Simon the Sorcerer: Who wants contact?
| Simon the Sorcerer: Who wants contact? | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | Silver style entertainment | ||
| Publisher | TGC - The Games Company GmbH | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
March 26, 2009 | ||
| platform | Microsoft Windows | ||
| genre | Adventure | ||
| medium | CD-ROM | ||
| language | German English | ||
| Age rating |
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Simon the Sorcerer: Who wants contact? is a computer game by the German game developer Silver Style Entertainment from 2009. The adventure is the fifth part of the Simon the Sorcerer game series and the second part after Simon the Sorcerer: Chaos is Half Life , which was developed by Silver Style Entertainment.
action
Simon the Sorcerer: Who wants contact? plays like its predecessors in the magic world , a fairytale parallel world of the earth. The protagonist, Simon the magician , once traveled through a wardrobe into this world and retired there with his girlfriend Alix . In the fifth part of the series, his girlfriend is kidnapped and Simon has to save not only her, but also the magical world from an alien invasion. Magic plays a much smaller role in this part than in the previous ones. Instead, the emphasis is on steampunk elements and science fiction allusions.
Chapter 1
The game begins with a New Year's Eve party. The next morning, aggressive green-skinned figures stand in front of the door of the magic shop where Simon has slept between all kinds of pizza boxes. Simon can escape the trigger-happy aliens. But an army of aliens lurks at the gates of the city who, it looks like, want to destroy the magical world. Simon learns from the burglar Goldilocks - an old friend from Simon the Sorcerer 2 - that his girlfriend Alix was kidnapped by the aliens. He then speaks to Doctor Walden and Dänichen , who accidentally locked themselves in the town hall's basement. Doctor Walden reveals to Simon that he has an escape vehicle that they can use to escape the aliens. But Simon has to free him first. In the market square, he is approached by the boggler , a humanoid amphibian who is dressed like a cook and claims to be Simon's friend. The bogling accompanies the magician from then on. Simon convinces the city guard to give him the key to the town hall. After he freed Doctor Walden, it turns out that he was locked in the basement alone with his sock puppet and was talking to himself. Together they make their way to the hiding place of the escape vehicle. After Simon has etched a hole in the city wall with Chili, however, he is surprised by mole agents who threaten him with laser weapons. Doctor Walden escapes and Simon is kidnapped by the moles on a pirate island.
Chapter 2
Simon was locked in the captain's cabin of a shipwreck by the moles. His famous magic hat, into which countless objects fit, has been taken from him. He can use a box as a substitute, but only remove a few items at a time. Simon manages to escape from the cabin after an exchange of words with the feminist Little Red Riding Hood, who finally opens the door for him. Another part of the shipwreck was turned into a beach bar. There Simon meets the drunken wolf and a genie in a bottle who is now working as a psychiatrist. There is also a tin parrot named Polly in the bar . A hut was also built next to the bar, in which Little Red Riding Hood lives. The quick-witted girl is just lying on the beach in the sun. Simon takes the opportunity and steals her backpack, which he can now use as an inventory instead of his magic hat. With Polly's help, Simon can find the inventor Dr. Enter Edward Peach. Before Simon has the opportunity to speak to him, the aliens get in his way again. They demolish the facility and Dr. Peach breaks down dead after a short circuit in his equipment. With the help of a modified voodoo doll, Simon succeeds in reviving the inventor. He then introduces himself as a specialist in the development of artificial intelligence.
Chapter 3
Simon wants to get his magic hat back. The pirate Captain Narrow tells him about a tunnel that leads to the moles that stole the hat. Simon consults with the inventor and is supposed to get material for a digging machine. Seven mile boots, which Simon digs up on the beach with the skeleton of the puss in boots, are supposed to serve as a drive. With the finished digging machine, Simon reaches the underworld and the city of moles. There he meets the leaders of the moles - the three wise old men. They explain that they needed his hat for research purposes and that he can now get it back. They also wanted to protect him from the Nihonians, the aliens who would have recognized him as Simon the Wizard with his hat. They claim that Simon is the real target of the aliens. The Nihonians would also destroy the magical world with their eye of death by shooting waves of bad luck at it. Simon is now supposed to go on a journey into space to save the world. The moles give him blueprints for building a spaceship, which the inventor is supposed to construct for him. Aside from the spaceship, Simon also needs a crew for his space expedition. He can win Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf, Polly and the swampling, who has since emerged, as a crew and leaves the island with the converted "Black Pear" just in time when she is attacked by the Nihonians.
Chapter 4
On the ship, however, Little Red Riding Hood immediately seized command. She refuses to help Simon until there is a 50 percent female quota on the ship. Simon disguises the wolf as a woman. Subsequently, the Black Pear is not only threatened by the Eye of Death, but also attacked by a space squid. Simon dares to go outside in a diving suit and attacks the squid with a harpoon. However, because the octopus got tangled with the ship's propulsion system, it crashes on the Eye of Death. As soon as they landed, the Nihonians appear and take Simon with them.
