Bioscopia - Review english


Bioscopia ...and biology becomes an adventure Releasedate: 10/2001 Developer: Ruske & Pühretmaier Publisher: Heureka-Klett Chemicus review Genre: Edutainment adventure Suitable for ages 12 and up A review by Gini 04. November 2001 Previous history (excerpt from the manual) In the research station Bioscopia attempts were accomplished to provide machines with artificial intelligence by genetic and molecular manipulations. By a number of unfortunate accidents the robots succeeded to seize power over the researchers. The only chance for the humans was escape. Thanks to a particularly courageous laboratory assistent the advance of the robots was stopped. He overrode the main reactor before the robots could supply themselves with the necessary energy to leave Bioscopia. Years later a young scientist is on her search for Bioscopia. However unintentional she releases a nuclear chain reaction and the portals fed by the stand-by battery were closed.		Click on the picture to magnify The Intro showing the scientist's landing on Bioscopia The young, unconsious resarcher - her rescue is your main task

Story At the beginning of the game you get to know that the young researcher is close to death and locked up somewhere in Bioscopia. The task of the gamer is, completely unexpected, to rescue her. In the manual the threatening danger of the robots is largely touted, what causes that you are petrified with horror every time you meet one of those creatures, which are however almost completely harmless. They sometimes do block the way to certain sections, but they don't harm you in any way. Only in the end sequence you find a connection to the previous history, but I don't want to give away the secret, in which way. General information Bioscopia is an Edutainment-adventure. Thus the aim of the developers was not only to produce an entertaining game, but also to maintain, refurbish, improve or extend your knowledge about biology. But who expects a boring, "dry" and fantasyless game now, is mistaken: Bioscopia is far away from only obtaining information; a large value is put on the fact that the acquired knowledge can also be used. Puzzles In Bioscopia you are on yourself. There are no more or less helpful persons, who give more or less helpful hints. There is no one, who requires another object for giving you an urgently needed item. Nobody. The only things around are machines and plants. Okay, strictly regarded they replace the persons. Most devices demand a numeric code, a special input, a certain sequence, in which the buttons must be pressed, etc.. In addition worth mentioning are the robots, which come to life more and more during the presence of the gamer. But they are however everything else than helpful creatures. They mostly block the way to a door or are simply running around in the area. The degree of puzzle-difficulty increases in the process of the game, the solution method is always logical and comprehensible however. Because you have to look up certain knowledge ranges again and again in BigBrain or have to try out different combinations, you won't finish Bioscopia too fast. Nearly the entire research station is arranged around a trunk-like thing in a circle and devided into individual towers, which correspond to the respective knowledge chapters. In practice the whole looks this way: Thanks to the acquisition of a door key card, the successful solving of a puzzle, etc., you can enter a new section, a new tower. Only just arriving and looking around, you are confronted with puzzles, which will tell you, after a closer look, which chapter is dealt with. Another way to find this out is using BigBrain, which is the all-knowing system and at the same time a graphic map of the station. If you are once sure, with which kind of puzzles you'll have to deal here, you should have a closer look at the relevant chapter and try to acquire as much knowledge as possible, so that you can solve all puzzles afterwards. With the help of the learning section of the game now nearly all puzzles are solvable. Some examples: At the beginning you have to assign - as warming up round in a kind of memory game - the leaves of certain trees to the appropriate fruits. Later you need the knowledge what substances a plant needs to prosper. Still later you must assign for instance animal pictures to the appropriate sounds or sound pictures or connect the exact terms of the procedures of a mitose (cell division) with the appropriate pictures. The actual goal of the game is to save the young scientist. Therefore you must produce an antibiotic to save her life and find a way out of this prison. The solving of this two puzzles is pulling through the entire game; you'll again and again find parts, which bring you near the final solution step by step. The solution of many puzzles can be found in the respective tower or in BigBrain, however sometimes also codes from other places are used. A permanent task is the thing with the door key cards: There are two of these cards. A red and a multicolored one. Both are used to open the doors and gates of the research station. While with the red card only few doors can be opened, the later available multicolored card provides entrance to nearly all areas of the station. So far so well. The hook here is that you cannot infinitely open as many doors as you want with one card however, but have to load it up again and again. In order to get a functional card, you are asked multiple choice questions. The card does not have more than 5 save slots, so you are regularly