It’s no secret that I love adventure games. From the earliest text adventures to today’s blockbuster hits as long as it has a gripping storyline and well-written puzzles I generally look the other way when it comes to things like graphics. After all, my fondest memories are playing the Sierra and LucasArts classics back in the day. Which is why I wasn’t too angry about the news regarding the change of direction for Jason the Greek. That said, after about four months the promised two-room demo has finally hit the shores and is ready to set sail again.
Just like the original demo for Jason the Greek, this one is a very short affair that has you stranded on a small island somewhere in Grecian waters after getting washed ashore by a massive tidal wave. It’s up to our intrepid hero to find a way off and reunite with his crew. As far as opening puzzles go this one is pretty straightforward. Get some sort of boat and paddle and row your way to freedom. About a half hour or so after loading the demo up I caught the “Game Over” screen telling me to wait for the final game.
Before I go any further in my look at the short release I should probably get the biggest source of contention out of the way first. As mentioned in the update from September the art direction for Jason the Greek went from a more modern cartoonish look to full-on pixelated retro feel without so much of a word. That said, even though this is not what backers signed on for it’s still better than nothing. And while most certainly lo-res I still enjoyed the experience. It just sucks that this had to even be done. Unfortunately, sometimes there needs to be a compromise to get something out. Even if it’s not what was expected.
Gameplay itself is pretty much what you’d expect for a point and click adventure as Jason moves around the two screens on the admittedly rather small island. Left click him to move around or to interact with one of the hotspots. When you do you get a pop-up with a “look” and “take/touch/use/etc” icon. If there was one issue that I had with the demo it was that it was hard to click on one of these actions. Kris Fosh told me that he is aware of a few bugs and other issues here and will address them in an updated demo later this week. Which is pretty admirable when this is just a short vertical slice for fans to play in.
In a perfect world the original vision of Jason the Greek would still have been pushed out by now but due to the circumstances surrounding the title I’m just glad that Kris didn’t give up. Sure, the pixelated look is rather outdated by today’s standard but there are plenty fans out there willing to overlook these changes as long as we eventually see something for our money. And if the demo is any indication we’ll have a fun time in the parody of Star Trek and Grecian legends. The humor itself is full of innuendo and the prospect of our hero being essentially James Kirk you know that there’ll be plenty of fun times ahead. We just have to wait for him to sail to the island of Lemnos to get to it.
Are you running the game at the highest res as the game should look better than that!
Thank you again for writing another fantastic article – I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as the demo is updated especially with higher default graphic settings!
I was running the demo at the default setting. I usually do that when I play a game. I thought it seemed a bit low res even for a pixel game. I’ll make sure to play it at a higher setting next time.