Media Factory, 2001
Monet and the Mystery of the Orangerie Museum is a masterpiece adventure game that takes us into an enchanted world of artwork and the paintings painted by Claude Monet, a famous French painter, between 1918 and 1926. The intro describes that the council has decided to convert the Orangerie House, situated in Paris, into a museum to display Monet's canvasses and you, being an architect has been selected to redesign the house into a museum. A group of conspirators led by a bad guy named Derrick wanted to use the house to run an oilfield under the Tuileries but couldn't disobey council's decision so they plot a horrible plan to blow up the place with dynamite. You play as the architect in the game and fortunately come to know about this mysteriously plan and immediately get prepared to thwart their plan by venturing through the heart of Monet's canvasses in a real-time 3D environment. The gameplay is totally linear, in which you explore the surroundings, solve puzzles, avoid traps, overcome timid sequences and interact with the game characters that would help you with your investigations.
Visually, the game has admirable graphics and all the scenes scrupulously respect Monet's artistic touch. The game presents four of Monet's paintings remodeled in 3D that includes, the harbour of Le Havre, the city of Rouen, the house and the gardens of Monet in Giverny and the player immensely gets acquainted with these major masterpieces. The control interface is a cross between keyboard and mouse pointer, where the mouse pointer is used to interact with characters, use and pick up inventory items and the movements is completely controlled by arrow keys and some other keys. Classical music has been selected for each chapter and appropriately meshes into the scene. Finally, I would say that if you have just finished a game and looking for another to play then make this one you first choice and I am quite sure that you won't be disappointed.
