23rd century in the Gemini System. A system that’s recently been torn apart by war, and is under the control of the Yakuza, referred to as the Boryokudan (meaning ‘Violence Group’, which is what the media and police call the Yakuza). Throughout the game, you’ll control multiple characters; Azriel, an ex-assassin turned lawman who is searching for his brother, Daniel, Azriel’s brother who is also referred to as Alpha-Six and Matthius, one of Azriel’s old friends from when he was an assassin. I won’t get too much into the story, as the plot and how it unfolds is a major part of the game, but essentially, you’ll be searching for Daniel, who’s been kidnapped by the Boryokudan, with Matthius’s help. 

One of many notable aspects of the game is how the tutorial is presented. Instead of just having a help section, or giving you a brief ‘how-to’ at the beginning of the game, you’ll learn how to do things as you need to. But these actions are also flawlessly woven into the story, adding another layer of evolution into the game. Another aspect that’s not too common in Point & Click games; gunplay. You’re able to duck behind cover deciding when you want to point your head out so that you can fire. There’s also a breath-holding mechanic that gives you the ability to one-hit-kill enemies with a headshot if pulled off right by shooting when your breath gauge is in the green. 

Graphically, Gemini Rue does look a little blurred, but the retro feeling of the graphics mixed with modern graphical techniques is pulled off perfectly giving the game a ton of atmospheric qualities. As we already said, the soundtrack also helps complete the atmosphere giving the game a feeling within the setting that would be a perfect fit for any one of William Gibson or Neal Stephenson’s novels. The animations however, are a tad bit clunky. I can’t help but feel like if the animations were a little smoother, it would have added yet another level of immersion to the gameplay. That isn’t to say that the animations are not noteworthy, because they are still well done, it just so happens that they stand out because the rest of the game is so unbelievably polished. 

Aside from the animations, the only other negative thing that I can say about the game is the lack of GameCenter. Achievements would have been a great addition for this mobile port. However, like the animations, this isn’t something that takes away from the game at all. I never found myself saying ‘I’d be more inclined to play this game if it had GameCenter integration’, it just would have been an added little plus if it was included. Being Universal and priced at $3.99, Gemini Rue is a steal (especially taking into account that the PC version is $9.99), and we really can not recommend it enough. I know we say that a lot here, especially lately, but Gemini Rue is one of very few games that has secured it’s spot on our Game Of The Year list. It’s a title that every iOS gamer should experience. We also hope to see more of Wadjet Eye Game’s published titles hit the AppStore in the future, especially if they’re anywhere near the same level as Gemini Rue. 

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Riven for iPad [Cyan Worlds] - $5.99

For those of you familiar with gaming in the 90’s, or if you’re just into old(ish)-school games on the AppStore, Myst is one of the most memorable games from it’s era. It was also the best selling PC game of the 90’s. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Myst is a Point & Click/Puzzle Adventure game that puts you in the roll of The Stranger, a person sent to the island of Myst where it’s your job to find various books by traveling to different Ages, or worlds, slowly revealing the back-story of the game. Cyan Worlds has ported Myst as well as the newer realMyst - which is exactly like the original Myst, only played in 3D and opening the world for you to explore every little nook and cranny - to the iOS, and following suit, also released Riven, the sequel to Myst, back in 2010. Cyan Worlds has been hard at work, and has just released an iPad build of Riven, allowing players to experience this touch screen version on the bigger screen. 

Riven, just like the iPhone version, is a perfect port as far as gameplay is concerned, giving gamers the opportunity to pick up right where Myst left off, thrusting them into the slowly decaying Age of Riven. As you might have guessed, Riven for iPad also has quite a few enhancements that, as you might imagine, could not have been an easy task to accomplish. The iPad version of Riven includes high resolution images, improved music and effects and updated movies and animations. It also runs on all iPad devices, including the original iPad 1. 