Chapter 5
Now it's the wolf's turn. He is approached by a purple alien who introduces himself as Master Ionas and wants to train the wolf, whom he calls the discarded one . Master Ionas frees the wolf from his alcohol addiction and teaches him the power of mind reading, mind control, foresight and telekinesis. With the help of these new powers, the wolf arrives on the bridge of the Nihoni ship and can also understand what the aliens are saying. Since this does not help him, he first teleports himself into the ship's central computer. The wolf manages to overload the computer so that the eye of death cannot trigger its radiation shot. Meanwhile, Simon learns from the Nihonians that they are tourists and only want to take a picture of him. Simon now understands that the Nihonians are sending out waves of bad luck with their cameras, causing disasters that ultimately destroy the planets they visit. But the Nihonians don't want to believe Simon. Simon asks the moles for help with his communicator, which the moles gave him. They are not at all enthusiastic that Simon is revealing their position to the Nihonians, so Simon has to solve the problem on his own. He gives a speech to convince moles and nihonians that it was all a misunderstanding. At the end, Alix also steps onto the bridge, completing Simon's tasks in this game.
main characters
- Simon the Sorcerer
- Player character and protagonist of the game series. He always has a line ready to annoy other characters.
- wolf
- The wolf, who initially has a drinking problem, will also be controlled by the player at times in a later chapter.
- Little Red Riding Hood
- A quick-witted girl who campaigns for women's rights and thus appears at times as an antagonist to Simon.
- Bogling
- Small, humanoid amphibian who accompanies and supports Simon by making swamp soup. The boggler hopes for Simon's friendship.
- moles
- Mole agents dressed in trench coats, floppy hats and sunglasses work underground against the invasion of aliens. They are commanded by three wise old moles.
- The Nihonians
- Alien creatures with beam weapons that threaten the magical world
Game principle and technology
As in the predecessor Simon the Sorcerer: Chaos is half life , in the 5th part of the series, 3D characters are again moved through a two-dimensional game world. In contrast to its predecessor, the characters are shown in cel-shading style, which makes them reminiscent of comic figures. The environments, which in part 4 were obviously based on 3D renderings, look more hand-painted in part 5.
It is controlled via a point-and-click interface . The player points at objects with the mouse pointer and can view or interact with them by clicking. As in the previous game, Simon cannot die in this game. The game can be saved at any time. There is also a multi-level help function to support you in solving the puzzles. Items collected in the game are placed in an inventory that is displayed at the bottom of the screen. Collected items can also be combined with each other there.
Production notes
The fifth installment in the series was announced on August 20, 2008 at the Games Convention under the working title Simon the Sorcerer 5 . At that time, the publisher said that in the fifth part, Simon would have to travel backwards through time to regain his memory. However, this does not correspond to the game plot that made it into the finished game. In a press release from the end of January 2009, screenshots were published that corresponded to the content of the game. The game was released on March 26, 2009. The developer Silver Style filed for bankruptcy in 2014 - four years after the publisher TGC went bankrupt. In the same year, a successor to the Simon the Sorcerer series was announced by the Irish developer StoryBeasts. However, its development was stopped in 2016.
Quotes and Easter Eggs
The fashion conscious Captain Narrow and the Black Pear are a tribute to Captain Jack Sparrow and his ship, the Black Pearl , from the film series Pirates of the Caribbean . The Eye of Death is inspired by the Death Star from the space opera Star Wars . The Ghost Dude is a cartoon of the Dude from The Big Lebowski . Master Ionas recalls Yoda , also from Star Wars , as well as the biblical Jonah , who, according to a story, was swallowed by a whale. Furthermore, in Simon the Sorcerer: Who wants contact? various well-known fairy tale characters such as Little Red Riding Hood , the wolf known from various children's and house tales, the Puss in Boots (or what is left of him in this story) as well as the Goldilocks from Goldilocks and the three bears .
reception
Simon the Sorcerer: Who wants contact? received average to good ratings. The GameRankings review database aggregates 6 reviews to a mean value of 64%. According to 4Players, there are improvements in terms of story, staging and humor compared to the “childish” looking predecessor. The appearance of the female characters and the staging of the cutscenes are criticized. The specialist magazine Adventure Corner describes the story as excessive, but rates the game overall as good. The Gamestar magazine praises the game as a short but successful sequel. In the PC Games test, the game scores as “not bad”. Disenchanted by inadequate drama, stiff character animations and applied gags, the game cannot keep up with the competition despite the beautifully designed, varied backgrounds and funny characters like Little Red Riding Hood. The specialist magazine Adventure-Treff also praises the pretty graphics, but criticizes the subtle humor. Overall, the game is rated as solid.
Web links
- Simon the Sorcerer: Who wants contact? at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Andre Linken: Simon the Sorcerer 5 - Adventure officially announced. In: Gamestar . August 20, 2008, accessed November 16, 2019 .
- ↑ Sebastian Thöing: Simon the Sorcerer 5: TGC shows new screenshots and announces subtitles. In: PC Games . January 18, 2009, accessed November 16, 2019 .
- ↑ Simon the Sorcerer 5: Who'd Even Want Contact ?! In: GameRankings . Retrieved November 16, 2019 .
- ↑ Bodo Naser: Test: Simon the Sorcerer 5: Who wants contact? In: 4Players . April 3, 2009, accessed November 16, 2019 .
- ↑ Maren Keitel: Simon the Sorcerer - Who wants contact? In: AdventureCorner. April 24, 2009, accessed November 16, 2019 .
- ↑ Simon the Sorcerer: Who wants contact? In: GameStar . Retrieved November 16, 2019 .
- ↑ Simon the Sorcerer: Who wants contact? in the test: mediocre continuation. In: PC Games . March 21, 2009, accessed November 16, 2019 .
- ↑ test. Simon the Sorcerer 5. In: Adventure-Treff . April 12, 2009, accessed November 16, 2019 .