A Vampyre Story ─ A point-and-click adventure game
Type: Adventure
Developer: Autumn Moon Entertainment
Publisher: Crimson Cow
Distributor: Focus
The year 2008 was placed under the sign of vampires in respect of adventure games. Thus, after the excellent Dracula 3: La Voie Du Dragon and the way Dracula: Origin is finally A Vampyre Story comes to close the year. First game of the young studio Autumn Moon, not who came first began to experience delicate point & click. Indeed, the head of the studio, we find a certain Bill Tiler whose name evokes great memories for fans of this genre of games. Like Ron Gilbert, perhaps best known, our Lascar is a former LucasArts from having worked on The Curse of Monkey Island, the third episode of the cult series. When one has such a pedigree, it is necessarily expected at the turn. The design of A Vampyre Story has taken a certain time, players adventure awaited with impatience and began to have the hooks. Their thirst for blood will it fully assouvie?
The secret of the island to vampires
Mona De Lafitte is a young opera singer who is vampiriser by Baron Von Kiefer Shrowdy. The latter is obsessed with Mona and he dedicated a passion without boundaries. Although he holds prisoner in his castle. Our heroine only dream that one thing away from this strange and sinister place to return to Paris, singing at the Opera. One day, or rather a beautiful night at one of its cruise night, Baron was killed by two hunters of vampires. The opportunity is too good and Mona, with Froderick, a bat, decides to seize his chance to escape this gloomy world.
Former home LucasArts requires, then we find ourselves in an adventure game in the style point & click very traditional. But this does not mean that the latest innovations in this field are not present and the title even dares to suggest a new approach to the inventory. Traditionally, the pointer can move Mona, it absolutely refusing to run to get from one point to another and its displacement is particularly slow, it is fortunate that we can press the space bar to "teleport "Our young singer at the desired location. Similarly, a right-click on an exit permits to move quickly to the next screen. Now well established in recent productions, a button to highlight the interactive areas. A radial menu shaped crucifix (close to what we could have in Full Throttle) offers various possible actions with an object (look, talk, take and steal), the type of action based on changing the targeted object. The inventory, it stores everything that we find, but also remember the location of an object that may be useful later when the time comes. Thus, it is possible to combine the objects between them and when it is time, Mona will carry everything you need automatically using his vampiric powers.
An enigmatic Mona smile
The team of Bill Tiler offers a very graphic style inspired by the work that was done on the third episode of Monkey Island. Thus, we find that very cartoon, which may not please everyone, but still very pleasant and particularly stylish. The sets were designed entirely by hand, he exudes an ambiance and atmosphere "romantic Gothic." The brand will not fail to remind filmgoers most of you Funèbres The Marriage of Tim Burton. Despite the talent of artists, some places have been more inspired than others, but overall it's very good work that has been achieved. Similarly, modeling of the characters is excellent and they have many different animations complete and varied. A small flat with regard to kinematics. If they were made with the graphic engine of the game, they suffer the negative effects of compression and a slight blur contrasts with the rest of the game rendering Add to this spellbinding music and sumptuous coming forward to the atmosphere if in each place. To cap it all, the game distills humor small onions playing on the anachronisms, the spread of cynicism met Froderick, Mona naivety which categorically refuses to admit his condition vampire, and tone black rather thin. As far as a title So Blonde was funny, at a level certainly more down to earth, all the subtleties here regularly fuse and finesse us. The references are numerous, hidden in the dialogues as explored in places and objects examined.
This rosy picture is unfortunately marred somewhat by the location French title Autumn Moon. Indeed, the game offers voices in English subtitled in French. Let us first on the French translation which is of excellent quality, work to translate some subtleties of language is admirable. But despite all the goodwill in the world, if you understand English, some translations do not reflect the humor in distilled original version. Suddenly, the humor and immersion in history have trouble taking largely due to the fact that scrolling text is only two lines at speeds too fast based on the pronunciation of the characters. The dialogues, especially cared for, and the descriptions are sometimes a bit long and it is regrettable to hear of English while trying to read French. More than once, we must revive a discussion to identify all the content. The spread Froderick are earthy and often more fun that the translation is made. The dialogues are very important because the former, the indices for progress are often hidden. The voice of Mona, acute, certainly does not please everyone, but I did not feel attacked. At the former, the title is focused on solving puzzles to determine the right combination of objects and the proper use be made of them. However, one or two puzzles will make a difference. Attention, however, the latest production date will have more accustomed to as many odd reasoning even if a certain logic chairs all.
Conclusion
If titles like Runaway helped revive the adventure traditional point & click, they could not really give the shivers to those who have experienced the great era LucasArts. While offering a new adventure game, Autumn Moon managed a return to sources both in style and tone than in the progression and loufoquerie riddles. The choice of location is truly regrettable and is likely to deprive the title of an audience. However, A Vampyre Story is a remarkable title despite a sale price somewhat high compared to the realization proposed. The shelf life for its natural function is the way everyone thought, but count on a minimum of six to eight hours. Autumn Moon came close the Faultless. This trilogy gets a good first episode, hoping that small technical errors and choice of location are corrected for future episodes.
