The Ward Review

The music is, on the other hand, really great both in game and in the cut-scenes. It improves the atmosphere and tension even in otherwise less interesting moments. The dialogues are "text-only" which is not surprising if we consider how much text there is in the game.

The puzzles are classical for this type of a game. Walker starts his quest in an Alien space station surrounded by a bunch of weird-looking devices and robots, which use a funny language, so I had some trouble accommodating to all that. Fair enough, you're able to read the alien language later in the game. Still, even those first few puzzles where I couldn't understand a single word of the alien language gave me the chills. There were also some difficult puzzles like the ones in the 7th Guest... One of those appears on the very beginning of the game, and it gave me a lot of trouble. The thing is, you have to compose an image by placing several colored glass tiles inside a seal. This seems, easy, but if you take in regard that you have to properly set not only the colors and position, but you also have to place them in proper order, you'll realize this puzzle will take you a while...

The interface and commands are standard for P&C adventures. You will have no trouble getting used to the controls, with the possible exception of the inventory. The inventory can be 'frozen', meaning visible at all times, but when it is visible it will take a large part of the screen. It's also a bit inconvenient as it can only display five items at once, and you'll have to scroll left or right to access other items. This will give you some trouble until you get used to the commands, and the fact that things keep changing position in the inventory. This will give you a hard time in the beginning of the game, because you will have to quickly combine items in your inventory. Meddling with the inventory can be very aggravating with lasers shooting all around.

Quick loading and saving has been well simplified, and you can perform this by simply clicking in the left or right corner of the screen. And speaking of that, this is a game where you won't have any trouble with the save-game slots - even if you decide to save your position after each dialogue, you will hardly ever manage to use all 1000 slots. Still, the computer simply won't let you save your position when you most need it (like in semi-action sequences), and to make things worse, when you enter the file menu during an "action sequence," and then close it, it will automatically load your last saved position.

There... With some more effort, especially in the field of graphics, this game might have been something much better... This way, The Ward remains a classical outdated adventure, which will have a hard time on the market. Hard-core fans are sure to appreciate it, but I guess the rest can just give this one a miss...