he Ward, designed by Fragile Bits Interactive and published by On Deck Interactive, is a point-and-click CD-ROM adventure game. Players move the hero, astronaut David Walker, around a series of locations by pointing and clicking with the mouse on the destination where they want him to go. Each location contains some combination of switches to flip, doors to open, tools and items to pick up, devices and puzzles for the tools and items to be used on and computer-run characters to either fight or talk to or both. Using items, solving puzzles, fighting and talking are also all done with a point and click of the mouse. The Ward is a game without a learning curve.
The story that is told through this interface is the quest of astronaut Walker to save the Earth from the threat of the Raptoids, an alien race that has already enslaved the race of the Grays (yes, the big-headed aliens familiar from The X-Files). Walker is on the moon when he is captured, and he wakes in a Raptoid base, in the middle of a rebellion by the Grays. From the base, the action continues to the Human colony, and then on to the Raptoid ship before the finale at the Holy mountain.
The focus of the first part of the game is exploring and solving puzzles. The focus of the second part is talking to the computer characters and solving puzzles. The focus of the third part of the game is fighting and solving puzzles. In the easy mode of play, the hardest puzzles have skip buttons. In the regular mode these puzzles have hints. Either way, readers won't be slowed down more than they want to be by the puzzles.
Mr. Walker proves to be aptly named
Two things do slow The Ward down, and both of them are so endemic to the adventure game market that it is hard to blame Fragile Bits for not programming them out. The first thing is that it is seldom the "major" puzzles that stop the game cold. It is usually an overlooked switch, a forgotten item or unseen door. Most games don't include help for those problems, and The Ward is no exception.
The second problem is the need to retrace steps already taken because the plot requires it. This is the bane of adventure games. No matter how breathtaking the locations and backgrounds in a game, they start to get old the third time the character trudges past them on the way to some meeting or puzzle. This happens a lot in the middle of the The Ward and is made no more interesting by the fact there is no run mode for Walker. He just walks across screen after previously explored screen.
On the positive side, The Ward does have a real, live plot. The art is good. The music fits the mood. The voice acting is up to standards. The cut scenes are long and detailed. The puzzles are hard without being impossible. Most importantly, there are several twists and turns that actually come as a surprise as the game plays out.
This may be a problem that only I have since I play so many games, but honestly, how hard would it be to program a strategic map that fills in as you explore? Then, when I needed to go back to a room I've already explored, I could just click on it and teleport there. The Ward is a good game, but this one simple feature would have made it so much better.
--Eric
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