Five years ago Heart of Darkness, the much ballyhooed and much delayed game from France's Amazing Studio, was touted as the ultracool technology, so much so that an awed Steven Spielberg yearned to make a movie version after having seen a mere demo. But after years of postponement, the 2-D scroller is no longer cutting-edge anything. Is the game too old-fashioned to be of any consequence?
There's an artful pulchritude to Heart of Darkness that can't be denied. The seamless animations rival anything from Mulan or Animaniacs. Even the breeze-filled trees and crumbling rocks seem to have been placed with anal-retentive care. It sounds lofty, but there's an oddly lulling pastoral quality to the backgrounds that gives you the feeling of something lushly literary, like Truman Capote's The Grass Harp. Andy, the boy hero who fights shadow monsters that can chew you up like a Cuisinart, is alternately as endearing as Huck Finn and as wild as MTV goon Jesse. All these features suck you in to interact with the gooby, cloying plot: Help Andy find his lost and slobbering mutt Whisky.
Although avid gamers could likely live without the hints that appear when you screw up, the generally maddening gameplay inflames your synapses and coaxes you to stay around to complete the eight-level adventure. Whether you're flying through Joseph Conrad-like jungles or diving under James Cameron-inspired seas, whether you're fighting King Kong-like monsters or avoiding minuscule, rabidly carnivorous fish, Heart of Darkness works.
Yes, you do often wish this were a 3-D world in which you could wander. But then you see the crafty attention to detail - like the way Andy's red Converse sneaker goes flying when he's devoured by an oversized Venus flytrap. The realization stings you like a dominatrix with a whip: These designers have seen every popular adventure movie of note and have exploited that encyclopedic knowledge to enhance the game in a way that seems more like evolution than plagiarism. Midway through, you understand that Heart of Darkness is a classic that will be talked about fondly wherever gaming nerds congregate.
Heart of Darkness: US$49.95. Interplay: on the Web at www.interplay.com/.
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