There are a few options that you can adjust and change at any point in the game. You can change the transition speed from slow to fast, or turn it completely off, allow hints and show or hide the interface buttons. While I do remember Riven’s animations being a bit quicker than they are on the iDevice, you are also able to tap in the upper right corner to skip the longer ones if you so desire. This does help move the game along at a quicker pace, especially if you know what you’re doing. There is also a ‘Help’ section that takes you to Cyanworld’s website to view a quick tutorial. The hint system, like in Myst, is done through an online walkthrough, and can be very helpful if you ever get stuck. 

The puzzles, like in Myst, are usually multi-screen puzzles, requiring you to do something in one area and then another before being able to move on to the next area. One of the most frequent complaints I hear when discussing Myst with friends or online is that the puzzles usually make no sense and ‘how are you really suppose to know how in the world to do that without looking for help somewhere?’. While this may be the case with some, others who are willing to search every area for hints in the form of pictures and experiment with buttons and levers, the game’s unique type of puzzles will grow on you. While this sort of puzzle solving is not for everyone, it has definitely withstood the last 15 or so years (longer for the original Myst), and is considered by many to be one of the top Point & Click Puzzlers even now. 

Control-wise, everything is done with taps and swipes, with the game being made up of thousands upon thousands of still photos, moving forward can be done by tapping in the center of the screen while turning around and looking up or down can be done either by swiping anywhere on the screen in the opposite direction (swipe down to look up, left to turn right, ect), or tapping the edge of the screen in the direction you want to turn. 

The music and sound effects are great, and are encoded at a decent quality, allowing for players to become totally immersed in the world of Riven, especially while using headphones. The graphics and animations are also great, and although the game does show it’s age, the slight pixilation that happens during animations does not take anything away from the game. Given the size that Riven was originally made in (around 640x480), the scaling to fit the iPad screen looks great, but if you were hoping for a full 2048x1536 iPad Retina resolution, chances are you’ll be pretty disappointed. But, some great news is that the text is all very clear, and easy to read, so if you’ve been playing the iPhone version of Riven on your iPad, aside from the clearer graphics, this is probably the biggest thing you’ll notice. 

With the great reception that RealMyst received, having Myst playable in a full 3D world and being able to explore every little nook and cranny of the game, here’s hoping that the same can be done for Riven in the future. But as it is now, very reasonably priced at $5.99 and with all the enhancements it contains, it’s a great buy, especially for fans of the original, the Myst series and Point & Click games in general. If you’ve yet to experience Riven, you’re in for a real treat, and so long as you don’t go in expecting a fully open 3D world and high-resolution retina graphics, you could very well fall in love and knock other P&C titles down a notch on your favorites lists after getting into it. Cyan Worlds has done such a great job porting Riven over to the iDevice, and it’s very clear that a lot of care and passion has gone into the conversion to the touch screen. It’s definitely an easy game to recommend, even after all these years. 

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The Last Express [DotEmu] - $4.99

The AppStore is full of ports, and with all the older retro gamers that have gotten back into gaming because of the iDevice, it’s considered fantastic by many. Being able to play Final Fantasy or War of the Lions, Blazing Star and ESPGaluda, Metal Slug and Myst all on one device that fits in your pocket is something gamers have been dreaming about for quite some time. It’s also given old-school gamers a chance to check out newer games that they wouldn’t have been exposed to otherwise, like Bastion, Eufloria, Splice and others. But it’s always great seeing an old(er) classic hit the AppStore, in this case, The Last Express. Originally released back in 1997, The Last Express, created by Jordan Mechner (who’s also the creator of Prince of Persia) has been hailed by many as one of the greatest Adventure games ever developed. Being called ‘thrilling’ and ‘exquisite’ by Newsweek and listed in the book ‘1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die’, it’s received quite a bit of praise and dozens of awards. 

