Simon the Sorcerer 3D
| Simon the Sorcerer 3D | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | Headfirst Productions | ||
| Publisher | Adventure Soft | ||
| Senior Developer | Michael Woodroffe, Simon Woodroffe | ||
| composer | Tony Flynn | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
April 19, 2002 | ||
| platform | Microsoft Windows | ||
| Game engine | NetImmerse | ||
| genre | Adventure | ||
| medium | CD-ROM , download | ||
| language | German English | ||
| Age rating |
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Simon the Sorcerer 3D is a computer game by the British game developer Adventure Soft from 2002. Adventure is the third part of the Simon the Sorcerer game series and the first to be completely 3D .
action
Like the two predecessors, Simon the Sorcerer 3D plays in a parallel world characterized by elements of fantasy and fairy tales . At the end of Simon the Sorcerer II , the evil magician Sordid, antagonist of the series, had separated the soul of the title hero Simon from his body by exchanging bodies and had traveled through magic into the real world from which Simon originally came. Simon the Sorcerer 3D starts shortly after the predecessor ends. Sordid returns to the parallel world, and since his assistant Runt has constructed him a mechanical body, he no longer has any use for Simon's body and discards it. Opponents of Sordid, who were able to save Simon's soul, also seize the body and, under the supervision of the good magician Calypso, known from parts 1 and 2, perform a ritual in the Temple of Life to unite body and soul. At this point the game begins; the player awakens in the form of Simon inside the temple in the Chamber of Rebirth. Sordid has set out again to subdue the world. This must be prevented by the player in the form of Simon.
The resurrected Simon must first visit the town of Poliganis, where he is supposed to meet Melissa Leg, a silent warrior who saved Simon's soulless body. Simon falls in love with Melissa, who doesn't want to have anything to do with him, not least because of his arrogant nature. In the course of his mission, Simon travels the extensive game world and meets numerous bizarre characters who, like a group of role-playing games - nerds , militant woodworms or the eccentric reptile "Swamp Fling", had an appearance in the previous games or like a worldwide pizza delivery boy or one with Farmer talking to his cows first appears in Simon the Sorcerer 3D .
In order to defeat Sordid, who this time wants to subjugate the entire universe, a group of four legendary warriors must be put together in the further course of the game. In addition to Melissa Leg (the "heroine of light") these are the "King of the East" Jar Nin, who like Simon is separated in soul and body at the beginning of the game, the intellectually challenged Coneman the Barabrain and Prince Brave, who is in one Frog was transformed. Apart from the fact that some of the warriors have to be rescued from awkward situations, Simon had previously insulted some of them in the game to such an extent that they initially refused to cooperate.
Towards the end of the game, Simon can break into Sordid's fortress and spy on his plans: Sordid and his assistant Runt have found the Nexus control room with the Nexus computer in it, the control center of the universe. Sordid is preparing to switch the computer from automatic to manual control in order to be able to control the universe itself. Simon succeeds in preventing Sordid from implementing his plan and trapping him inside the computer.
Game principle and technology
The two previous games were 2D adventures in which animated sprites acted in front of hand-painted backdrops; the interaction took place via a point-and-click - Interface .
Simon the Sorcerer 3D , on the other hand, is completely 3D. From polygons composite characters act in three-dimensional, calculated in real-time scenes. The player steers Simon through the game world with the cursor keys. Points with which he can interact are marked by the game in that the character turns his face towards them when they approach. In order to perform certain actions, the player must press keys assigned to the actions. Simon can examine or manipulate his surroundings, call up his inventory and crawl or run instead of normal locomotion.
A simplified navigation through the game world takes place through telephone booths distributed throughout the game, in which the player can click on places already visited on a map of the game world and thereby teleport to them. You can save the game at any time. In contrast to the two previous games, the character Simon can die in several places during the game. The game is not over in such situations, but the player is automatically resuscitated shortly before the fatal spot.
A menu can be called up via the space bar, which allows access to the player's inventory as well as the options menu. You can navigate and select within the menu using the keyboard, but mouse control has also been implemented.
Production notes
Development work on Simon the Sorcerer 3D began in the summer of 1998, three years after the release of its predecessor, Simon the Sorcerer II . In the meantime, Adventure Soft had the adventure Floyd: There Are Still Heroes developed and released with moderate commercial success. The company then gave up the publishing business and concentrated on producing its own titles, with the company renamed “Headfirst Productions”. Simon the Sorcerer 3D was originally designed as a 2D adventure. When, even after a long search, no publisher could be found to pre-finance the game, Adventure Soft decided to start over in terms of content and technology and switched to 3D. The game engine NetImmerse was used , with which the team had not yet had any experience. In terms of design, the two Woodruffes (father Michael and son Simon) tried to transpose the typical puzzle design of a 2D game into a 3D environment.
