Berlin Connection - Review english


Berlin Connection Release dates: 1998 / Re-release November 2001 Released only in German language Developer: EKU Interactive Publisher: Koch Media Homepage Boxshots A review by slydos 09th November 2001 "Berlin Connection" by Eku Interactive is a point&click adventure game for PC and MAC before the historical background of the opening of the Berlin Wall. It is the year 1989. Roger Penrose, an english photographer, accepts a job for a photo shooting in Berlin. After gathering all important items for the journey in his London studio, he travels to Berlin. A hotel was booked for him and the motives for the photos were drawn in a Berlin map. So he starts out to do his job and visits the different places. At the Brandenburg Gate, in the turbulences of the ceremonies, he becomes acquainted with Katja. He accompanies her into her East Berlin apartment and spends the night with her. But Katja disappears at the next morning and Roger receives a mysterious call. Katja was kidnapped and Roger should give the already taken photos for her release in exchange. The blackmailer specifies a meeting place ...		The main menu Click to enlarge The inventory

Berlin Connection has been published in 1998 for the first time, created by the independent developer team Eku Interactive with support of the "Berliner Tagesspiegel" (= Berlin Daily Mirror). A new budget version is planned by publisher Koch Media for the middle of November 2001. A sequel was just published in book-form. "Berlin Connection" was developed for the MAC and then also adapted and ported to the PC. The necessary Quicktime comes with the game on CD. The game comes on 2 CDs, needs 25 MB on the fixed disk and can easily be installed under Windows. An introduction sequence leads us from the year 1945 into the year 1989, accompanied by exciting music and salient words of politicians such as Ernst Reuter, John F. Kennedy or Walter Ulbricht, with almost monochrome, yellowed, cross fading photos. The exciting story of a city in the focal point of the east-west conflict. In short insertions we see well-known contemporaries from politics and culture and well-known pictures of contemporary history, e.g. the Volksspolizist (east german police officer/soldier) fleeing in the last instant. A really exciting prelude, accompanied by the voice of a professional speaker, and that lets us surmise the hand of an artist, leads us to the entrance menu. Menu/handling Apart from the four obvious courses of action (save, load, start and quit) still another feature hides itself in the center of the screen, i.e. an integrated online assistance. You'll find this possibility, if you move the mouse over the screen and detect a spot where it changes into a hand. Here you can find easy tips for the game - no real solution. If you select "Start", you first get into the London studio of our hero Roger Penrose. We unfortunately never could face Roger, it's a 1st-person-game. If our hand cursor puts its index finger left or right, sometimes also upward or down, we can move in this direction. The index finger over an object, stretched upward, can however also mean that we can execute an action such as take, speak or a move here. Important items, like the camera, the inventory suit-case and the Berlin city map are gathered in the studio first and then always visibly arranged around the main screen in the center. Up to the main menu and the Berlin map the action screen is always shown as window in the center of a dark-grey background. The inventory can be opened by clicking on the suit-case in the right lower corner. Objects, which are added during the game, are automatically stored there and can be taken out first with one click and than put visible beside the main screen. If you want to use them, you must click on them and afterwards click on the area on the action screen, with which they are to be used. The escape-key always leads back to the menu without any time delay, with spacebar you can stop dialogues or film sequences. There are no waiting times for the screen set-up. In order to move from one place to another in Berlin, Roger only has to open the Berlin map. The locations such as Potsdamer Platz, Kreuzberg, Funkturm, Schloß Charlottenburg etc. are marked on the map and again can be accessed by a mouse click. When Roger starts his work he has to visit each and every possible location, move in every direction, to catch a motive for a photo. Roger has loaded his camera with a 24 photos film and has to shoot all 24 photos in order to deliver the film to a photo laboratory. A correct motive is indicated acoustically and by a flashing of the camera. Then fast click on the camera, press releaser, again click on the camera - finished! While his visits at the different places Roger can listen to a tape travel guide where a nice lady tells him everything about the just visited location. The motive search is a little laborious. The gamer should be forced not to ignore a single scenes. Graphics The graphics of the action screen consist