forced to visit the loading devices. These loading devices are in nearly each tower. The questions always refer to the respective chapter and are first of all a good knowledge test and at the same time also a nice side job if you are stuck in a puzzle. Small versus: Some few times you can only limit the solution but not clearly tighten it: For example you have to find and bring into a certain order four letters from a selection of altogether 8. Unfortunately there are, as soon as the four are identified, nevertheless 24 possibilities to try out. Controls/inventory Bioscopia is completely mouse-controlled. The cursor indicates whether you can go forward, right, left, up, down or back or could turn left, right or 180 degrees. In addition the cursor becomes a hand, when it is possible to interact (e.g. open a drawer or operate a lever). The inventory is shown in form of a metallic barrel at the lower, right corner of screen and can be opened by mouse-click. If you want to use an object, it can to be moved from the inventory to the main screen with drag&drop. The controls are very easy to learn. The only negative remark I can make is this: if you overlook for example a stretched index finger to the left (go left) changing from a certain point into a curved index finger to the left (turn left), it may happen that you ignore a scene or close-up. The cursor doesn't change its shape when over a hot-spot, other than in Physicus or Chemicus - which was not disturbing for me, but can lead to some confusion straight at the beginning. Learning-section The learning-section is "BigBrain" I already mentioned, the large, all-knowing computer memory of Bioscopia. Here everything necessary for the solution is stored. If you are stuck with a puzzle, it is helpful and advisable to have a second look at the relevant learning chapter. You will probably find the solution there. That learning-section itself is divided into 5 segments. They correspond to the most important chapters of biology: zoology, genetics, cell biology, botany and anthropology. These chapters are devided into further sub-chapters (e.g. zoology is devided into vertebrate animals and invertebrate ones). If you begin to read a chapter now, you can turn over the pages to reach the next sub-chapter or page. If you are looking for a certain information you can also go directly to a sub-chapter. The topics are very well imparted: Apart from numerous pictures, films and animations the gamer often can intervene and for example make a size comparison between a hair and a blood corpuscle or can observe - by means of an adjustable thermometer - the change of the body warmth of a poikilothermic animal. A very well understandable narrator reads the text presented on the screen. If there is something not completely clear, every information can be recalled: movies can be played forward and backward, you can turn page back and forth. If you are looking for a certain information and the narrator is disturbing you, you can also switch him off. Everything is very clear and well illustrated, so that you will really keep some of this knowledge after completing the game. Graphics The graphics are quite good looking. Screen after screen you move through a 2D world, which contains environments dominated by very beautiful plants and sights of the imaginative towers. But mainly however you are limited to the usually technical inside of the buildings. A not unimportant part of the game time you will spend in beautifully designed BigBrain. There is no real scrolling, more a kind of sliding, when one screen shades off into the next. If this takes too much time you can also switch off this option. Sound/anything else Background music isn't existing at all locations and if existing only very unobtrusive. Sound effects on the other hand are everywhere: you can hear birds and crickets chirp outside, while in the interior doors and buttons squeal and creak. When you are just solving a puzzle your success or failure will be indicated by special sounds; and if you are near high voltage you can hear a constant buzzing. Most of this sounds are not annoying and conveniently in the background. I must add that the female voice actor from the Intro and end sequence doesn't sound very professionel, but its only at the beginning and in the end - so never mind. The manual is functional and the many pictures help a lot. The game box is beautiful: You can open the cover like a book, which is decorated on the outside with a collage of Bioscopia's objects and shows many screenshots and informative texts on the inside. Summary A very instructional, pleasing game, which persuades through mixed challenging puzzles and subtle detailed graphics. My rating: 90 % 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)		The found slide maybe will give a hint to solve a puzzle The menu of "BigBrain" with integrated map of Bioscopia To actually enter this laboratory you have to solve a puzzle about the human digestive system Around Bioscopia's towers thick vegetation is growing If you look close this skeleton gives you a hint One of the more difficult puzzles where you have to gather clues from more than one tower One of your tasks here will be to produce a withering substance The botany part of "BigBrains" contains information about the exact structure of a trunk The whole station is built like a circle around the central tower Here you can acquire knowlege about Eucyte and Protocyte and which animals belong to which group One of Bioscopia's towers A motionless robot - for the moment More screenshots