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Vampire Saga: Pandora's Box
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Graphics & Sound:
Hidden-object games, what I like to call "seek-and-find" style games, seem like a natural fit for the iPad. They've done well on PC, where displaying realistic photo collages has only become easier with cheaper video memory and more powerful processors. We've played a few of these on portable platforms and haven't been impressed. The lack of high-definition graphics typically means you end up scouring the scene for a given object, or that the things being hidden have to be large and horsey. Granted, the interaction with a stylus on something like the DS was better than clicking with a mouse, so you can imagine that being able to touch the screen for your selection is even better. Problem is, the quality of graphics being rendered in Vampire Saga: Pandora's Box is only okay. We've seen much crisper images and design work on the iPad. Some scenes are better executed than others, but the overall impression given is average.
The characters depicted in the game are another matter, many of them so awkwardly designed that they are accidentally funny. This is a bad thing in a game that's trying to develop a creepy vibe, but when the main character has a completely distorted face and Gumby-style limbs, it's hard to look the other way. There's only a little animation in the game, with some objects that move to give a more realistic feel to particular scenes, and the character-driven segments are strangely stiff. Since the attempts at storytelling largely fall flat, we're left with finding hidden objects. Luckily, the seek-and-find scenes are well designed, which is the saving grace of Vampire Saga: Pandora's Box. Objects tend to be visually obscured or depicted in ways you might not expect. Words may represent an actual object, or a drawing of that object in the scene that you need to tap. The inspired and intentional clutter of these scenes makes them fun to play, and the musical settings are also nicely done. Various sound effects like birds calling or machines puttering pull you into the action, and make the static images feel more interesting than they would otherwise. |
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Gameplay:
The story behind Vampire Saga: Pandora's Box is difficult to grok, but it starts out a bit like that movie, The Thing, when a ship picks up some extremely dangerous cargo that kills off the entire crew and then remains at large. Solving the mystery behind this carnage is your first task, but it will take a lot of smaller tasks and puzzles to move the story forward. The idea of mixing a sort of survival horror game with hidden objects is a neat notion, and Pandora's Box does a decent job blending the two. We've seen seek-and-find hybrids or mash-ups (this might be the more applicable term) before, and enjoyed the way that they use hidden object sequences as interludes to other gameplay. The idea that you're being explicitly asked to solve a puzzle is usually a staple in these games, but Pandora's Box just pretends you're going about your business, and uses these scenes to gather mission-critical items. At one point early on in the game, this means gathering bullets. You work through a series of hidden-object scenes, where each contains a single bullet. At other times, the objective will be different, and the goal of every seek-and-find screen is to find all the objects. Just because you find the one thing you're looking for doesn't mean you get to stop.
As the story unfolds, you'll flip between present day and the past, exploring a family narrative fraught with danger and a mysterious woman. Kudos to the development team for thinking through how to introduce story elements and weave those into the gameplay. It's not the easiest genre in which to do this, because extended hidden-object sequences tends to break up the action. It may be an acquired taste, but we liked it. The adventure game elements come into play as you gather items and can then use them in the world you're exploring, either for simple tasks like unlocking a door or for more complex tasks like building a machine. We can sense a bit of inspiration creeping into Vampire Saga from games like Myst, where you would gather or manipulate objects to solve mysteries in the world around you. The complexity of the puzzles in Pandora's Box doesn't approach this level, but the overall aesthetic of exploring, gathering items, and unlocking mysteries is here intact. There's an auto-save that should make it simple to leave and come back where you started, but the game crashed repeatedly in certain areas, forcing us to inconveniently replay long sequences. Buggy games - at least the kind of bugs that force a crash/restart - aren't typical on systems like the DS or PSP, so recent iPad converts may be surprised. The fact is that releases to the App Store are often still being improved and tested, based on frequent updates and drastically different reviews from users across multiple versions. Our advice is to back out to the main menu after solving larger puzzles, or risk losing big chunks of progress. A real downer in a package that otherwise has good potential. |
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Difficulty:
Something like "Jewel Case" doesn't mean much to people under the age of 50, or at least those not living on a trust fund. It's hard to know how much objects in Vampire Saga: Pandora's Box were tested against an audience, but the discrepancy between their description and their appearance can contribute to some challenging moments. Objects can literally be camouflaged in these environments, or they can blend in because they seem to belong in their surroundings. Seeing a spider or lobster in a bathroom looks out of place, but finding a rope or shell on a ship's deck proves more daunting. Hints are available, but they appear as direct pointers to the object, rather than broad suggestions. You really only use a hint to find an object, but they come in handy at times. Certain objects are behind others, making it hard to work out of sequences, even though the entire list is at the bottom of the screen when you start. The greater challenge in Pandora's Box is the item-specific challenges you come across, where you'll need to use something found in the environment. These are drawn straight out of any good adventure-game playbook, but may throw traditional seek-and-find gamers for a loop. The latter group isn't as invested in the intellectual challenge of solving complicated puzzles, but after a glut of seek-and-find games there may be more interest in expanding the genre. We welcome the idea, but wish the puzzles were presented in a more intuitive way. At some points in the game, it isn't clear what you need to do to move forward, and there are really no hints to this effect other than your character's journal. A hint system is really needed for these moments, in addition to just a hint system for the hidden objects. We made our way through, but we're also veteran adventure gamers, so we'd imagine the more neophyte seek-and-find converts will be stumped and possibly frustrated in more than a few instances.
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Game Mechanics:
The interface for this game is well executed, with an inventory you can find by swiping up from the bottom, at any time. Tapping objects related to puzzles with display a short message that often gives hints as to your next move. Something along the lines of, "This might be useful, if I can find some oil." It's not always clear what you're going to do with an object like this, getting back to the point mentioned earlier. There's no map of your surroundings, forcing you to form a mental picture of each room and the areas you explore. Handy directional arrows help with navigation, showing each of the exits from a given area. You can also see a distinctive aura around areas you can tap to launch a hidden-object game, which is always key to solving larger puzzles. You aren't scored for finding objects and you aren't penalized for aggressive tapping, because the overriding goal is to move the narrative forward. Completing any one hidden-object scramble is just a means to the end of opening up a new area for exploration. The game is two parts seek-and-find, one part item collection and manipulation, and one part mechanical set-piece puzzles reminiscent of Myst.
Being compared to something like Myst makes Vampire Saga: Pandora's Box sound more polished and intriguing than is really the case. Blending two genres is always a risky gambit, and Pandora's Box tends to feel more like a chunky stew than a melting pot. It's more likely to be a hit with adventure game fans that are open to the hidden-object mechanic than lovers of hidden object games looking for more variety. With more visual polish and better plotting, the play experience would improve, and the late-stage crashes that forced us to restart and replay some long puzzle sequences put a definite damper on our enthusiasm. Subsequent point releases will likely address stability, and we're optimistic about this kind of game on the iPad, since touch is such a natural mechanic for the hidden-object genre. |
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-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock |
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