Why can't we have a time machine? (Mushroom Age (PC))

Member Name: sottovoce1982

Product:	Mushroom Age (PC)
Date:	14/01/09 (134 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great story, graphics, and good durability

Disadvantages: You might get stuck in certain stages

Mushroom Age
(pc game)



I used to watch a cartoon when I was young that showed inventions and scientific discoveries. In that show many of the inventions that we see today were predicted except for the time machine. Why? Well, because the events that took place on earth all over the world were not video recorded minute by minute, and even if they were, we cannot actually be in the video. Seriously though, if you want to be given a chance to know how it would feel like to have a time machine, play Mushroom Age.

This pc game can be bought for £19.95 from <http://uk.download.games.yahoo.net/> and, as always, you can also download a trial version that can be played for 60 minutes. The player in this game is Vera whose fiancé Tom went missing, so she went to the laboratory where he works to find out what happened to him only two days before their wedding. In the laboratory, she meets Tom's professor who looks exactly like Einstein, but is called professor Einbock. He gives Vera the impression that there was something fishy going on, when he hides some info about Tom, so she starts searching for the truth. She discovers that Tom and Einbock built a time machine and that her fiancé used it and never returned.

The game has 23 chapters and in each of these there is a number of games; usually three to four. One of the advantage of this game, for me, is that there is no timer and you can play it at your own pace. There is a dialogue that reveals the story bit by bit and it is both spoken and written in front of you, but if you are not interested in it you can click the left button of your mouse repeatedly. Another great advantage in this game is that there are several kinds of games that I will elaborate on more later on, but when you see a certain object shining you know that you can move or remove depending on the kind of game.

The first chapter that is entitled "laboratory" begins with an easy game that involves helping Prof Einbock regain consciousness. To do that you are supposed to find a handkerchief and a bottle of ammonium chloride, then soak the kerchief with the liquid. You can see on the right side of the screen that you have a question mark that refers to hints in the game. Hints are not always available, of course, but when they are, you can get an unlimited number of hints provided that you have enough patience for the gauche around the question mark to refill. You cannot save the game after finishing the first stage of the first chapter, say, and you don't have to worry about saving the game anyway, because each chapter will be automatically unlocked after completing it.

So, finding objects is one the games you will play in Mushroom Age, but you don't have to worry for these games are really enjoyable for a number of reasons. Take stage 1-3, for instance, in which you start searching for items in order to find out what happened to Tom. In this stage, you have two scenes: Einbock's office and the laboratory with a door between the two; click on the door and you will go from one screen to the other. The objects you are supposed to find can be seen in silhouette only on the tab on top of the screen. You can see four of these objects at a time and when you find one, more are revealed till you see the most important object hidden under the last silhouette. Moving from one scene to the other is very enjoyable, but when you click on HINT and the item you want is in the other scene, what shines for you is the entrance only and thus the hint goes to waste.

As I mentioned earlier, finding objects is only one of the many games you will play and each of these has an objective in most cases. Other games include: guessing a password, connecting the wires to make the circuit go through them all, reposition zodiac signs so that none of the lines going of them cross each other, rearranging the pieces of a photo, evolution puzzle, card games, arranging events chronologically, and even giving Socrates a massage. Weird, isn't it? Well, the whole story is crazy... don't you just love crazy games?

Of course, I will not reveal anything about how things will evolve in the game, but there is something that I have to discuss. At a certain stage in the game something goes wrong and you end up meeting the Omniscient One... yes, the man with the white beard himself. You don't see his whole face; just his mouth and one of his blue eyes. The Omniscient One gives Vera certain games that she should finish before he helps her. Although meeting God when you travel in time seems crazier than you may expect, but this is not the point. The thing is, when Vera meets him again at a later stage, he calls himself the All Joyous One, but Da Vinci tells Vera that the Omniscient One cannot really call himself joyous because he has all the misery and all the joy at the same time. I guess they are trying to tell you that being God isn't so much fun and I actually considered that matter for some time... nah, it is so much fun.

I have to admit that the game was very addictive for me that I had to spend two days playing it till I finished it all. It was brilliant! The thing is, I played certain stages of the game a second time after I finished it, but I noticed that this was not very amusing because much of the entertainment in this game is actually derived from the surprise that each stage reveals. So, I guess it is just a game that can be played once, but it does take some time before it is solved. Playing it at leisure might take you like a week to finish it all.


System Requirements:

Windows Vista / XP / Me / 2000 / 98
Processor: Pentium 600 MHz
DirectX 8.1
512 MB RAM
Free hard drive space: 125 MB

Summary: Very entertaining!