Previous Next

Now I don't know about you, but if a big shot merchant ruined my life, and then had the cheek to offer me a job, I'd be forced to beat him quite violently about the head and neck. Of course, if that tycoon was one Eugene Adolphus Lomax II, you would be pretty stupid not to listen. The old bean's daughter has unfortunately been kidnapped by Li Deng, a ruthless Hong Kong gangster, and it's your job to rescue her (gosh, how original!).

When The Heart Of China was originally released it was received with critical acclaim for its "user friendly interface and stunning graphics". It introduced some new ideas into the adventure game genre, the most obvious being the alternative plot path system (which Indiana Jones has more recently used to much better effect). This enterprising idea is slightly misleading, as the different routes change very little, and you always end up at the same place after a few screens anyway.

The story itself is quite absorbing and you look forward to pushing further into the game to see how the plot develops. Early on you recruit a Ninja-type, er... bloke, who then allows you to swap between the two characters to achieve different results during the game (a la Indy... again).

The major problem I had with The Heart Of China is that it's too damn slow. I mean, I've seen dead people move faster than this game. The supposedly user-friendly interface is about as friendly as Eric Cantona (God, are we topical or what? - Matt), and the "stunning graphics" are no more than mediocre.

But even more frightening than that - it comes on nine disks. Now this might not sound too bad, but believe me, it is, and the disk accessing takes forever!

So if you're looking for a budget graphic adventure, you could do a lot worse than Heart Of China, but you could also do a lot better - most notably with Monkey Island 2.