Now, what exactly makes The Last Express so amazing? Well, alongside the story, there’s roughly 35 different endings to the game, with about 30 being ‘bad’ endings, about 4 being ‘good’ and only one being considered the ‘proper’ ending. Within the game there are about 30+ characters, all designed with their own AI and concerns, all of which changes depending on how and when you interact with them. The Last Express also takes place in real time. Kind of. It’s real time x6, with some parts where you’ll need to rush to get somewhere, and others where you’ll need to kill time before being able to talk to a certain character. 

If you’ve never played The Last Express before, chances are you’re going to run into a ‘bad’ ending a lot more than once. Figuring out what to do and what not to do, where to go, who to talk to, what to collect and who to show what items to along the way. This could be considered a horrible thing, resulting in players needing to play through the game numerous times before reaching an end that they can handle, if it weren’t for the ability to go back in time. You’re able to exit to the menu, at any time, in which case you’ll be able to turn the clock back, and sometimes forward, just in case you’ve missed something, or wound up doing something you weren’t suppose to do. 

Taking place right before the start of World War 1, July 24, 1914, the main character that you’ll be playing as, Robert Cath, who’s just boarded the Orient Express train after receiving an urgent summons from your old friend, Tyler Whitney. After boarding, you find Tyler dead in his room. With Robert already being hunted by police for being a suspect in another murder. From here, you need to figure out what to do, who killed your friend, how not to get caught and who you can and can not trust, if anyone. 

The gameplay is designed around a 3D environment in which you’re able to move around by tapping arrows on the screen, and interact with objects by tapping icons that appear over certain objects. Talking to people can be done by tapping on dialogue bubbles that appear on the character as you get near them. The graphics are very well done in an Art Nouveau styling (which was very popular in 1914), with cut-scenes moving like you do in-game, one frame at a time. The Last Express is considered by many a work of art, and they aren’t wrong in the slightest. To put the game together, Jordan Mechner hired actors to act out every action done by every character within the game. These actions were photographed and digitized. Hand picked frames were then selected and de-colorized, with a computer then creating line drawings of the photos which were then colored by hand. 40,000 frames in total are included in The Last Express. After 5 years of work, the game was completed.

GameCenter has been added to the iOS version, with 15 achievements added which will take most gamers quite a bit of gameplay in order to unlock. Priced at $4.99, and being Universal, this iOS version of The Last Express is a must own for anyone even slightly interested in experiencing one of the best Adventure/Thriller games ever created. DotEmu, the studio who has handled the ports of R-Type, Metal Slug 3, King Of Fighters, Blazing Star and others, has done a fantastic job with the user interface, and keeping the gameplay true to the original on the touch screen. The menus are great, and easy to navigate, and really, the whole gameplay experience is just fantastic. The art style, background music, multiple endings and large cast of characters all make The Last Express a game that you will never forget. 

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Walking Dead: The Game [Telltale Games] - $4.99

If you’ve been reading the reviewers here at TAS for a while, you’ve come to know that Point & Click games were have never really been a favorite of mine. That is, until I had the extreme pleasure of playing Machinarium, Yesterday, and Myst. And now I can add one more title to that very short list of P&C games that I’ve come to love; Telltale’s Walking Dead: The Game. A survival/horror adventure game, originally released for PC and MAC, ported over to the iOS. 

Now, I haven’t had the pleasure of playing the PC version of Walking Dead, and I don’t watch the TV show, mainly because my wife hates any sort of horror entertainment. I do, however, read the comics, and have come to really enjoy them. But when I heard that Telltale was going to be the team releasing the game on iOS, I was pretty skeptical. Their previous releases have been kind of hit or miss; Back to the Future - blah, Sam & Max - loved it, Law & Order - meh, Puzzle Agent - great. But after seeing the trailer, I was ready to be impressed, and after playing the first episode of Walking Dead: The Game; I am. 

