GENERAL OVERVIEW
This is actually quite an original and interesting game. In many ways, it reminded me of a much older game, The New Adventures of the Time Machine (2000). In fact, I wouldn’t at all be surprised to find that the developers of this game might have either participated in the making of, or were deeply influenced by, the Time Machine game! Both games are only slightly based on a literary classic, use similar navigation, make use of super-human abilities and, in one way or another, use Chronos as a central part of the storyline. Personally, however, I liked the Time Machine game much more than this one. That game had a very rich storyline, took us to a lot of different places, had plenty of dialog and characters, and provided a lot of interaction between the hero and those characters. It also had a number of quests and was, overall, what I would call a “positive” game. In contrast, Jekyll and Hyde is rather linear, dark, and tends to focus on only the two title characters: Jekyll and Hyde! What’s more, you spend most of your time underground, going through tunnels, and the rest of the time in equally dark and dismal places.
I should probably also note one more thing. I don’t know whether this game has been sold in different formats, but the front of my DVD case at least clearly states that the game is intended for “Teens.” That is not to say that older gamers can’t play it, of course. I did, and even enjoyed it. But the game can try your patience, especially with so little storyline and so much running and jumping throughout the game. So, if you don’t mind that, and have a lot of patience to get through all the obstacles, then you may well love this game. So, with that little caveat, let’s turn now to some specifics about the game.
THE STORYLINE
The game is said to be based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But the storyline of this game is actually quite different, except for that one central concept of Dr. Jekyll's using a potion and turning into Mr. Hyde. In fact, the game goes far beyond this central concept. We are in 19th century London. The Tower Bridge has just been built. But while the rest of the city is celebrating the completion of that famous project, the poorer part of the city is plagued by a mysterious disease that kills only adults and does not seem to even affect the children. None of the rich people seem to care, however, not even the physicians. Dr. Jekyll is the only doctor who is concerned about this plight of the poor and, in his quest to help and find a cure for this mysterious plague, meets his lover, a woman equally concerned about the situation. But while she is trying to help the orphans, Dr. Jekyll struggles to actually find a cure for the disease. He finally develops a potion that he thinks might help those afflicted with the disease, but decides to try it on himself first, to make sure it would be safe for others to use. As he drinks the potion, he turns into Mr. Hyde. Upon returning to his normal self, he explores a well nearby, suspecting it to be the possible origin of the problem. To his surprise, he finds an intricate web of tunnels and a whole lot more... But I will let you discover all that for yourself, when and if you play the game!
THE GAME
Navigation:
This is not your usual point-and-click adventure game. You can use your mouse and try to point and click, but it is usually a very cumbersome and ineffective means of getting around in this game. You can also use the other more common method: W, A, S, D. But I, for one, found it best to use the four cursor arrows on the keyboard, although there were times it helped to use the point-and-click method. In short, the game allows for a variety of ways to get around, and you can choose whichever method works best for you.
I should note that the game is said to be an “action” game, but that is not just because of the various modes of navigation I just described. And, no, it is not the kind of action game where you fight enemies, using sword or guns, etc., either. Rather, most of the “action” comes from the running and jumping I mentioned earlier. Occasionally, however, you will also have to “defend” yourself, usually by running, but eventually by "disabling" or defeating the assailants in some ingenious way.
Note: The game provides a really excellent Tutorial, in the form of boxes, especially in the first chapter of the game. You can always turn off this Tutorial, either by clicking on the small box, within the Tutorial box, that allows you to tell the game not to show such tutorials again or by marking the relevant box in the Options section of the Main Menu. However, unless you have already played this game before, I would advise you NOT to turn it off! While the Tutorial in the first chapter of the game explains only the basic stuff (e.g., how to navigate through the game, pick up and use objects, etc.), later in the game, it will give brief but critical information about the kind of powers we would be able to achieve from the various potions we will be required to prepare.
Graphics:
There are two kinds of cutscenes in this game. I will call one the “Story Cutscene” and the other an “In-Game Cutscene.” The game starts with the Story Cutscene. It is really, really, really long, as it sets up most of the storyline I described earlier. Such Story Cutscenes, while crucial to understanding the storyline, are really quite poorly drawn. In fact, at the risk of sounding a bit harsh, I am only being honest when I say that even a ten- or twelve-year old could probably draw better than the drawings in such cutscenes. Here is just an example of what I mean; and, believe me, it is one of the better drawings that I actually tried to enhance to present it in literally the best possible light.
The "Story Cutscene"
This screenshot is actually from a later part of the game, and is the best I could get in the game. Most of such cutscenes, including the opening, are much worse. But don't worry! The background commentary will help you understand the cutscenes.
Rest assured also that the graphics in the game itself are much, much better and real-life-like, as you can see below.
Graphics In The Game Itself
As you can see, the game's own graphics are much better than those of the Story Cutscenes. And there are not a lot of those cutscenes anyway, so you really don't have to worry about them at all.
[Note the "Dial" in the lower-left corner of the screen. I will refer to it later in this review.]
The graphics are also pretty good for the other kind of cutscenes I mentioned, i.e., the In-Game-Cutscenes. In fact, these cutscenes seem to be part of the gameplay itself, except you can't do anything but watch what is being shown and hear what, if anything, is said. This type of cutscenes may occasionally contribute to the storyline by giving us a dialog or two. Most of the times, however, they give us an overall view of our current location. Such views can be very helpful, because we often don’t get to see the “full picture” of where we are supposed to go, as we try to move forward in the game. Here is an example of the type of In-Game Cutscene with dialog in it.
