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An historical adventure game set in the Middle Ages at the time that the Franks were beginning to be driven out of Jerusalem. The player follows the adventure of Artaud, a disgraceful French Lord, who is sent to redeem himself by traveling to the Holy Lands to escort the True Cross back to safety. This is done through a series of scenes, with narration. The player has to complete certain tasks before Artaud can progress to the next scene. These tasks are generally of an educational nature, such as learning how sieges on castles were carried out, or who the main forces in the Holy Lands were at the time. Whilst Artaud's quest is fictional (with some added supernatural events), the setting is quite real, with actual locations visited and use of historic figures. Artaud's quest will see his home in Dun-le-Roy wasted in a siege, travel across the Mediterranean to the port of Acre, and eventually to the Holy City of Jerusalem. Along the way historical information is provided on events and lifestyles of the period. The game's style has a 3rd-person perspective and uses digital footage of real actors again photo-realistic (for the time) backdrops, which are partially animated. Intertwined with the scenes is an encyclopaedia, which it is necessary to interact with in order to complete the tasks and fully understand the narrative. The structure of most of the tasks involves collecting items from the scenes and the encyclopaedia by dragging them into your inventory, and then re-arranging them on to the task screen. The game is very similar in style to 1998's Vikings. In 1999, a reorganized version called Crusades: Edition 2000 was released whose enigmas were revised in order to increase the pleasure of playing. You will be confronted with entirely new enigmas in 11 levels of play which will defy your reflexion and your direction of the strategy: charter a Venetian nave without emptying your purse, manage centers of production to support a seat in full desert, ridges to forward without encumbers an invaluable cargo while playing of the tensions between religious and political communities. It has more than 30 hours of game, 26 levels with many enigmas, 500 animations, many special effects, 20 filmed and integrated on the scene actors, original soundtrack by Olivier Pryszlak, a very rich iconographic catalogue, and more than 165 interactive cards on the Middle Ages. |
