Traitors Gate

By: Kirk Hiner

Genre: Adventure/Puzzle

Format: CD

Developer: Daydream Software

Publisher: DreamCatcher Interactive

Minimum Requirements: 100 MHz PowerPC, System 7.5, 100 MB hard disk space, 32 MB RAM (with Virtual Memory), 8X CD-ROM, monitor supporting thousands of colors

Network Feature: No

3Dfx Support: No

Retail Price: $19.99

Availability: Out Now

Oddly enough, when I visited London in 1995, I didn't go to the Tower of London. You'd think that having flown all the way from New York, I would've spent a little time at this world famous landmark, but no. And why not? Because I couldn't seem to tear myself away from the London Dungeon, which is quite simply the coolest museum ever created. Where else can you go to see graphic static depictions of medieval torture devices, take a walk with Jack the Ripper and live the Black Plague? You can keep your Smithsonian with its stodgy old airplanes, thank you, I'll take a public beheading any day.

Yet I always felt kind of bad about not having toured the Tower of London. I felt that I'd missed something I may not have the opportunity to see again. But now that worry has been allayed. Now I've played Traitors Gate.

My review copy of Traitors Gate arrived just a short time after Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, which promted to my fiancee to tell me, "I feel sorry for anyone who sends you a game when you're reviewing Tomb Raider because you'll never bother to play it." That's a fairly keen observation on her part, as I do loves me some Tomb Raider action. But she underestimated the games of DreamCatcher Interactive. I had previously reviewed four of their games, each of which was entertaining but just couldn't quite get over that hump. I mentioned in each review, I believe, that DreamCatcher was a quality publisher just waiting for that one game to break them into the big time.

Well fire up the klieg lights and roll out the red carpet, with Traitors Gate, DreamCatcher has made the scene.

The box for Traitors Gate claims the game is "The most realistic graphic adventure ever created." They may be right, except for one thing...the premise. Seems that this Pentagon guy has defected, taking with him classified files that detail how to rescue a number of priceless treasures in the event of war. It becomes apparent that he intends to swipe the British Crown Jewels, so the Pentagon, fearing that telling the British government of the situation could upset the political balance between our two countries, decides to launch a covert operation in which the real jewels will be secretly replaced with replicas.

Excuse me? This sounds more like an episode of Mr. Bean. America may not have the smartest government in the world, but even our current leaders would know that getting caught messing with the Crown Jewels would do a bit more damage to international relations than simply explaining to the Brits, "Listen, some guy has intentions to steal these things and maybe you might want to hire another security guard or two." Can't you see it?

"No, I swear it, constable. I was going to put them right back. I just stole them so that someone else couldn't."

That excuse didn't work for me when I swiped those Transformers from the Big Wheel in grade school, and it won't work for the U.S. Government.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, lets get to the good stuff.

First up, you've got your basic navigation. As with most adventure games published by DreamCatcher, you can scan a full 360 degrees by clicking and holding the mouse button and dragging in the direction you want to look. If your cursor becomes an arrow, you can click to move in that direction. If it becomes a hand, you can manipulate an object. Simple as that. I continue to be impressed at how nice the graphics look in both scanning and movement mode. If it weren't for that annoying pause my G4 forces me to suffer as it spins up the CD, the transition between the two would be nearly seamless.

The interface is simple enough, although far too bulky for my tastes. The PDA that provides you with everything from e-mails from the Pentagon to historical info about the Tower of London to audio and video monitoring sensors takes up nearly half the screen. On each side of the PDA are inventory items that are, of course, called up to perform certain fuctions. What's cool about this is that some items serve more than one purpose, while others are completely useless. For instance, your crossbow can be loaded up with a grappling hook to scale walls, then used to fire a tranquilizer dart at an unsuspecting guard, whereas objects such as that hammer I picked up are never used at all. I also liked the fact that necessary objects weren't just scattered about pell mell. I could search four five rooms and find nothing useful, but then open one safe and find a half dozen important items where they would actually be stored in real life.

This is one of the best aspects of this game, interaction with the environment. Unlike most adventure games where you're pretty much relegated to opening and closing doors, adding objects to your inventory and pushing keys to solve puzzles, in Traitors Gate you actually get to do stuff. It's not so much about solving puzzles as it is when you solve them and how you go about it. A lot of this game is timing; waiting for the right moment to fire or to turn away from that sleeping guard.

Despite this, Traitors Gate is a non-linear game. This makes exploration somewhat daunting as the game contains more than 100 puzzles with over 1200 different paths you can take to get to them. As I mentioned earlier, after spending a few days in this game, you really will feel as if you've been to the Tower of London. In fact, it's in some ways better than being there. I can't say for sure, but I doubt the normal tour takes you through the Tower's sewer system and into the armored room.

As with most adventure games, the only way to complete Traitors Gate is to explore. Just be sure to save your game quite often. Pushing the wrong button, stepping around the wrong corner or missing a target can alert the guards to your presence, and you wouldn't want to let down our President, would you? The Last Express had a feature where, if you screwed up and got killed or caught, the game would automatically rewind to the point of your mistake, no matter how far back, and let you start over. I don't know why other games haven't used this excellent feature.

Of course, Traitors Gate is not without its faults, most of which are on the technical side. The game ships on 4 CDs, so there's plenty of swapping going on. Unfortunately, the CD would never take the first time I put it in the computer. The game would spit the CD back out then ask for it again. I'd reinsert the same disc, and then it would work. This happened every time. It also seemed that I had to wait too long to get the proper cursors. Rather than give me the movement or scroll cursor, I'd always begin each scene with a generic arrow, thereby forcing me to move before I knew where I could move.

And finally, there's a very bad bug towards the beginning that prevents you from progressing. It seems that if you save the game when first exploring the sewers and you then have to quit and reload, you will not be able to progress past a certain point. Because of this, I had to start my game over again. So save the game before you climb down that first ladder, and don't save again until after you've retrieved the backpack. Got it?

Okay, I've been giving a lot of credit to DreamCatcher Interactive for this game, but most of the praises should be sung to Daydream Software, the developers who also brought us Safecracker. In fact, there are quite a few references to Safecracker in here, so be on the lookout for those. Now that I think about it, the two games have quite a bit in common. Why is it that all of Daydream's games involve breaking into someplace, and why is it that the thief is always portrayed as a good guy? In Traitors Gate, you're even ordered by the President to not shoot anyone! So there you go parents, a game that's non-violent, educational and loads of fun. Forget all those PPOs, just have your children play Traitors Gate to proove their intelligence.

Aside from adventure, the gang at Daydream also know quite a bit about presentation. Even the opening, with its funky, 70s spy movie music and Hollywood-style credit sequence, was fun to watch. And despite the complexity and magnitude of the setting, the puzzles do make sense in Traitors Gate. It may take you forever to get to and from the puzzles, but their logic is rational and can usually be figured out without a walkthrough if you just pay attention. You'll have to read quite a bit and take a lot of notes, but these can be recorded directly into the game's PDA. And, oh yeah, save your game. A lot.

I think it's safe to say that Traitors Gate is the best adventure game yet this year, and seeing that I'm such a fan of the genre, that's not a compliment I hand out freely. If you can bear a few annoying technical glitches, the game should provide weeks of entertainment. Having finished it, I'm just going to sit around and wait for the next Daydream/Dreamcatcher adventure game. No doubt the plot will involve some guy who has to break into something.

And now back I can get back to Tomb Raider 4.

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March 21, 2010