For those of you familiar with The Walking Dead, the game does not follow Rick his group of survivors. Instead, an entirely new storyline has been done for the game. You follow a convict, Lee, convicted of murder, as he tries to make his way to Mason, Georgia to find his family after being in a car crash that freed him from incarceration. On his way, he runs across a little girl, Clementine, who’s parents are somewhere in Savannah, GA, and whom you try to protect, as well as others who eventually make up the group of survivors that you’ll be following. 

Controlling Lee is what really makes the game stand out as one of the best Telltale games to hit the AppStore. As you meet people, and get thrown into situations with zombies, you’ll need to make quick decisions regarding dialogue and actions. Instead of feeling like the game is controlling what you do, it’s more like you’re controlling the game, having an impact over what the other characters think of you, as well as who lives and who dies. What’s even better? These choices are apparently carried over across all of the episodes, so they stick with you throughout the entire game. 

The graphics and animations are extremely well done, and incredibly reminiscent of the comics. The environments and objects are very well crafted, and create an incredible atmosphere. There have been times when I encountered some slowdown and general jerkiness, even while playing on my iPad 2, though not enough to really take away from the games fantastic immersive quality. The voice acting is another aspect which I found myself consistently being impressed by. All-n-all, it’s extremely well put-together. 

Priced at $4.99 for the first episode, and giving players the option to purchase the next 4 episodes for $14.99, it is a bit pricy. Especially considering there’s only about 3 hours of gameplay in the first episode. But if you’re a fan of the series (comic, TV, or both), this is definitely a game you should check out. Even if you’ve never seen an episode of the show, or read one comic, it’s still a fantastic Point & Click adventure game that deserves to be experienced. Once you complete the first episode, it definitely leaves you wanting more. Walking Dead: The Game has set a new standard for Telltale games, and one that I hope they live up to in the future. 

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Machinarium [Amanita Games] - $4.99

Point & Click Adventure games have never really been a favorite of mine. Until lately. Bulkypix release, Yesterday and Cyan World’s realMyst definitely peaked my interest. But not until I had the extreme pleasure of experiencing Amanita Design’s amazing game, Machinarium, did I actually think that I could become a huge fan of Point n Click titles. 

The first thing I noticed when starting up the game, was the fantastic graphics. The beautiful, amazing, mind-blowing, hand-drawn graphics are outstanding. And the way that the movable objects and computer graphics interact with the hand-drawn graphics is simply stunning. The animations are spectacular, and coupled with the music and sound effects, it all creates one incredible atmosphere, and portrays a great deal of emotion throughout the game. If you’re curious, the game is an exact port of the PC/MAC and PS 3 versions. 

Starting off, your character, Josef, is tossed into a dump. You’ll need to collect pieces of your body before you can move on. As you’ll quickly realize, there is no dialogue, or long text to read through. Everything is portrayed in thought bubbles with action sequences. This leaves basically all of your gameplay time free for solving puzzles and exploring the environments, which you will do a lot of. Machinarium has your typical search and collect mechanics, but also has you solving puzzles across environmental areas, as well as combining inventory items and mini-games. But it’s all brought together in such an incredibly flowing motion, that you’re never taken out of the immersion of the game. 

Now, I’ll quickly admit that I haven’t had the pleasure of playing many Point & Click games, but from what I have played, the puzzles that you need to complete in Machinarium are incredibly creative, and at times, can be fairly difficult to figure out, and some of them can seem downright unfair. Even with other titles within the puzzle genre, I’ve never come across this level of difficulty. However, not once did it become difficult to the point that it was frustrating. If anything, the difficulty ended up driving my addiction and love for the game every step of the way. 

If it does get frustrating, there are actually two different hint systems available. Tapping the question-mark in a bubble will give you a pop-up thought bubble nudging you towards the next item you’ll need to pick up. The other hint system is a sort of walkthrough. You’ll need to first complete the mini-game in order to open the walkthrough ‘book’, and then each move that you need to make in order to complete the game is drawn out for you. However, going through all of this to get to the walkthrough is enough to keep you from going to it, and it does kind of ruin the game if you keep going to it over and over again. But it’s there if you need it, so there’s not going to be one spot where you get stuck and just end up not completing the game, which is great.

