Fascination (1991) 
| Details (Commodore Amiga) | Supported platforms | Artwork and Media | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Publisher: Genre: Author(s): Musician(s): Minimum Memory Required: Maximum Players: Joysticks: Language: Media Code: Media Type: Country of Release: Comments: |  Coktel VisionAdventure / Graphical Tomahawk, Muriel Tramis, Philippe Lamarque, Yannick Chosse, Joseph Kluytmans, Rachid Chebli Frédéric Motte 512K 1 Yes Eng 3.5" Floppy disk Worldwide | Commodore Amiga Atari ST |
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| Your Reviews |
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Iss 39 Oct 1992 (Amiga Format) 5th Dec 2011 03:09Do you fancy yourself as a sleek attractive woman with a mystery to solve? Or do you just fancy yourself? James Leach sorts out his psychoses in a French-produced, adult-orientated interactive adventure...
You can tell when you're having 'one of those days'. First your tights ladder, then your high-heel snaps off as you rush to the departure gate and finally, as you're settling down with Vogue on the plane, a man dies in the next seat. What's worse, he gives you a briefcase with a vial of something incredibly secret in it. As life slips away from him before your disbelieving eyes, he croaks something like: "Take this briefcase to the President of the Quantum Unlimited Lab in Miami". Then he croaks, full stop.
Thus begins a mystery that might chill your very heart, still your blood and enlarge your liver, in which you play a gorgeous brunette called Doralice. Pronounce that 'leese' not 'lice'.
Hormone imbalance
The game itself is one of the sort where you point at things shown in the locations, and if the computer recognises them it enables you to pick them up, using them, keep them or drink them. It's called 'Interactivity'. What happens is that you slowly build up a picture of what you can use with what, and what effects this might have. Call it logic, call it common sense, call it knowing how the programmers' minds work. The result is that you slowly progress along through an adventure planned out in meticulous detail.
Monkey Island 2, you'll be thinking. Yes, it's pretty similar to that in the way it works, but doesn't have the same polished feel. The fantasy setting is obviously absent, so you end up looking at screens of not particularly interesting hotel rooms and suchlike.
OK, so you're playing a woman. How does this affect the game? Well you might hope that it redresses the imbalance in favour of males in computer software, but, er, you'd better take a look at what happens when you pop slinkily into the shower. A nude showering woman appears on the screen in several poses, all designed to start a hormonal reaction in the (male) players of the game. Yes, it's sad to say but they have to stoop to stuff like this (and quite early on in the sequence of events, too).
But isn't this what adult-orientated software is about? Maybe, but it doesn't add to the plot and it certainly doesn't make you feel at ease with the gorgeous female you're supposed to be playing.
As you progress through the game, you realise that it isn't very flexible. The route you're supposed to take is pretty clearly defined. The very nature of interactive games is such that you can't go wandering off where you please. There just isn't room for all that extraneous data. This means that all you need to do is to be persistent. Collect everything you can, try using everything you can and make the odd logical leap. For example, there's a wall-socket, an adaptor and a toothbrush with different voltage settings. How much lateral thinking is required to bring these three items together? And when you do, lo! – another item is discovered, which interacts with several other items later in the game. This is pretty much how you progress through the game that is Fascination.
The graphics are very much the same as you've seen before. Neatly drawn, with the emphasis on a slightly cartoony feel, they are clear enough to display everything you're supposed to see. The game contains plenty of small objects resting in fairly inaccessible places, and the only way to get these is to see them, then move the mouse over to them. The graphics have been drawn with this in mind, so you don't feel cheated because you haven't noticed a vital clue. Roaming the mouse around and seeing what shape it changes to is also a good way of sorting out what you can interact with this game.
The system used is pretty fool-proof, even if it does involve a disproportionate amount of clicking 'OK" when you've decided on what course of action you are going to take. Fascination has a vein of humour running through it which borders on the witty. This sits uneasily with the voyeuristic 'adult-orientation' which pervades it.
The interaction with other people in the game is a bit of a let-down. They seem only to give you the information you need, then clam up. Thus all you have to do is ask them your pressing questions once and the answers are magically revealed with little further brain-usage by the player.
Overall, Fascination is a competent attempt at a mouse-controlled adventure. The setting isn't inspiring, though and the structure is a little too rigid and formulaic. The sexism (for such it is) doesn't help either.
