King's Quest The Mask of Eternity

In the newest King's Quest game from Roberta Williams (it is number VIII if you are counting), the Mask of Eternity has been broken and the chaos that it hides has broken free. He who has broken the Mask was once its protector. Now he has taken the role of evil incarnate. Only a great hero, The Eternal Champion, can restore the Mask. The Mask itself has chosen its champion. That champion is young Connor of Daventry.

The story of The Mask Of Eternity continues in its mythic theme throughout seven realms. Connor begins at home, a handsome young tanner in conversation with a buxom young lass. With the shattering of the Mask comes a foul tempest that turns all but he to stone. The piece of the Mask that falls to his feet in that instant before the arrival of this vile curse must have miraculously preserved him. Connor sets out to restore the universe. To do so, he must pass from the Kingdom of Daventry, survive the Dimension of Death, cross a poisoned Swamp, penetrate the Underground Realm of the Gnomes, make his painstaking way over the scorched Barren Region, survive the Frozen Reaches and finally complete his quest in The Realm of the Sun. While the story and scope of this game are of mythic proportions, and although Roberta Williams' flair for puzzles is very much in evidence, there are a number of flaws in gameplay that prevent The Mask of Eternity from approaching legendary status as a game.

We're Not Worthy

Roberta Williams pretty much is adventure gaming. She has been the driving force in the genre since her very first game, Mystery House in 1980. The King's Quest series has sold over seven million copies world wide; before The Mask of Eternity. Her last game, Phantasmagoria was widely heralded as one of the best adventure games of all time and also sold extremely well. There are a number of reasons for the success of Roberta Williams as a game designer.

One of her successes has always been to design on the leading technological edge of gaming. Mystery House is credited as the first graphic adventure game. The original King's Quest took advantage of the first 16 bit color cards and introduced icons in place of text parser interfaces for adventure games. King's Quest V was one of the first CD ROM titles and remains one of the absolute classics of adventure gaming.

Another of Roberta Williams' strengths is that she is a powerful storyteller. She has always been able to weave engaging stories, charged with enduring themes. Roberta Williams is also the master of adventure game puzzles. Her games have always had the puzzles nearly perfect. They are challenging and require reasoning and some general knowledge to solve. The pieces and clues of the puzzles are available yet require some piecing together. Solving these puzzles is nearly always an exhilarating small victory that gives the gamer the illusion that they are the most brilliant of souls when in reality, the clues, if looked at correctly, were clear enough that any fool could have put them together.

I have been enjoying Roberta Williams' games since the early eighties and hold her in high esteem. This latest King's Quest game was one that I was genuinely anticipating. Imagine then, my trepidation in announcing to the gaming community that I found her latest game, The Mask of Eternity, not quite stellar.

It Is Not The Story, Sure

I have already commented on the mythical theme of the story in The Mask of Eternity. Connor is drawn from one mythic realm to another and slowly but surely uncovers the truth behind the chaos that has been unleashed upon the universe. As Connor travels through the various reaches of the game, he searches out the fractured pieces of the Mask and learns of whom he must defeat as well as discovering the means necessary to do so. The story itself is quite up to the King's Quest standards. There are some irritating bits of international name dropping like Hector being used as an oracle, a potion of Sun-Tzu to increase weapon skills, Hill People speaking with highland Scotch accents, a unicorn having lost its horn and so on. Still, the story is good.

Nor Is It The Puzzles

Roberta Williams' skill at creating adventure game puzzles is also very much evident in The Mask of Eternity. The puzzles are among the best in adventure gaming. The game is full of small moments of illumination that lead the gamer to the resolution of the puzzle that has him or her stymied. This goes for both the pure puzzle elements that arise in some situations and also for the larger story puzzles. There are small general knowledge based puzzles to enter certain temples and other areas that are brilliant. There are other puzzles that rely on the player's ability to observe and reason. These puzzles are challenging but fair and provide that moment of exhilaration when they are solved. Some of these puzzles are fairly difficult, and may require the gamer to revisit an area to take notes of the clues that are given, but even the most difficult puzzles in the game are fair.

