THE WATCHMAKER

                 Reviewed by Stefan Herber

"Joy of joys," thought yours truly - a point and click adventure!
I used to love those - we had funny ones, supernatural ones,
whodunits, police stories and some of them even had logical plots
and complex but absorbing puzzles! Now this looks good - a macabre
setting about a dicey Drug Company and best of all a time limit!
Has to be worth a look especially as it won awards as the best
adventure game of the year.

(For the last read 'probably the only adventure game of the
year'.)

The Watchmaker is set in France in a beautiful chateau used by
aforementioned Drug Company as a congress centre. Your hero and
heroine arrive because of nefarious claims that nasty things are
about to happen at midnight and have 9 hours to solve the mystery.
Firstly forget the time limit - the game advances automatically
when a certain puzzle has been solved so you can spend as long as
you like on it. I doubt you'll spend 9 hours - I think I completed
it in about 6 - 2 hours were spent in solving a truthfully stupid
puzzle: There's an object in a swimming pond that needs
retrieving. Now in real life one would merely dive in and fetch it
but here you have to find a way to drain the pool instead. Another
hour was spent in an unnecessary arcade sequence where you have to
rush into a room at exactly the right angle or be shot (end of
game).

In reality I think there was a superb game here waiting to get out
as the story and characters are very underwritten. But for
whatever reason be it budget, talent, or deadlines it just didn't
happen. The majority of the clues are obtained by speaking to the
right person with the right character at the right time and/or
showing them the items discovered. Puzzles vary from the
straightforward to the complex and are usually but not always (see
above) logical.

Us adventure lovers have a few games on the horizon to wait for -
nearly all by Lucas Arts which for me is a worry. I can't even
replay Gabriel Knight or Cthulu or the Police Quests anymore as
they are incompatible with XP. So for a starving person games like
this have to suffice even though they leave me totally frustrated.















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