The story isn’t immediately clear when you start up the game, but as you progress, and find out that you’re not alone, and that this machine world is full of quite a few different robots and machine-beings, all with different personalities of their own, all expressed and conveyed in a way that everyone and anyone, no matter their past, cultural background, or language, can completely understand and feel comfortable with knowing what it going on with all of them. And as you progress, and get to know and help these other robots throughout the world, the story opens up, and your main objective becomes clear. 

I can not recommend Machinarium enough. Especially if you’re a fan of Adventure or Point & Click games, but even if you’re not. This is one title that has a very good potential of turning you into a fan of the genre. Priced at $4.99, it’s an incredible buy. Not many iOS games even come close to being on the same graphical level, and there’s very few titles that come close to being as immersive and entertaining as Machinarium. It’s a must-own game for everyone who has an iPad, and I hope that Amanita Design decides to port over more of their titles to the iOS. We’d be lucky to have them available to us. 

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Yesterday [Bulkypix & Pendulo] - $4.99

Point & Click Adventure titles are a perfect fit for the iOS, and with more and more of these titles being ported over from other platforms, fans of the genre couldn’t be happier. The most recent addition to the genre is the PC title, Yesterday, developed by Pendulo (The Next Big Thing, the Runaway Series, Hollywood Monsters and Igor), and published by Bulkypix. It revolves around a non-governmental organization’s volunteer, Henry White, who’s trying to help find out who is behind a series of killings driven by a Satanic psycho. 

Yesterday isn’t your typical Point & Click Adventure. Revolving around murder, Satanism, insanity, the homeless, and more, Yesterday is more of an adult-themed title, which definitely sets it apart from most titles within the genre. 

Even though the atmosphere, environments, and story all revolves around darker subject matter, and looks like it might fit perfectly as a Velvet Acid Christ music video, the character models of Yesterday are fairly cartoony, looking like something you might find on Cartoon Network. Even though this is the case, it doesn’t detract from the amazing atmospheres. The characters, though seeming callow most of the time, provide a rich and immersive dialogue, creating a wonderful story to experience while solving the various puzzles and exploring the dark environments throughout the game. 

The controls are typical of any other point & click title on the iOS. You’ll tap where you’d like to move your character, tap on objects or areas you’d like to check out more closely, and when the items in question are shown on the screen, you’re given a magnifying glass and hand icons, with the magnifying glass icon giving you more information about the objects, and the hand letting you interact with the objects. 

If there are objects which you can interact with, they will be moved to the bar at the top of the screen, so that you can combine them with other found objects, or use them later on, while dragging them from the bar to an object in the environment lets you use them. 

The puzzles contained in Yesterday can be pretty challenging, but helping out with what objects can be checked out is an icon in the lower left corner of the screen. Tapping on this icon lets you see what all objects and items can be looked at more closely in each screen. Checking out everything you can within the environment, combining multiple items and using them to activate various objects in the game is required to progress through the story. But like most point & click games, figuring out what goes with what, and where everything can be found and/or used is where the real challenge lies. 

Mixed in with the game’s object matching mechanics are little parts within the dialogue which help add to the game. For instance, towards the beginning of the game, you’ll need to figure out certain chess moves in order to move on in the dialogue. Fortunately, if you’re not into chess, and answer wrong, you can keep tapping on the answers until you get it right. Even though this does sort of beg the question as to why these were included in the game, but they’re nice to see regardless. 

