Alice in Wonderland

EMME, 2001

Alice in Wonderland is an excellent puzzle-solving adventure game for kids age 7 and above. The game is based on the famous storybook, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll, which tells the story of a little girl named Alice who follows a white rabbit in a hole and falls in a dream world into the realm of Queen of Hearts. She explores this enchanted land and meets many strange characters and animals. In the game, she falls and lands in a room with many doors of different sizes and in order to enter these doors she needs to change her into different size by drinking magic potions available in the room. Each door opens to different places of the wonderland. Each screen offers a puzzle or some arcade sequence. Sometimes, solving a puzzle in a place changes something at another place. Puzzles are quite interesting and their quality varies from easy to moderate but none of them are too hard as the game was created with little kids in mind. There are some arcade games also added for extra fun in the game.

Graphically, the game has excellent quality and colorful background, 3D rendered characters and objects and very nice animated cut-scenes. Alice is played by a real girl, who has been filmed and used as an animated sprite over the still backgrounds. Control interface is totally mouse-driven and the inventory and other options slides down as you move the cursor to the upper area of the screen. Sound and music is very melodious and entertain the players throughout the game. All in all, this is a nice game, which can be played and finished in just few hours.

Return to Ringworld

Time Warner Interactive, 1994

Return to Ringworld is the second and the last game in the science-fiction adventure game series based on Larry Niven's well-known Known Space series of science-fiction novels. The sequel begins from the point it was left off in the first game. The puppeteer race is saved from being exterminated and now our main characters, Quinn, Seeker and Miranda Rees are on the run, trying to hide from all the major species for they have passed themselves as fugitives. While looking for a place to hide, Quinn and his companions make their way back to Ringworld in order to uncover some evidences that may prove them innocent. But, on Ringworld they unwillingly get involved again in saving the universe from the mischievous plots of General Carson, who is planning to unravel Ringworld's hidden secrets, which may bring disaster to the Universe.

Graphically, the game uses Super-VGA 256-color palette with average quality 2D graphics and nice animated sequences. The control interface is almost the same except you can now switch back and forth to any of the character at any time by selecting his or her icon, which would be fun if the gameplay was non-linear while playing a character but unfortunately its not and many puzzles need to be solved first by a particular characters in order to play any other character. Puzzles are quite easy to solve for hardcore adventure gamers while they are logical and mostly inventory-based. Music and sound quality is good and the CD-Rom version of the game was released with digital quality speech. Overall, Return to Ringworld is a nice game to play and most recommended for the fans of science-fiction adventure games.

Missing on Lost Island

Riki Computer Games, 2002

Missing in Lost Island is a traditional adventure game with ordinary graphics quality that doesn't meet the 3D standards of modern games, thou it does refresh the memories of "old-school" adventure games, especially the early LucasArts games. The intro sequence starts with a short fighting scene, where some pirates shoot Tim and Diana with their ray guns and teleport them into another dimension in different a period of time. The game starts with Tim standing in a crater in his birthday suit and his first mission is to save his modesty by finding something to wear, which is just the beginning. His main goal is to follow Diana's trail, who has already past this period of time years ago. During your search and rescue mission you will play four chapters and each chapter exhibits four different time periods. The game has multiple endings, which depends on the path you choose to play during the game.

The game puzzles are mostly logical and inventory based and not so hard to solve by hardcore adventure gamers. There are many characters to interact using multiply choice dialogue options, which in return are quite humorous. Navigation and other controls are completely mouse-driven, where the cursor changes it shape according to the action required. Graphically, the game pays homage to old classics like Simon the Sorcerer, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and Monkey Island series. As a bottom line, I would say that Missing on Lost Island is indeed a nice adventure game to play and add in your personal adventure games collection.