February 4, 2015

Paradise

White Birds Productions, 2006


Paradise is an excellent point-and-click adventure game developed by the renowned Benoit Sokal, the art creator of award-winning Amerzone and Syberia series and perhaps this is the reason that Paradise also exhibits similar quality of graphics and animations found in Syberia and Amerzone, except this time, it's the landscapes of uncharted Africa. The storyline is set over four different African lands starting from a North African city called Madargane, where you follow a young woman, Ann Smith, who is suffering from amnesia caused by her plane crash. Playing as Ann Smith, your main objectives are to discover your true identity and what are you doing this strange land, which by fate is somehow linked with a black African leopard, which you must escort back from Madargane city to the land of Kilimanjaro, the place where he was born and where you were born. During your journey you pass through dry lands of Madargane, explore dark and dense jungles of Maurane River meeting primitive villagers who live on tree-houses, venture the moist and perilous depths of emerald mines and finally, unravel the mysterious truth about your past.

The game has different types of logical puzzles, which are mostly inventory based. There are few arcade puzzles that also need your witty expertise to overcome. In some locations during the game you also get a chance to play as the leopard in an action-packed real-time 3D environment to perform certain tasks that are necessary to solve certain puzzles, but these action packed sequences may be skipped if your skills are weak in action zone or if you don't feel like disturbing the tempo of playing a traditional point and click adventure game.