0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Amerzone The Explorer's Legacy

        

Amerzone also known as Amerzone The Explorer's Legacy and Amerzone: Testament Odkrywcy as well as several other localised European titles, the game is a first person adventure game developed by French studio Microids, the game was designed by Belgian comic artist Benoît Sokal and is based of his 1986 Inspector Canardo comic strip L'Amerzone.

The game was published by Casterman and Ubisoft with the game releasing on Mac OS, Windows and the Playstation 1 in December of 1999, the game would also get a release on iOS in June of 2011 and later that same year on OS X, the game proved a commercial success selling over 1 million copies.

Amerzone plays like the typical first person point and click adventure, with the player able to pan around panoramic screens with certain elements the player can interact with by clicking on them. In order to progress in the game the player must solve puzzles, these sometimes involve talking to people or using specific items you have collected.

Some items you pick up are not required for any puzzles these additional items are used to flesh out the games story, the game also features a resource management aspect with the Hydroflot the player character uses required fuel and floppy disks to keep it running.

The mobile port of the game has some minor changes added a new hint system was added to the game, some of the puzzles where also modified to limit the repetitive back and forth some of them had the player doing, the addition of touch controls saw the games controls redesigned with items highlighted with clickable icons, the camera has also been modified to allow for tilt control of it.

The story focuses around four characters The Journalist is the player character, who is a nameless, faceless and silent protagonist who has been assigned by their employer to interview Alexandre Valembois about the Amerzone.

Alexandre Valembois who is voiced by Michel Barbey was born in 1904 and an adventurer who is fascinated by the biology of the Amerzone, he sets out on a scientific expedition from 1932 to 1934. There, he encounters and becomes enamoured with the White Birds, and finds love in a native girl called Yékoumani.

When he brings back one of the White Birds' eggs, the scientific establishment laughs it off. After World War II, he gets a career as a lycée professor  When the player character meets him in 1998, he is exhausted and tormented by his past mistakes, and can only think of returning the egg to Amerzone.

Antonio Alvarez voiced by Marc Moro is an Amerzone native who befriends Valembois at university in 1929, Alvarez is fascinated by his homeland and accompanies Valembois on his expedition in 1932. in 1934 when Valembois returns to Europe Alvarez stays in his homeland hoping to modernize the country, however he leads a coup and turns into a corrupted dictator.

The final character is a Jesuit named David Mackowski voiced by Luc Gentil  who also accompanies Valembois to Amerzone, being equally fascinated by the place. He unwisely attempts to convert the Amerzone natives to Catholicism. Like Valembois, by 1998 he is filled with regret and sadness over his mistakes and what has become of Amerzone under Alvarez's rule.

The game begins in 1998 with the player character interviewing Valembois with much of the plot being backstory about Valembois 1932 expedition. With Valembois admitting he is dying he asks the journalist to fulfil his dying wish and return the white bird egg back to Amerzone. 

A mixed back of review some good some average and a couple of poor ones thrown in as well, as usual we will start with the best which comes from Spanish publication Meristation who scored the game a solid 84/100. French publication Jeuxvideo.com were not far behind with their 80/100 review score with the review concluding with, Good adaptation and it gives us a good game. It may not dethrone the best of the genre but still has the merit, offering a good adventure game on a console (modified slightly to make readable).

Game Revolution game the game a solid 75/100 comparing the game to Myst concluding their review with  For fans of Myst who have despaired over the recent lack of adventure games, who just can't look at one more violent, big-gun shooting mess, Amerzone is an attractive, solid entry in an old genre. Quick-twitch Quake junkies need not apply.

Dutch publication Power Unlimited up next who were positive on the game in their 70/100 review however they did say you should probably wait until the price comes down rather than jumping in at full price. Now on to the lower end of the review scores starting with German publication Video Games.

Video Games scored Amerzone a lowly 35/100 they were highly critical of the graphics calling them ugly the oversized cursor and the general feeling of boredom the review had while playing. Gamezone Germany were also critical of the game scoring it at just a below average 47/100 with their review concluding with.

The adventure genre is so neglected and benevolent I face in principle any title from this genre. At least the graphics are mostly still pretty nice to look at for that time and also the sound is reasonably managed to even a speech output is provided. I not can recommend you this adventure with difficulty level too low, the story irrelevant, boring gameplay and the motivation in the long term goes to zero. Only absolute adventure freaks may have fun with this.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit five online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com,  eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, I will also be including Ebay.com as well

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, who along with eStarland.com don’t stock this title, Retrogames.co.uk do stock the title however only the PC version of the game which is priced up at £9, so we quickly move on to Amazon.com.

Amazon.com also stock the PC version of the game however the Playstation version is not available, so we head over the co.uk version of the site where we find 15 copies on the market, with a very good quality complete copy of the game available for just £3.25 once shipping has been added in.

If you are looking for a like new copy you will have to pay a bit more with the only like new copy available at this time priced up at £14.99 with an additional £3.99 for shipping. Again a new copy that is available will require a little more expenditure with it priced up at £19.99 plus a £3.99 delivery charge.

Heading over to Ebay.com and once again setting out shipping location to the UK, where a complete good quality copy of the game can be picked up for $7.74 which seems to be the cheapest complete used copies of the game range in price from $7.74 up to about $19, the latter has a hefty shipping fee which doubles the price.

One new copy is on sale on Ebay.com which is overpriced compared to the Amazon new copy which was priced at about $31, the new copy on Ebay comes in at hefty $64.63.

Written by

P J Gibbon