Of Light and Darkness - the Prophecy

A review by Michael Santovec for KEGS (Komputer Enthusiasts of Greater Seattle) - November 1998

The Coming Apocalypse

Earthquakes, Famine, Floods, Droughts, Plagues, War, Pollution. Prophecies of the coming Millennium. Gar Hob, Dark Lord of the 7th Millennium, is waiting in the wings to plunge the world into a thousand years of darkness.

But there's one small hope. You are the Chosen One. If you can redeem all the apparitions in the Village of the Damned before the Clock of Judgment counts down, you may be able to rescue the Angel Gemini from Gar Hob. Otherwise you get a ringside seat at the apocalypse.

Welcome to Of Light and Darkness, a 3 CD-ROM real-time adventure from Interplay

The game has 3 Acts (levels) plus the confrontation with Gar Hob.

In each of the 3 Acts, there are 9 to 21 Apparitions to redeem. These include well known villains such as Cain, Caligula, and Ivan the Terrible, plus several lesser known and dozens you've never heard of. Each of these is guilty of one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Each has an artifact associated with their sin. And each has an associated color of light. To redeem an apparition you must determine their sin, artifact and color, locate the artifact, carry it to the hall associated with their sin and flash it with the correct light made from combinations of orbs that you find. If an apparition catches you with their artifact, you may have to give it back, and possibly lose some other inventory items. If you redeem them all before the clock counts down to zero, you move on to the next level. If not, you start over. You can gain some extra time on the clock by flashing an apparition with white light, which also drives them away for awhile.

You can easily determine the sin of most apparitions by reading the Book of the Damned which accompanies the game. This information, and more, is also available during game play. Some of the associated artifacts are also obvious by reading the book. But most you'll have to determine from the game play. The location of the artifacts and light colors are randomly set for each game level and each new game. But an apparition's sin and artifact are always the same.

It's not until you complete the 3 levels that you encounter anything like a traditional adventure game puzzle. And there's a way to get around that.

Although each game level is more difficult, I found the game play more tedious than challenging.



Look and Feel

Game movement is similar to The 7th Guest. You can only move to one of several dozen fixed locations in the game. And you get a full motion transition as you move or turn, unlike the simple transitions you get in a game such as Myst or Riven. As an improvement over these other games, you can turn as much or little as you like. The image quality is on a par with Myst.

The sound is excellent. The documentation recommends head phones over speakers. And I agree. There are subtleties to the sound layers that get lost in speakers. Although these aren't essential to the game play, they add to gaming experience.

The voice characterizations are excellent. Although only a couple of the actors are well known (James Woods and Lisa Davidovich), they all do a great job. And the music is well suited to the game.

The tone of the game is both humorous and depressing, sometimes at the same time. There's a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor. For example, at the beginning for the game you can listen to several radio broadcasts that provide background information. This parody of call in talk shows and news reports is hilarious. Even the apocalyptic events you watch when you fail are done in a humorous manner.

On the other hand, in various rooms in the game you have to listen to voices droning on and on about doomsday prophecies, death and destruction. After hearing each of these numerous times, you just want to make them shut up. But you can't. You can interrupt them for a moment, as when you click on an object to pick it up. But then the voices start all over again, and again, and again. The game even managed to make my favorite deadly sin, Lust, sound unappealing.



Help and Hints and More Information

At the Of light and Darkness web site are four quotation word puzzles that you can solve. The answers are elsewhere on the web site, but the actual phrasing is somewhat different. When you enter the answer, and provide your unique key-code that was generated when the game was installed on your PC, you will get a password for your system. Each of the four passwords will get you a special inventory item that may make the game easier to beat. You won't know which item you get for each password until you play the game. The puzzle solutions web site screen asks for your e-mail address in addition to the key-code. But you don't have to provide the e-mail address in order to get the passwords.

Also at the web site is a message board for the game players. If you are having trouble you can post a question or just read the questions and replies of other players.

If you still have difficulties, there is a hint web site. This lists the sin and artifact for each apparition, as well as some other helpful information.

System Requirements

The minimum requirements include: Win95, Pentium/90 (Pentium/133 recommended), 16 MB of RAM (32 MB recommended), 75 MB disk space, 2x CD-ROM (4x recommended), DirectX 5 (included), DirectX compatible video and sound card, mouse.

The test system was Win98, Pentium/133, 32 MB of RAM and 16x CD-ROM.

There was one minor installation glitch. The game was unable to determine that Win98 already had a newer version of DirectX than the game provides. I was prompted to install the game's version. Fortunately you can click Cancel to get by that and just install the game.

I also ran into one minor problem playing the game. If you click to cancel an audio or video clip, and then press the ESC key to return to the control menu, the animated robot on the control menu may go into a loop. The only way out is to use Alt/F4 to close the game. But this will prevent you from saving the current game. There are no game patches from Interplay.

Other than that, the game played well.



Ratings and Recommendations

The game is rated: Teen (ages 13+), "Animate Blood and Gore, Suggestive Themes, Mild Language".

The original list price was $49.99, but Interplay now sells it from their web site for $29.95. You may be able to find it elsewhere in the $20 to $30 range.

This is the first game from the new Tribal Dreams group at Interplay. They've got the humor, style and technique down. If they can come up with more interesting game play, and a less depressing subject matter, they'll have a great game.

As for Of Light and Darkness, you may find it fun and entertaining for a few hours, but boredom quickly sets in and you may not care to finish the game.