Up against Monkey Island 2, it crumbles into insignificance. But to compare it to the king of the genre is a little unfair, as the style is so different.
Fascination is a pretty well-presented product. It's just a little too linear and lacks the touches which would make it feel special. Jet aircraft, pool-side cocktails and disrobed females don't really cut it.
James Leach
You can tell when you're having 'one of those days'. First your tights ladder, then your high-heel snaps off as you rush to the departure gate and finally, as you're settling down with Vogue on the plane, a man dies in the next seat. What's worse, he gives you a briefcase with a vial of something incredibly secret in it. As life slips away from him before your disbelieving eyes, he croaks something like: "Take this briefcase to the President of the Quantum Unlimited Lab in Miami". Then he croaks, full stop.
Thus begins a mystery that might chill your very heart, still your blood and enlarge your liver, in which you play a gorgeous brunette called Doralice. Pronounce that 'leese' not 'lice'.
Hormone imbalance
The game itself is one of the sort where you point at things shown in the locations, and if the computer recognises them it enables you to pick them up, using them, keep them or drink them. It's called 'Interactivity'. What happens is that you slowly build up a picture of what you can use with what, and what effects this might have. Call it logic, call it common sense, call it knowing how the programmers' minds work. The result is that you slowly progress along through an adventure planned out in meticulous detail.
Monkey Island 2, you'll be thinking. Yes, it's pretty similar to that in the way it works, but doesn't have the same polished feel. The fantasy setting is obviously absent, so you end up looking at screens of not particularly interesting hotel rooms and suchlike.
OK, so you're playing a woman. How does this affect the game? Well you might hope that it redresses the imbalance in favour of males in computer software, but, er, you'd better take a look at what happens when you pop slinkily into the shower. A nude showering woman appears on the screen in several poses, all designed to start a hormonal reaction in the (male) players of the game. Yes, it's sad to say but they have to stoop to stuff like this (and quite early on in the sequence of events, too).
But isn't this what adult-orientated software is about? Maybe, but it doesn't add to the plot and it certainly doesn't make you feel at ease with the gorgeous female you're supposed to be playing.
As you progress through the game, you realise that it isn't very flexible. The route you're supposed to take is pretty clearly defined. The very nature of interactive games is such that you can't go wandering off where you please. There just isn't room for all that extraneous data. This means that all you need to do is to be persistent. Collect everything you can, try using everything you can and make the odd logical leap. For example, there's a wall-socket, an adaptor and a toothbrush with different voltage settings. How much lateral thinking is required to bring these three items together? And when you do, lo! – another item is discovered, which interacts with several other items later in the game. This is pretty much how you progress through the game that is Fascination.
The graphics are very much the same as you've seen before. Neatly drawn, with the emphasis on a slightly cartoony feel, they are clear enough to display everything you're supposed to see. The game contains plenty of small objects resting in fairly inaccessible places, and the only way to get these is to see them, then move the mouse over to them. The graphics have been drawn with this in mind, so you don't feel cheated because you haven't noticed a vital clue. Roaming the mouse around and seeing what shape it changes to is also a good way of sorting out what you can interact with this game.
The system used is pretty fool-proof, even if it does involve a disproportionate amount of clicking 'OK" when you've decided on what course of action you are going to take. Fascination has a vein of humour running through it which borders on the witty. This sits uneasily with the voyeuristic 'adult-orientation' which pervades it.
The interaction with other people in the game is a bit of a let-down. They seem only to give you the information you need, then clam up. Thus all you have to do is ask them your pressing questions once and the answers are magically revealed with little further brain-usage by the player.
Overall, Fascination is a competent attempt at a mouse-controlled adventure. The setting isn't inspiring, though and the structure is a little too rigid and formulaic. The sexism (for such it is) doesn't help either.
Up against Monkey Island 2, it crumbles into insignificance. But to compare it to the king of the genre is a little unfair, as the style is so different.
Fascination is a pretty well-presented product. It's just a little too linear and lacks the touches which would make it feel special. Jet aircraft, pool-side cocktails and disrobed females don't really cut it.
James Leach
(Anonymous) (Unknown) 24th Nov 2010 10:16| Cheats | Trivia |
|---|---|
| There are no cheats on file for this title. | No trivia on file for this title. |
History
This title was first added on 5th November 2007
This title was most recently updated on 20th September 2016