Aside from the Bible and other great religious works, it seems fair to say that William Shakespeare’s plays are among the most far-read stories in the world. Of those, Hamlet might be the most well-known. A murdered king, a brother who marries the widowed queen, a woe-stricken son who plots revenge and everyone dies. Or do they? In Elsinore, available now on PC, Mac, and Linux, you play as the normally doomed Ophelia and experience the tragedy in real time, searching for a way to prevent it. When my co-worker Nathan Grayson covered Elsinore years ago, he called it “Hamlet meets Majora’s Mask.” That’s both on the mark and not entirely right. Elsinore has less in common with Majora’s Mask than it does with Jordan Mechner’s underrated 1997 mystery game The Last Express. In that game, players explored a train in real time, trying to stop a terrorist plot and solve a murder. Take too long snooping somewhere and you might miss a key conversation elsewhere. Elsinore operates on a similar prin...
Posts
Platforms: PC Reviewed On: PC Developer: Epic Llama Publisher: Buka Entertainment Singleplayer: Yes Multiplayer: No Review code supplied free of charge by the publisher. Oh, adventure games! As a colossal part of my childhood, their modern resurgence has done my heart good. Suddenly we’re back to the days of witty dialogue, fun puzzles and mad stories complete with modern graphics. The downside of this comeback, though, is that it also shows how little adventure games have really come over the years. Darkestville Castle is a prime example of this, a point and click title that has the witty dialogue, fun puzzles and mad stories complete with modern graphics, but that doesn’t ultimately feel any different from something like Monkey Island released all those years ago. We pick up the story of Cid, Darkestville’s resident demon and force for evil who spends his days trying to come up with elaborate schemes to make life worse for everybody. The townsfolk are surprisingly patient w...