When I first heard about a Croatian point and click adventure game called "Poslanik" ("Ambassador" - don't ask me why the English version is called "The Ward"), I thought it will be pure crap like all the other Croatian games. I still find it very irritating that the most recognizable Croatian game is Serious Sam, a stupid shooter about a lumberjack who fights against aliens, while there is a lost gem out there that nobody heard about. This game is a very good example what lack of marketing can do to a very good game.
Believe me when I say that this is one very good adventure game, and I am not saying this because I am Croatian. From the first minute I started playing it, it was clear a lot of effort has been put into creation of it. This game is also proof that for creating something good you don't need a lot of money, but you need creativity and hard work. I have never done an adventure review so I am not sure how this will turn out, so please bare with me. The problem with adventure reviews is that it's mostly about the story and puzzles, so I hope it will turn out well.
Anyway, the game puts you in a role of David Walker, an American astronaut who goes on a mission to the moon in the year 1978. The intro is very nice and the voices are pretty good, which surprised me for a Croatian game. The story, in general, is fairly intriguing. Your mission it is to collect information about unexpected seismic events detected on the Moon’s surface. What should have been a routine operation goes terribly awry when the command module and landing module are destroyed by an Unidentified Flying Object. Your fellow crewmen are dead and the last thing you can remember, before losing consciousness, is being stranded on the surface of the moon. When you finally awaken, you find yourself in unfamiliar surroundings in what appears to be a moon base manned by aliens.
The whole story is made so that the history of the human race intervenes with the present and the future. There are two alien races fighting for the remnants of the technology left behind by the alien race called the Makers. The Makers have left pieces of their technology all over the universe, but the basis of this technology is an artifact called Technovirus (I know it sounds awful, but I am not sure how it was translated to English). Who learns how to activate the Technovirus will gain the knowledge of the Makers and who ever has this knowledge will gain the technology to govern the universe. But only one person can activate the Technovirus, and the artifact is programmed with a DNA code. That person is called the Ward. I really suck at explaining long stories short, but the game is much better when you play it, because all these things you will discover gradually with a lot of exploration, talking with characters and puzzle solving.
The first part of the game has that similar feel you get while playing System Shock. You are all alone, stranded God knows where, and there are some crazy aliens fighting, while you are in the middle of it. Very often you will be allowed to engage into those fights, or you will be able to avoid them. The fights work really well for an adventure game and basically you will have to duck behind some object and shoot at your enemies when they appear. This was very interesting for me, because back in the day when the game came out there weren't many adventure games where you had to fight, so it was fairly original and unique. Just like in System Shock you will have to activate doors, search for keycards, find a way to fix some important things so you could have access to important information or an important item, but you will also have a lot of hard puzzles to solve. The puzzles will really make you strain your brain, because they are not easy. Fortunately there is an option which gives you hints, and the game also follows your progress, which means that if you get stuck for a long time without finding anything new, you will get a hint what you need to do next. It was a decent attempt to overcome the frustrations some people have with adventure games. There is also an option to completely skip some puzzles, but I think it had to do with the easy mode or something. Anyway, the puzzles are similar to those intelligence tests, so this game is a very good opportunity to test your IQ. What you will have to do in this first part of the game is to find a way into one of the alien space ships and head to Mars. More correctly Cydonia, or the place where those Mars pyramids were discovered.
The second part of the game is a bit tedious if you don't like walking from one point to another only to have long conversations like in Broken Sword 1, but for me it was very interesting because here the story really begins to shine and you discover many things and alternative explanations about some mysterious things that happened in the past. There is a lot of intrigue, fear, truths and lies. You will of course have to make the sense out of it and figure out who are your real allies and who are the enemies. In the end the subtle aproach becomes obsolete and you will be forced into open conflict with the "evil" race of aliens.
Phew, ...explaining the story without giving too much spoilers sure is a tedious job. Anyway, now to the technical part of the game. Graphically the game looks great, especially considering it was made in the year 2000. The backgrounds are fantastic and they have that technological feel to them. I mean, just look at these screenshots. I really can't believe how great they look considering their age. The only thing that could be done better was character animation and graphic, which is ok, but it could be done better. There are also some small problems with slow reaction times of your character, and a few bugs, of which there is one game breaking. The bug appears when you don't go to the preacher when you are told, but instead continue playing. You will be able to find some items, give them to the hacker and then return to the preacher. You will be able to talk to him, but you won't be able to get out of the room. A petty, there is a bug like that, and it was never fixed because the game was not very well received. Actually most people who I know that played it, said it was very good, or quite good, but the problem was that not many people even heard about it.
You play the game with standard point and click way. It works pretty much the same as in any other point and click adventure game. The letters could have been better designed, but everything else is pretty good.
In the end, I am wondering if anyone here has played it and if you found it as interesting as me. If there were scores on the codex I would give this adventure a solid 8/10, but since there aren't any I will just say it is a very good adventure that was never noticed much, probably because of bad marketing. I checked some other reviews on the internet (they were not easy to find) and the game received very poor scores which I really don't understand, since most of the complaints were on adventure elements like hard puzzles and stuff. I agree they are hard, but I have played much harder adventure games. I mean everything is logical. You just have to use your brain. Some actually complained about bad graphic, but to me the game looks amazing especially since how old it is and with Lucas' The Dig it is my favorite space adventure.
