February 12, 2015

Isabelle

Le Poisson Volant, 1999


Isabelle is a dreamy adventure game from a little known French company, plunges the player into an abstruse geometrical world of treason and loyalty. The game story starts in a small village called Crison, where George and his best friend Paul encounter More, a bad guy, and his gang of goons in a fight, which ends with George loosing his eyesight and Paul in a coma. More, the villain of this game is actually dreaming to take over the village and the rock mine, situated on the top of the hill and George was his only obstacle. Since the rock mine is the only bread and butter for the inhabitants of the village, George wanted to warn the villagers about More's evil intentions but they didn't believe him.

The game starts and George finds out that whatever he does in his dreams actually effects something in the real world. So he decides to thwart the bad guys' evil plans and save the village by using his little brother Raymond's reality as his eyes. By the way, More is not the only person that is to be taken care of, but there are few other pain in the necks that are needed to be lined up, which also includes you insincere girlfriend, Isabelle.

Graphically, this game has very unique and colorful 3D graphics and polygonal characters that you have ever experienced in any other adventure game. And these graphics are spiced up with stunning environmental effects such as smoke, fog, etc. Furthermore, this game has excellent real-time generated music and 3D sound effects. Puzzles are very logical, which can be solved by playing either as George or by switching to his younger bother Raymond according to the situation. Lastly, I would say that Isabelle, despite of its unique visuals and an average storyline, is not very much impressive and extraordinary and can be skipped if you have something better to play in your inventory.