of a slide show, where one picture lines up to the other one. There are real persons in real sceneries. If you meet a dialogue partner, then several photos are lined up in fast sequence, to let it look like movement. The pictures look throughout grey, cold - just like November. The intensive atmosphere during the fall of the wall is however hardly obtained. Even the champagne binge with Katja acts somehow undercooled. The three time journeys, which Roger must complete, are in a yellowed brown tone. One remains spectator. I remember a similar designed game - Byzantine. Here however you felt much more present in the lively city of Istanbul. Contrary to "Berlin Connection" ensured here a lot of film sequences with real actors provide loosening. Speech/ sound/music Music is used very economically and supports the scenes very well, where special suspense should be created. With the noises however the full program is filled - everywhere there is swoosh, drop, auto noise, murmurings, creaking etc. etc. galore. Sometimes it became too much for me, particularly when you couldn't understand the simultanously spoken words anymore. There is no possibility to adjust the volume of music/language/noises. In many places "Berlin Connection" looks like a radio drama set in scene using professional speakers. Puzzles There is a number of simple object puzzles, particularly suitably you have to exchange a number of items in a time journey to the black market, until you get the actually important object, that can be applied again in the present. Beside the photo shooting, where you simply must find the correct places, there are further localization puzzles in the time journey "Building of the Wall" or also with the escape from a Stasi man the correct place must be found. Here it gets particularly ticklish, since e.g. this puzzle is time-dependent, like others too. Roger is killed, if he is too slow. If you restart here from a saved game, there is a random factor and you must find new places or people, or look up objects in other place. There are simple number or combination lock puzzles, which can become quite difficult through time limits. You therefore should save frequently. Unfortunately the save slots are automatically arranged alphabetical, so that you often must search for the last saved game. There are several smaller and a large labyrinth puzzle in the underground lodes. There is a map in addition, but it only helps approximately to find the correct way. A cross word puzzle must be solved on the basis of the information from the game, in dialogues the correct selections must be made, and usually at first attempt. Why at all our hero must actually go on the three time journeys, can hardly be justified by the story. Rather the developers want to bring here information about Berlin history in more or less logical connection with the story of the game. Therefore the "Tagesspiegel" (= daily mirror) must be read and searched very exactly, in order to find some hotspots. The puzzles are various and integrated into the story. Annoying was, that one could not input the solutions of the cross word puzzle at the screen. In order to determine the necessary solution word from it, you must use either the graphic in the manual or make yourself a drawing. Laborious! Although the historical frame story of the Opening of the Wall corresponds hardly to the actual atmosphere, the fictitious core story of the game is actually in parts, at least, an exciting interactive thriller. Particularly with the time-dependent puzzles suspense arises, supported by thrilling music and noises. But in the end one question remains unanswered: Why, to all intents and purposes, the Stasi stage-managed Katja's kidnapping with such great efforts, to get the photos? Total rating: 64% Adventure-Archiv-rating system: 80% - 100% excellent game, very recommendable 70% - 79% good game, recommendable 60% - 69% satisfactory, restricted recommendable 50% - 59% sufficient (not very recommendable) 40% - 49% rather deficient (not to be recommended - for Hardcore-Adventure-Freaks and collectors only) 0% - 39% worst (don't put your fingers on it) System requirements PC: Pentium 90 MHz Windows 95/98 or Windows NT 4.x 16 MB RAM DirectX compatible graphic card 256 colors, 640 x 480 DirectX compatible sound card 4x CDROM-drive 25 MB free space on hard disk System requirements MAC: MAC OS System 7.1 or higher 68030 or PPC 12 MB RAM Color monitor 256 colors, 640 x 480 4x CDROM-drive 25 MB free disk space Played on: Windows 95 PII 233 MHz 64 MB RAM 4 MB graphic card 16bit sound card 24x CDROM-drive		Heinrichplatz - Roger's starting point With this map you move from place to place Around the action window useful objects are placed A piano, a piano ... A glass of Rotkäppchen (=Red Riding Hood)-champagne or two ... Jäger - a dangerous Stasi guy Snack Bar clerk and Stasi collaborator 1961 - building of "The Wall" - one of the three time travel stories Secret operation "Gold" The solution to the cross word puzzle is very important in the end More screenshots