Hasbro was found as a sales partner . A publication was planned for the year 2000, an advertising trailer was published. However, the game failed an internal quality check at Hasbro, then the toy manufacturer's computer games division was sold to Infogrames . It wasn't until 2002 that a new publisher was found in Vivendi Universal . On April 19, 2002, the finished game first appeared in Adventure Soft's home market of Great Britain.
The game's humor doesn't just extend to puns in the dialogues and references to pop culture in general and computer games in particular. The authors don't take themselves seriously either, for example, during the game, Simon comes across a warehouse full of unsold copies of The Feeble Files , which was a financial disaster for the Adventure Soft studio. Simon Woodruffe estimated the duration of Simon the Sorcerer 3D to be 17 to 60 hours, depending on how well the player already knows the game. The localization into German was carried out by the Hamburg studio Ulrich Mühl, the recording studio of a former ASM editor.
After Simon the Sorcerer 3D , the Headfirst Productions team developed the action adventure Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth , which was also a financial failure. After that, the studio disappeared from the market; the former management continues to sell the company's old products under the old name Adventure Soft. The trademark rights to Simon the Sorcerer were sold to the German Silver Style Studios , the 2007 Simon the Sorcerer: Chaos is half life and 2009 Simon the Sorcerer: Who wants contact? published.
reception
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Simon the Sorcerer 3D received mixed to negative ratings. The GameRankings review database aggregates 7 reviews to a mean value of 56%.
The specialist magazine Adventure-Treff praised the humor, the "funny, memorable" characters and the German-language localization at LucasArts level. In addition to a rather banal story and the existence of running and skill sequences, the magazine criticized the graphics and the controls of the game. The graphics are poor in polygons, which is why the few characters in the game look “like Lego figures” with blocks instead of hands and “totally silly” animations. The control is "quite annoying" due to inaccuracies and the constant changing of the camera perspective. All in all, the magazine gave an unreserved purchase recommendation only for fans of the first two games. 4Players positively emphasized that the quality of the puzzles in the first two parts had been well adapted to the new technology and that the black humor of the predecessor was particularly evident in the dialogues. The speech output and the soundtrack of the game were also praised. The graphics, however, are "simply ugly" and the controls are "fiddly". The magazine rated: “Excellent dialogues, bizarre characters, crazy locations and, above all, Simon's dry humor always manage to put a grin on the player's face”.
In a retrospective analysis, the online magazine Hardcore Gaming 101 judged the game's graphics to be "beyond terrible". They were reminiscent of the games industry's first attempts with 3D graphics calculated in real time; PlayStation games that were five years older sometimes looked better. Furthermore, as in many early 3D games, the game world is empty and much too big, which leads to enormous walking paths, and the camera work makes "erratic swings", especially when navigating the character through corridors. The controls are completely unsuitable for the action parts of the game. After all, the story, humor and setting of the game kept up with the quality of its predecessors. In addition, a mystery was highlighted in the press: In order to be able to successfully complete the game, the player had to open the CD-ROM drive of his computer.
Web links
- Simon the Sorcerer 3D at MobyGames (English)
- Trailer on YouTube
Individual evidence
- ^ AdventureClassicGaming.com: Simon Woodroffe. Retrieved August 29, 2019 .
- ↑ Adventure-Treff.de: Interviews: Simon Woodroffe. Retrieved August 29, 2019 .
- ↑ a b c Adventure-Treff.de: Test: Simon the Sorcerer 3D. Retrieved August 29, 2019 .
- ↑ Trailer on YouTube
- ↑ 4Players.de: Simon 3D: postponed or canceled? Retrieved August 29, 2019 .
- ↑ 4Players.de: Simon the Sorcerer 3D: on April 19th. Retrieved August 29, 2019 .
- ↑ a b 4Players.de: Test: Simon the Sorcerer 3D. Retrieved August 29, 2019 .
- ↑ PCGames.de: Simon fails in the third dimension. Retrieved August 29, 2019 .
- ↑ a b GameRankings.com: Simon the Sorcerer 3D. Retrieved August 29, 2019 .
- ↑ HardcoreGaming101.net: Simon the Sorcerer 3D. Retrieved August 29, 2019 .
- ↑ Chip : The Best Adventure Puzzles of All Time Article dated July 11, 2008, accessed September 4, 2019