Return to Ringworld - Review english


Return to Ringworld Release date: 1994 Developer/publisher: Tsunami Media Boxshots Game language: English A review by slydos 12th July 2003 "Return to Ringworld" is the direct sequel to the already reviewed "Ringworld - Revenge of the Patriarch" (Review). It's a 3rd-person point&click adventure game by Tsunami, a company, which was created by former Sierra coworkers. It is possible to play "Return to Ringworld" independently from the first installment, however the 2nd part refers to the first, and thus it's expressly recommended, to play the first part first since otherwise the story is difficult to understand.		We start with Quinn in his quarter

Prehistory At the end of the first part, Revenge of the Patriarch, Quinn McQuarry, an interstellar mercenary (human), the Kzin "Seeker of Vengeance" and Miranda Rees, a kidnapped engineer, have destroyed the revenge tool of the Kzinti Patriarch, the spaceship Destroyer, and thus prevented a new war between mankind and the Kzinti. The Patriarch put a price on their heads. In addition the three are hunted by the pupeteers, from whom they withheld the technologies found on Ringworld. The humans are after them too, because they had stolen the "Lance of Truth", a hyperdrive research ship, which is a joint venture community project of Kzinti and humans. Story of the game Our three heroes don't have much choices - they must return to Ringworld, in order to whitewash their names. But even the enormous Ringworld is not a safe port, because on their heels is a dangerous force: the United Nations' Amalgamated Regional Militia (short ARM), lead by the ultimative rogue: General Carson Teal. When the three want to enter a village already visited in the first part, they find only dead bodies and destruction by the ARM. On top of that the Lance of Truth and Miranda are kidnapped. Quinn and Seeker start looking for an entrance to the Ringworld and for the ARM headquarters. They are supported by the inhabitants of an underground, labyrinthic ice world... Installation/start "Return to Ringworld" was conceived 1994 for DOS. However there are also no difficulties under Windows 95. Minimum requirements are a 386er computer, DOS 5.0 and 590 KB of available memory as well as 2 MB on the hard disk. A sound card is optional and not required. The game comes on 1 CDROM as well as an English manual. I had no problems at all to run the game, but if you should encounter difficulties, then the manual is available with detailed and clear help. During the installation one can select the game directory, from which one has to start the program file. In Windows best executed over the menu Start >Execute. The intro plays automatically, which you can quit with the ESC-key to load a saved game. Control/handling You use the mouse for all actions and in addition some hotkeys (Help, Save, Restore, Restart, Pause, Sound, Exit). In order to execute one of the 4 possible actions such as a walking, looking, speaking or taking/manipulating, you have to click the right mouse button and the action menu in form of a triangle appears. Here you can select the appropriate icon and then use it at the screen with a left-click. This time another icon was added to the action menu: the character choice. Because this time one can switch at any time between the three main characters. There are no marked hotspots at the screen. One should look at with the eye icon and also examine everything with the hand icon very exactly. The speak icon starts automatic dialogues. There are no multiple choice questions/answers. In the action menu there is also a link to the main menu, where you can restart, save, load, exit the game, select sound cards or adjust volume. Unfortunately one can save only 10 games. Not much, but one gets along. The inventory is this time (different from part 1) always visible at the bottom of the screen. We can see up to 4 inventory items simultaneously, for the rest you've to scroll. We can have a closer look at inventory objects with the ?-icon. Inventory objects can be combined in contrast to the predecessor game. We usually carry only few objects, so that the display never becomes unclear. Movement between individual scenes is done by mouse-click. Arrows are referrers for scene changes, however not always. Sometimes the screen scrolls automatically to the left or right, when our heroes move. Handling was changed in some places and I think it's even better. It is really simple, good and fast, nevertheless each possible action is described in the manual in detail, just as with the first part of the saga. Graphics/music/language The graphics (VGA, 256 colors) are still today quite acceptable for a 9 year old game. The motions are appropriate, unfortunately without the close-ups during dialogues this time. Otherwise the graphics quality corresponds exactly to "Revenge of the Patriarch", even a scene from the first part was taken over. Extensive animation sequences and scrolling within the scenes are likewise plus points. However one would have wished (exactly as with the first part) some more exotic locations in this nevertheless so complex and enormous world. But there is good sound and also speech, which is not only used during conversations but also for all object descriptions or other text references. Puzzles The puzzles of "Return to Ringworld" differ from its predecessor too. This time there are many more and more difficult puzzles - however also some unloved (by me) additions, like mazes, and this 3 or 4 times. Granted, they are not of the most difficult kind, but they are quite boring. In most scenes one can use special equipment for direction determination in unclear landscapes - that's again a bright spot. In any case you should make some notes, to get past the mazes as fast as possible. Beside inventory puzzles we also find switch puzzles and must control e.g. a hot-air balloon. And sometimes you should switch to another character, to get ahead. So each of the three heroes has his/her own part of the game with own puzzles, some puzzles even must be solved in co-operation and here it gets really interesting. "Return to Ringworld" is done without arcade sequences, as they were optional in the first part. In addition one can also not die this time. If you should come into serious difficulties, then our hero automatically gets out of the danger zone - so no dying and no GameOvers. The puzzle design in any case has improved in relation to the first part, however for me some puzzles have a too technical language. In a way Ringworld has just an abstruse language as for example StarTreck, and who really cares, how the individual parts of a spaceship are called in this part of the universe? By the many individual orientation games in mazes, at a space port, in the ice world, on the Ringworld surface, in underground catacombs or ventilation - the game lasts substantially longer than the first part. 25 to 30 hours I would indicate as a gaming time. Result I enjoyed "Return to Ringworld" more than the first part, not only, because it is equipped with speech and offers more puzzles, but because they also tried to hype up the game with three different heroes and the associated freedom of choice. Nevertheless also the second part is still very technology-overloaded and in many sections simply still very boring, by having to go or drive endless ways. Rating: 60 % 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: 386/25 Mhz 640K RAM/590.000 bytes free Hard disk with 2 MB free space VGA (256 colours) or better (MCGA not supported) CD-ROM drive with minimum 150KB/sec transfer rate Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Covox Sound Master II, Pro-Audio Spectrum 16 or Roland RAP-10 sound cards MS-DOS version 5.0 or higher (or 100% compatible) Microsoft Mouse with driver version 6.0 or higher (or 100% compatible) Played on: Windows 95 PII 233 MHz 64 MB RAM 4 MB graphic card 16bit sound card 24x CDROM-drive		Quinn has to visit the med lab for some surgery For a change you can venture a little game in your personal computer The Lance of Truth first must get ready for take-off This village is known from the first part of the game The main menu Miranda kept prisoner by the ARM The leader of the ice world supports our two heroes Both, Quinn as well as Seeker, must follow theier quest in the ice world The balloon isn't easy to control The people of the forest are very shy Seeker must kill a series of vampires in this labyrinth Miranda must escape Miranda looking for her colleagues