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Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time   In Brief: Dry, uninvolving and quite difficult game that some people love.
One of the reasons I began this adventure game review site was with the hope that it would allow me to find like-minded individuals who could point me in the direction of promising games. Unfortunately, people may read a couple of reviews that they kind of agree with and then, with that eagerness to help that differentiates us from cats they will fire off an e-mail saying, "you'll love this game." Sometimes they're right, and you wind up playing a terrific game like Burn:Cycle, but sometimes they're very, very wrong.
The gentleman who recommended "Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time" is a very nice guy with whom I exchanged a number of emails. I wish I had exchanged them all before I got this game, because if I'd known at the time that he was going to become a huge fan of RAMA then I would have been more dubious of his advice. Sadly, such was not the case.
People love this game. Lots of people. It's very popular. There are also people who don't like it at all. I think it's a very specific approach to adventure games, and I'm beginning to get a very clear idea of a very specific sort of game that I just don't like and will never like. The Space Bar, RAMA, Traitor's Gate are all examples of it. Games that are dry, uninvolving, difficult and unforgiving. Games that simply don't have whatever it is that a game must have for me to enjoy it.
"Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time" put me off immediately with its visuals. You are presumably in a time travel suit and you see the world through the window of your helmet. This means that you have a very small visual area devoted to the world around you, the rest of the screen space devoted to a particularly complex interface. This immediately ruined the feeling of immersion that I prize so highly in a game.
Then I started dying. "Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time" is the kind of game where you die a lot, suddenly and without warning, and have to restore from your last saved game. I mean literally without warning; this is one of those games where you are expected to screw up and then be more careful next time. I have always been a big fan of the Lucas Arts "can't die" approach to adventure games, but if a game must kill you I believe that it should at least give you a little warning first.
The basic premise is that you are a time traveler and must go to a few different times and find anomalies left by bad guys. It's the standard Myst-style first person click through, but not nearly as good. As I continued playing the game, I realized that I just plain didn't like it. I don't care how many people say it's one of the classics, the best of the series, I just wasn't having any fun at all. I kept trying, but it was tedious.
It's an intelligent game, it seems well thought out, but it lacks any sense of life. I feel distant and uninvolved, and I have no intention of playing any further. If you like these sorts of games then go to it, but it's not for me. -- Charles Herold -2000 Glitches:"Flicker mode," which causes torches to flicker and water to sparkle, is turned off by default in this game, and every time you start the game you have to turn it back on if you want it, which I did. Very annoying.
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