Product description
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Hidden away in the Heart of Darkness lies a terrifying world. A
world ruled by the Master of Darkness whose cruel and absolute
power leads an army of emaciated devils. The fiendish force
scours the land in search of Andy, a young boy on a quest to
rescue his dog Whisky.
Trapped in a terrifying nightmare, only you can take Andy through
hundreds of epic encounters to overcome a whole host of
wonderfully weird characters and emerge triumphant from the Heart
of Darkness.
- 176 locations and over 30 minutes of seamless film action.
- Developed by the creators of Out of This World.
- Climb, swing, twist and swim around 8 worlds of stunning
environments packed with puzzles and fiendish traps.
- Music by Bruce Boughton, performed by the London Symphony.
This item is complete and includes game, game case and manual.
There is minimal wear to the labels or manual. Bonus downloadable
content may have already been redeemed. Game carts and disc are
professionally cleaned or resurfaced. This item, while
pre-played, is an excellent addition to your game collection. It
will also be a good playable piece.
From the Manufacturer
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Hidden away in the Heart of Darkness lies a terrifying world. A
world ruled by the Master of Darkness whose cruel and absolute
power leads an army of emaciated devils. The fiendish force
scours the land in search of Andy a young boy on a quest to
rescue his dog Whisky. Trapped in a terrifying nightmare only you
can take Andy through hundreds of epic encounters to overcome a
whole host of wonderfully weird characters and emerge triumphant
from the Heart of Darkness.
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Review
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Five years in the making, Heart of Darkness is the latest
platform/puzzle game from the creators of Out of this World and
Flashback. It's a subgenre where the only real competition is
GT's Oddworld series, which it mirrors in its high-quality,
brain-twisting puzzles.
The story is all Steven Spielberg meets Jim Henson, though not
nearly as annoying as that might sound. Boy from the suburbs uses
his self-made spaceship to travel to another world to save his
loyal cartoony dog, who's been kipped by a shadowy netherworld
ruler. After boy ces, he has to hoof it the rest of the way
to the castle his pal is imprisoned in.
Barring his way are crazy alien environments, which are the home
to kid-eating lake monsters, slime-drooling spiders, nebulous
winged demons, and the like. The puzzles involve getting past all
of them, often by performing tasks over several different screens
(the game moves screen-by-2D-screen, instead of with a gradually
scrolling view) in precise order before you can proceed further.
They're, in fact, wonderfully orchestrated and great fun to
solve.
For instance, one early dilemma requires you to pull the roots
out from under a killer (so that you can later pass by).
Then you have to e a bunch of firefly-like bugs out of their
nest and quickly climb up to the area where the flies have risen
to, where they're distracting another batch of killer s.
Timing is, of course, everything, at every stage in the game.
If you fall to your death or get eaten (which is always a
particularly gory event, especially in contrast to the saccharine
trappings of the story), you end up at the beginning of your
current puzzle area, which is never too far back. Keep getting
killed and a tip will appear to help move you along, though
knowing what to do doesn't always make the going easy.
There's a great degree of variety to the puzzles; some involve
running, some jumping, some using found objects, some shooting
(you gain and lose weapons several times in the game), some
climbing, and some all of these nearly in conjunction with one
another. The puzzles are also very rewarding, either through the
occasional bit of CG animation or the revelation that you must be
the smartest person in the world to have figured them out.
The environments are graphically lush, with detailed 24-color
backgrounds that your gangly little player character runs around
in front of and sometimes even interacts with. They're quite
pretty, but if you want great static visuals, you might as well
go to an art gallery.
The best part of the game is, as it should be, the puzzles.
Standing up next to its "brother," Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, Heart
of Darkness has better and more complex puzzles but is much more
linear, has nowhere near as much replay value, and isn't nearly
as long. The game spans two CDs, but a lot of it is taken up by
CG and art. It's a great game with nice graphics, but it's only
got about 14 play hours to it. That's a little too short to
justify a purchase, but it makes for an excellent rental. --Joe
Fielder
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot
logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc. -- GameSpot Review
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- Disc plus hard plastic protective case only. Disc condition ranges from flawless to scratched but is guaranteed to work..