Yesterday is Universal, and priced at $4.99. If you’re a fan of the Point & Click genre, it’s definitely one of the best titles available for the iOS, and since it’s published by Bulkypix, you can pretty much guarantee that if any issues arise, they’ll be fixed or dealt with in a timely manner. The only thing missing from the game is GameCenter integration with achievements. But non-the-less, Yesterday contains a fantastic story-line with incredibly immersive atmospheres, and characters that draw you into the story. It’s a title that I’m very pleased to have on my iDevice, and hope to see more titles from Pendulo ported over in the future. 

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realMyst [Cyan Worlds] - $9.99

Myst. For a lot of gamers the name conjures up great memories, fantastic gameplay, and one of the most innovative games of the 90’s. The first time I played Myst was in 1999 during my 3 free periods in High School. It took me about two weeks to complete the game, but it’s stuck with me after all these years. I had heard about a ‘realMyst’ which was done in a type of first-person gameplay incorporating free-roam, but I never got the chance to play it. Now, almost 20 years after it’s original release, realMyst has been ported over to the iOS, and I’ve been extremely excited to dive back into the game after all these years, being able to experience it in a new way.

If you’re new to Myst, it was originally a point and click puzzle adventure title done in a first person view that had you thrown onto an island and left the rest up to you. There was no tutorial, no one telling you where to go or what to do, you had to figure it all out on your own. There were clues left in notes around the island, and little clips found in books and strange machines that guide you along and give you backstory. It took me about 10 tries before I actually got into the game because I never knew what to do, until a friend told me where the first note was, and then I was off, totally immersed in the world, exploring the island through the different ‘ages’ solving puzzles, backtracking, gathering clues, and loving every minute of the gameplay. 

The controls fit perfectly with the touch screen, dragging to look around, tapping and holding to move forward, doing a double tap and hold to sprint, and touching two fingers to the screen to move backwards. Everything within the game can be dragged or tapped to be activated, and like most other point & click games, feels like a perfect fit for the iDevice. 

The graphics in realMyst are fantastic. The atmospheres and environments are beautifully crafted, and full of seemingly esoteric structures that eventually come to life before your eyes. Unfortunately, there are some notes within the game that are pretty blurry, and hard to read. There’s also some very noticeable drops in frame-rate and jitteriness while exploring the world. This does wind up knocking you out of the immersion a bit, but it doesn’t really harm the gameplay. Myst is not an action oriented game, no one is chasing you, and you’re not under a time limit to find clues so you’ll never die because you couldn’t move fast enough or because a couple frames were skipped. But it would be nice if there was a way to optimize the game, even at a drop in frame-rate, so that you’re not constantly reminded that you’re playing a game. But it’s easily one of the most graphically impressive games I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. The music, ambience and sound effects are also just as fantastic as the graphics, and fit in perfectly with the settings, adding immensely to the atmosphere and feeling of the environments throughout the entire game. 

It might take a while to actually get into the game, and figure out what to do in some parts, but the main thing is to keep at it, keep exploring, keep looking at everything, switching levers, touching books, pictures, and knobs, and you’ll slowly progress through one of the most amazing games to date, and find out why some gamers call Myst an experience that borders on being referred to as art more than a game. realMyst is only available for the iPad 2 and 3rd Generation iPad, and priced at $6.99 for launch, with the price set to go up to $9.99 soon. There is no GameCenter integration, which is kind of disappointing, as achievements for Myst would have been a wonderful addition, and would have added to the drive to really explore every little inch and crevice throughout the entire game. 

If you’ve experienced Myst in the past, realMyst’s gameplay and feeling is different enough that it’s worth checking out again. If you’re new to Myst, realMyst is quite possibly the best version you could check out, and even at the regular price of $9.99, is more than worth every single penny you’d spend on it, even with the couple of issues within the game. Being able to have Myst on my iDevice is still pretty surreal, and I’m going to fully enjoy every single minute I spend exploring and solving the puzzles all over again. It’s definitely one game that every person who calls themselves a gamer should experience, and with this iOS port, it’s yet another opportunity to do just that. 

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