The "In-Game Cutscene"
Most of this type of cutscenes do not involve dialog. In fact, there is very little dialog in the game. Rather, these cutscenes usually show our overall location and, possibly, even our "goal." But it is hard to catch it, because such cutscenes are usually quite quick, and there is no way to slow them down.
The “Dial” & Inventory:
Look at my second screenshot above, and you will note what I am calling the “dial,” in the lower-left corner of the screen. This dial appears throughout the game, except in the two types of cutscenes I described. It is actually a bit redundant when you are playing Jekyll, however, because it contains only two items – the potion and the torch (after you have acquired one) – and both of these are available in our inventory anyway. Thus, we can access these objects from either the dial or the inventory. But the inventory also contains other items (a lot more, in fact, as we proceed further in the game), none of which appear in the dial at all. What’s more, the items in the dial can be accessed either by clicking on their icon in the dial or pressing the numbers 1 or 2 at the top of the keyboard. The idea is to make those items available more quickly than is possible by opening the inventory. But there is never any urgency in Jekyll’s part of the game! So, again, I don’t know why the developers put the dial in for him. It’s only when we play Hyde that the dial becomes actually critical, because (1) we don’t even have an inventory when we are playing Hyde, and (2) the four slots in the dial actually carry the different powers that Hyde will acquire over the course of the game, and we would often need to access those powers rather quickly and repeatedly. Here is an example of Hyde and his “powers.”
Mr. Hyde & His "Powers"
As you can see, there are four round slots in the Dial in the lower-left corner of the screen. The icon in each slot represents a power. You can click on the icon with your mouse to activate as power, but it is quicker to use the numbers 1-4 to access these powers. And Speed counts in this game.
Note: In case, you are wondering, yes, we never do get to see Hyde’s face. And if you are wondering what kind of an outfit he is wearing, well, it took me a while to figure it out myself but it is Jekyll’s clothes ripped when he turns into Hyde. Oddly enough though, the rips seem to be automatically repaired when Hyde turns back into Jekyll, who then appears fully suited again. That is certainly not logical, but it is definitely more aesthetical to see Jekyll back in his “civilized” self again.
Now I’m not going to tell you about Hyde’s different powers you see on the dial there. I would rather let you “discover” them yourself when, and if, you play the game. As I mentioned before, the game has an excellent tutorial that promptly explains every power that Hyde acquires, and when he acquires it. What's more, you will usually get to use that power right afterwards, and thus are able to see what you can accomplish with it.
Saves/Temporary Saves
As with most games of this type, you cannot save the game at a point of your own choice. Rather, you have to wait for the Autosave. But don’t worry! The game comes with a lot of such saves for each chapter. In addition, there are what you might call “Temporary Saves.” In most games of this type, when the character fails to achieve something and, shall we say, “dies,” it is game-over and you have to reload and start that whole section of the game all over again. Not so, in this game! When Hyde (and it’s always Hyde who does all these dangerous tasks) “dies,” the game automatically and immediately restarts, and from the same point of the game where he’d died! It’s not always exactly the same spot, but pretty close. Thus, if you were to accomplish, say, three tasks in a row, and two of them were already done, those two would remain done. You would restart from the beginning of the third one you had just failed to accomplish. Note, however, that I call these “temporary saves” because if you quit the game, you will lose this kind of save as well. So it is not “permanent” like an Auto-Save.
Bugs
I actually didn’t run into any bugs. There are six chapters in all in the game, and the game did crash on me once, right at the end of Chapter 4. As a rule, I don’t read reviews, either on games or movies. I’d rather see the movie and play a game, and decide for myself how I like it. When the game crashed, however, I checked online to see if a bug might have caused the crash and, if so, whether there might be a patch for it. The search with the keyword “bug” led me to a review that complained about a lot of bugs. I never did find a patch for the game, however, nor did this review refer me to one. All I know is I, for one, did not experience any of the bugs reported in this review. As for the crash I did experience, as it turned out, I was using three of the four abilities Hyde had, and I realized I could beat the obstacle with only two of these abilities. As soon as I tried without the third ability, I was able to defeat my "enemy" and sailed on to the next chapter. So it was a matter of too much toll on my RAM, perhaps, rather than a bug per se.
I should also note that my particular game claimed to be compatible with Win7, but it did not play on my Win7 at all. I couldn't even see the opening credits, or anything else for that matter. The game would either crash to my Desktop, or just show a black screen. Looking back at how the installation had proceeded, I noticed that the game first extracts the files from the DVD, then installs them on to the computer, then installs the DirectX on the computer, and finally attempts to install its own NVIDEA PhysX drivers. Well, my Win7 actually “refused” to install its PhysX drivers, informing me that it was “aborting” that installation because my current drivers were "newer" than the ones I was trying to install. Thankfully, I still have my old XP, Service Pack 3. So I then tried to install the game on that computer, everything went fine, and that was how I was able to play the game. So you might want to keep all this in mind when and if you decide to try the game. The problems that the above reviewer experienced might also have been a result of some incompatibility between his computer and the game, and not really any bugs per se.
CONCLUSION
This is a pretty good game overall. I liked the story as well as the gameplay. I am not giving it too high a rating, however, because the story as well as the environment were rather dark, at least for me. The navigation was also a little problematic. If you play the game yourself, you will note that it can (often) be difficult to get Hyde to go in a straight line (up, down, or sideways). I know the developers could have done a better job because I saw it done on the Time Machine, which was a whole decade older than this game.
Well, I think I have covered every point that I could or should have in a review. Feel free to contact me, of course, if you have any questions.