Believe me when I say that this is one very good adventure game, and I am not saying this because I am Croatian. From the first minute I started playing it, it was clear a lot of effort has been put into creation of it. This game is also proof that for creating something good you don't need a lot of money, but you need creativity and hard work. I have never done an adventure review so I am not sure how this will turn out, so please bare with me. The problem with adventure reviews is that it's mostly about the story and puzzles, so I hope it will turn out well.
Anyway, the game puts you in a role of David Walker, an American astronaut who goes on a mission to the moon in the year 1978. The intro is very nice and the voices are pretty good, which surprised me for a Croatian game. The story, in general, is fairly intriguing. Your mission it is to collect information about unexpected seismic events detected on the Moon’s surface. What should have been a routine operation goes terribly awry when the command module and landing module are destroyed by an Unidentified Flying Object. Your fellow crewmen are dead and the last thing you can remember, before losing consciousness, is being stranded on the surface of the moon. When you finally awaken, you find yourself in unfamiliar surroundings in what appears to be a moon base manned by aliens.
The whole story is made so that the history of the human race intervenes with the present and the future. There are two alien races fighting for the remnants of the technology left behind by the alien race called the Makers. The Makers have left pieces of their technology all over the universe, but the basis of this technology is an artifact called Technovirus (I know it sounds awful, but I am not sure how it was translated to English). Who learns how to activate the Technovirus will gain the knowledge of the Makers and who ever has this knowledge will gain the technology to govern the universe. But only one person can activate the Technovirus, and the artifact is programmed with a DNA code. That person is called the Ward. I really suck at explaining long stories short, but the game is much better when you play it, because all these things you will discover gradually with a lot of exploration, talking with characters and puzzle solving.
The first part of the game has that similar feel you get while playing System Shock. You are all alone, stranded God knows where, and there are some crazy aliens fighting, while you are in the middle of it. Very often you will be allowed to engage into those fights, or you will be able to avoid them. The fights work really well for an adventure game and basically you will have to duck behind some object and shoot at your enemies when they appear. This was very interesting for me, because back in the day when the game came out there weren't many adventure games where you had to fight, so it was fairly original and unique. Just like in System Shock you will have to activate doors, search for keycards, find a way to fix some important things so you could have access to important information or an important item, but you will also have a lot of hard puzzles to solve. The puzzles will really make you strain your brain, because they are not easy. Fortunately there is an option which gives you hints, and the game also follows your progress, which means that if you get stuck for a long time without finding anything new, you will get a hint what you need to do next. It was a decent attempt to overcome the frustrations some people have with adventure games. There is also an option to completely skip some puzzles, but I think it had to do with the easy mode or something. Anyway, the puzzles are similar to those intelligence tests, so this game is a very good opportunity to test your IQ. What you will have to do in this first part of the game is to find a way into one of the alien space ships and head to Mars. More correctly Cydonia, or the place where those Mars pyramids were discovered.
The second part of the game is a bit tedious if you don't like walking from one point to another only to have long conversations like in Broken Sword 1, but for me it was very interesting because here the story really begins to shine and you discover many things and alternative explanations about some mysterious things that happened in the past. There is a lot of intrigue, fear, truths and lies. You will of course have to make the sense out of it and figure out who are your real allies and who are the enemies. In the end the subtle aproach becomes obsolete and you will be forced into open conflict with the "evil" race of aliens.
Phew, ...explaining the story without giving too much spoilers sure is a tedious job. Anyway, now to the technical part of the game. Graphically the game looks great, especially considering it was made in the year 2000. The backgrounds are fantastic and they have that technological feel to them. I mean, just look at these screenshots. I really can't believe how great they look considering their age. The only thing that could be done better was character animation and graphic, which is ok, but it could be done better. There are also some small problems with slow reaction times of your character, and a few bugs, of which there is one game breaking. The bug appears when you don't go to the preacher when you are told, but instead continue playing. You will be able to find some items, give them to the hacker and then return to the preacher. You will be able to talk to him, but you won't be able to get out of the room. A petty, there is a bug like that, and it was never fixed because the game was not very well received. Actually most people who I know that played it, said it was very good, or quite good, but the problem was that not many people even heard about it.
You play the game with standard point and click way. It works pretty much the same as in any other point and click adventure game. The letters could have been better designed, but everything else is pretty good.
In the end, I am wondering if anyone here has played it and if you found it as interesting as me. If there were scores on the codex I would give this adventure a solid 8/10, but since there aren't any I will just say it is a very good adventure that was never noticed much, probably because of bad marketing. I checked some other reviews on the internet (they were not easy to find) and the game received very poor scores which I really don't understand, since most of the complaints were on adventure elements like hard puzzles and stuff. I agree they are hard, but I have played much harder adventure games. I mean everything is logical. You just have to use your brain. Some actually complained about bad graphic, but to me the game looks amazing especially since how old it is and with Lucas' The Dig it is my favorite space adventure.
