Anachronox Reviewed by Nick Edmunds Anachronox is an alien city planet created by an extinct civilisation and now home to the dregs of the universe including you: Sylvester "Sly" Boots. Boots is a stereotypical trench coat wearing, down on his luck private detective who, as the game opens, is at the centre of a beating from a hired heavy and is shortly defenestrated from his own office. It transpires that things have not been going well for Boots who hasn't had a case for some time, but has managed to run up quite a tab. Thus our first task is to get Boots gainfully employed. The term Anachronox means literally "poison from the past"; this may refer to the plague which wiped out the previous civilisation or to Mystech, strange alien artefacts much sought after by collectors for their mysterious and technological alien powers. It is the collection of these artefacts that comprises our first job working for the antiquarian Grumpos Matavastros. Then, what do you know, the planet gets sliced in half and we end up trying to save the universe while still finding time to knock out a few sub-quests for cash. Essentially a 3d party adventure set in a high tech future, Anox attempts to combine a traditional point and click adventure with a basic RPG. Thus we have a 2nd person interface, with an inventory and statistic menu, and a turn based combat system which is similar to that seen in the Final Fantasy series. Not only is the combat system very limited but even the fight scenes themselves are arranged at specific locations and thus have no option of avoidance or strategic manoeuvring. Similarly, while Anox itself is a huge sprawling world, in which you may wander freely and haphazardly, the gameplay itself is quite basic. There's no option of carrying out actions not relevant to the script, i.e. shooting civilians or stepping off cliffs, and the adventure part rapidly diminishes into a Pixel hunt as you search for the relevant object. Continuing in this vein every NPC you pass has something to say, some of it relevant, some comical, and so they all need to be quizzed. While there's obviously been a lot of background work put in to these features, they tend to make the game feel repetitive and annoying. The party eventually includes six over-colourful characters, only three of which may be part of the group at any one time; the others wait around in bars for your return. Characters have cartoony two- dimensional personalities and each is only there as a vehicle for their worldskill. Boots' worldskill is Lock Pick, which is useful, but the best skill has got to belong to the cranky old guy Grumpos where he just talks to people until their brains prolapse. It's a right laugh but you don't have to play this game to experience Yammer in action - just go ask my dad about the price of a coffee these days. In order to utilise a character's worldskill one has to play a basic two dimension puzzle game of a "next in sequence" nature. Not only do these games tend to be ridiculously easy but the results aren't important; they can be replayed until completed, so they just end up as a distraction. Other sub-games of a similar "dodge falling boulders" style are built into the game itself and appear to be an attempt to provide variation in the gameplay, as well as to involve the player in what would otherwise be FMV cutscenes between locations. Interestingly Anox uses these features in an attempt at game immersion. Location information between levels is laid out like a guidebook and requires player interaction. Even the floaty arrow thing which you use to point at stuff actually exists in the Anox world, only there it's a "life cursor", which is a sort of personal assistant thing with your recently deceased secretary Fatima digitised inside. While it put me in mind of the drones in the Culture novels of Iain M. Banks, it's not nearly as useful and thus the life cursor seems to be more of a concept than a game feature. Like many other productions based in a dark futuristic city crowded with technology, neon billboards and flying vehicles, Anox owes more than a passing acknowledgement to Blade Runner. Fortunately, in this instance, the look and feel are quite successful and combine well with the slow haunting soundtrack to provide a good overall ambience. The fantastic cityscape backdrops are driven by our old mate the Quake 2 engine with a level of detail and scale that provides a real sense of perspective. An impression of organised chaos further highlights your insignificance in the grand scheme of things, particularly the way that the city functions around you: worker robots toil away, civilians go about their business and aliens are hassled by the police. There are even people walking on the ceilings like some kind of bizarre techno-Escher creation. Touted as "an epic sci-fi role playing adventure", and being another product from Ion Storm, Anachronox looked to be the very fellow for me. However, hoping for another Deus Ex, I was sadly disappointed. All the ingredients are right and there's bags of potential, but gameplay is repetitive and naive. By trying to be everything Anox has become unsure of what it is and has mutated into a wishy washy creature of confusion. This schizophrenia is Anochronox's fatal flaw, for while the varied gameplay may make for a wider target audience, it can only serve to irritate the player like the simplistic ramblings of a red headed stepchild. - o -