Montezuma's Return: Uncovered

Utopia Technologies was in the house showing off its upcoming title Montezuma's Return, the updated sequel to the classic Montezuma's Revenge (which will actually come in the box in retro-classic form).

At the helm of development is Rob Jaeger, Utopia's president, chief game designer, and developer of the original title. In the updated version of the game, Montezuma's Return moves far away from its 2D side-scrolling roots and into the full 3D world. If you're into eye candy on the 3Dfx, Utopia's Uvision engine is highly tweaked with some great lighting features and bright textures.

Max Montezuma, the descendant of the legendary Aztec emperor, runs around in a console-like environment figuring out puzzles and avoiding baddies by running, jumping from trampolines, and punching. The game will include nine levels and nine bonus levels. It feels a bit like Turok.

Also, the engine runs pretty well under Windows 95 although it is a DOS-based game (but it also runs as a 3Dfx Glide native game as well). A demo is expected on January 30, and GameSpot will have it so you can formulate your own opinions. It will go on sale this April for US$39.99.

Although the game looks good and the puzzles show some imagination, hard-core gamers will be pushed away by the simplicity of the puzzles, the lack of blood, and big rooms where you are basically directed to the only thing in the room that can possibly be worth tinkering with. Although Utopia's people said that they had amazing feedback from almost every gaming group (from women to what one of the Utopia team called "Quake-heads"), it looked like a game more focused on the teen market and not the gamer market at large.

If you're a moderate Quake player, this game will entice you for a few minutes, but after that, you'll probably delete the directory for some more free space. But as a gamer with kids or a spouse who aren't into gore titles and just want something to fool around with, this is their game. And by and large, publisher RandomSoft is known for titles in the edutainment field with only a few games to its credit (like the addictive puzzler, Gubble).