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This free adventure, Sigma, reminds of Cryo's Atlantis in many ways, including the interface and gameplay style. The story is very vague at first, and actually it stays that way all the time. It has only one goal: to keep the player in uncertainity, to give him minimum of information, and to keep him tense so that he has the right motivation for solving mechanical puzzles. At first you don't even know who the main character is, so you have no choice but to start exploring the strange bunker and rooms you're trapped in. The initial explorations will reveal several messages, strange rooms with levers and switches and above all - a movable cube with four difficult puzzles, which make the real frame of the game. Sigma doesn't contain any dialogues or any significant item interaction, so it could be compared to 7th Guest or newer Schizm, where the progress is bound to logical puzzles. That means it's basically a logical game spiced up by a few adventure game elements. The puzzles are well thought out (even though the well known one with eight queens on the chessboard probably won't impress anyone anymore) and fun. Besides, for a freeware game Sigma can offer a luxurious art, which would leave the authors of the first multimedia projects like Rama, 7th Guest, 9 or Lighthouse green with envy. The rooms are not numerous, that's true, but they look really great and all the objects can be zoomed in and examined in detail. Unfortunately the controls are not very good. The game uses the Omni 3D principle, i.e. a free look, but the movement is only limited to several fixed points so it can be hard to navigate even in a simple room. Sigma also has a pleasant ambient music, which fits the quiet and chilling atmosphere and helps to build the tension. In any way the adventure game lovers will pe pleased with this truly outstanding project. |
