Déjà Vu II: Lost in Las Vegas
| Déjà Vu II: Lost in Las Vegas | |
|---|---|
| Studio | ICOM simulations |
| Publisher |
Mindscape Pack-In-Video (PC-98) |
| Senior Developer | David Marsh |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1988 |
| platform | Apple Macintosh , Apple IIgs , Atari ST , Commodore Amiga , DOS , PC-98 |
| Game engine | MacVenture |
| genre | Point-and-click adventure |
| Subject | Detective / crime thriller |
| Game mode | Single player |
| control | Mouse & keyboard , gamepad |
| medium | 3.5 " floppy disks or cartridge |
| language | English |
Déjà Vu II: Lost in Las Vegas is a computer game developed in 1988 for the Apple Macintosh .
The game was the fourth and last of the game series called MacVenture - Adventures after the name of the development engine used and was ported in quick succession to numerous other systems by its American developer ICOM Simulations , including above all Atari ST , Amiga and DOS . It was later released as a remake for the Game Boy Color handheld console and Windows Mobile .
action
As in Déjà Vu: A Nightmare Comes True , the plot of this point-and-click adventure takes place in the United States in the 1940s. Theodore "Ace" Harding, a former boxer who now works as a private detective, wakes up from an unconsciousness with a headache, this time in a room at the Las Vegas Lucky Dice Hotel and Casino . It quickly turns out that Ace has to find a sum of $ 112,000 for gang boss Tony Malone, which was last in the possession of the meanwhile murdered crook Joey Siegel. If Ace does not get the money back within a week, he faces the threat of murder. In his attempts to raise the money, Ace is watched over by Stogie Martin, one of Malone's thugs.
The game shows a Las Vegas that is heavily based on the movie Bugsy . Some places in Chicago that already played a role in the first part can be revisited via train connections. If Ace tries to take the train to Los Angeles or St. Louis, Stogie catches him and kills him. Even if Ace is not under the influence of drugs this time, he continues to experience memory flashbacks in certain places or when looking at photos.
As with other adventures based on the MacVenture engine, there is a time limit that Stogie Martin reminds the player of again and again.
Production notes
Part 2 appeared three years after the first part was published. In the meantime, ICOM brought out the two adventures Uninvited (1986) and Shadowgate (1987). The MacVenture engine remained largely unchanged. About the publisher Mindscape came Déjà Vu II in 1988 on two 3.5 "floppy, double-sided with 800 kilobytes for the Apple Macintosh in the trade. In the years that followed, porting to other systems followed. In 1999 it was released on a shared cartridge with its predecessor as Déjà Vu I & II: The Casebooks of Ace Harding for the Game Boy Color .
Players attribute a high level of difficulty to the game. The logic requires frequent lateral thinking or knowledge from the first part proves to be a hindrance. For example, a fire escape is to be used, for which there was always the message in the first part that it could not be reached ("too high"). The final phase in particular is a difficult challenge, in which, under time pressure, all the hints that have been collected in the game up to that point, the meaning of which is not so easy to assess, have to be placed in the appropriate place.
Déjà Vu II was the last game developed on the MacVenture engine. In January 2015, the company Zojoi, which was founded in 2012 by former ICOM employees, published a version of the game on the Steam platform that contains the original graphics, but can run on modern hardware.
reception
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The US American Computer Gaming World criticized a strictly linear course of action and a sometimes unintuitive operating concept. For certain activities, exactly predefined combinations of objects and verbs are required, which the player cannot find out through logical thinking, but only through uninspired experimentation, which clearly hinders the flow of the game. The German ASM came to a more positive verdict. Editor Bernd Zimmermann saw a "sophisticated game with a well thought-out concept" and a high level of difficulty, the graphics of which, however, are on the same level as the previous game and cannot keep up with modern games.
Web links
- Déjà Vu II: Lost in Las Vegas at MobyGames (English)
- Déjà Vu I & II: The Casebooks of Ace Harding at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Bernd Zimmermann: To something new in the usual manner . In: Current software market . September 1989, p. 92.
- ↑ Dave Arneson: Seems Like Old Times . (PDF) In: Computer Gaming World . No. 59, May 1989, p. 36. Retrieved May 25, 2013.
