Huygen's Disclosure Review

As boring as it sounds

When taking a look at all the excellent games, we forget about the lesser-than-great games that just didn't "make it" in the gaming world. Huygen's Disclosure (pronounced Hoy-gen) is one of those games. Other than its fairly interesting storyline, there is nothing special to differentiate this game from all the other "nothing" games out there. The sounds, graphics, and gameplay amount to only one thing: me going out and buying a different game.

The plot is actually worth taking a look at. The ozone layer is deteriorating and will soon vanish, leading to the gradual extinction of the earth. The only thing that can save this is Rachellium, a gas that can re-from the ozone saving the world. This gas is found in great quantities in Titan, one of Saturn's moons. There you must go to obtain the gas and save the world. Oh yeah, there MIGHT be some unknown life forms on your journey. This plot has potential but just isn't developed and presented in a good way, after all, you still have to look at the screen and listen to the speakers.

Graphics are, well, nothing special. I've seen better and worse. Many character graphics are corny and lack in detail, while others are just plain foolish (for example: zebra hind legs with a huge eye). Textures and various objects observed throughout the game are pretty good (compared to everything else in the game) and at least one good thing comes from the underdeveloped graphics: smooth animation.

On nearly any computer this game should run at a good speed, but there are some critical design flaws. The game can ONLY be played in 256-color mode. Are you in high color? Too bad...better switch down to 256. Yes, that's right. It won't run in anything BUT 256 colors. Another very annoying error is the window size. The game will only run in a 640x480 box. If your screen is set to anything different you will be playing in a box 640 pixels wide and 480 pixels tall.

Like the graphics, the sounds get annoying and repetitive. With a minimal number of sound effects, common sounds (i.e. guns firing) are repeated to a point of nausea. Non-player-characters have cheesy special effects voices which can be imitated by anybody with a sound card, speaker and simple sound manipulation program.

Gameplay isn't too bad, but can get annoying. Basic movements are standard to any adventure game. Basically you walk around this world trying to find this "wonder gas" but later you find yourself trying to find and kill the leader of the Ice World. Pick up, combine, and use objects found throughout this world at will. This part sounds pretty standard but Microforum added a little extra feature. This feature is a little box in the right-hand corner. Here the player must use his mouse to aim in different directions. As the game moves along, this "feature" becomes more of a headache, do to the difficulty in synchronizing the keyboard, mouse aiming, and mouse selection (picking up objects etc.). Overall, with the exception of the mouse aiming box, game play is pretty good and I actually found myself having a little fun with it.

All in all, Huygen's Disclosure is a game that has potential due to its interesting story. That is where the potential stops. Pre-rendered scenes appear okay, but real-time sounds and graphics leave a lot of room for improvement. You might want to play were you to get this game for free, however thoughts of purchasing this game shouldn't even cross your mind.