The actual adventure puzzles that serve to advance the story are good, but suffer somewhat from the tried and true King's Quest formula. Upon entering any area for the first time, the first thing to do is to seek out the powerful friend in need. Solve their problem for them and they will prove themselves friends in deed by bestowing upon Connor some object or key that advances the adventure. This formula works well, but in The Mask of Eternity it is severely over worked. There is no variation from this pattern. The Mask of Eternity also suffers from dialogue routines that do not recognize what has gone on before. A number of sequences are divided in two or more parts. For example, the ally whose back Connor must scratch in the Swamp is the Swamp Wisps. They want a secret before they will scratch Connor's back. It is very possible to learn the secret before speaking to the Wisps, yet even if Connor knows the secret when they give him the quest, he responds with his standard, Boy Scout answer, "I will do my best." I haven't coded a line for nearly ten years but I am pretty confident that I could write a subroutine that recognized when Connor already knew the secret that the Wisps required and responded more appropriately.

There were also some puzzles that irritated me. Rocks are often used in The Mask of Eternity to activate elements, i.e. hold down a pressure plate that opens a door, or to deactivate traps. It is imperative to pick up every rock that Connor passes. He will need it later. Rocks are very hard to come by. I found it infuriating to be fruitlessly wandering around The Underground Realm of the Gnomes, where the Gnomes are mining, searching for two stones required to solve a puzzle. I returned to the riverbanks of Daventry without success. I finally had to go back to The Dimension of Death, which seems to be the only area with stones. These sorts of illogicalisms drive me nuts in adventure games. This was only one time and fairly easily resolved. The larger failing in The Mask of Eternity is the dexterity based, Tomb Raider style puzzling. But more on that later.

Never Could It Be The Graphics

The big jump for the King's Quest series that is made by The Mask of Eternity, is the 3D engine that it uses to power the world. The game can be played from either a first or third person perspective. Third person is recommended and in fact required for some of the puzzles. The 3D engine is not state of the art and no competition for Unreal in the graphics department, but The Mask of Eternity is a very good looking game that well represents the mostly large and outdoor environments through which Connor must journey. Connor himself is quite well animated but some of the NPCs are a little stiff and chunky. More effort has gone into the facial animations of NPCs during dialogue and all of these speaking sequences are nicely realized.

The large outdoor environments and ranged weapon combat cause trouble with draw-in. Quite regularly Connor finds himself engaged in missile combat where he is unable to see his opponents that are hidden behind that black fog of draw-in, but he can still kill them by firing back along the trajectory of their incoming projectiles. Might and Magic VI, which also had large outdoor environments and ranged combat avoided most of the draw-in problems that plague The Mask of Eternity by using less detailed textures. The Mask of Eternity looks much better but suffers somewhat in combat for it. There is much less combat in The Mask of Eternity because it is primarily an adventure game. Combat at all is new to the King's Quest series.

Nor Shall I Complain Of The Combat

Having real time combat in an adventure game is a real leap for Roberta Williams. It is implemented very well, in a way that will be accessible to gamers of all abilities and tastes. Adventure gamers who are not used to first person combat can set the combat difficulty to easy and concentrate on the adventuring. Unfortunately the poor default keyboard layout may increase the difficulty for them unless they know someone who is playing Half-Life or some other fps and can teach them the EP standard asdw keyboard layout. First person combat pros can increase the difficulty and have more to handle. The combat itself is shallow Diablo style mashing, where you simply point Connor's weapon icon at the bad guy and pound on the mouse button until said bad guy falls down dead. Disappointing for some, but remember, this is an adventure game. There are plenty of brilliant first person shooters out there for you adrenaline junkies. The Mask of Eternity is supposed to be an adventure game and requires that you use your head for something more than bashing your monitor when things don't go your way.

The combat brings us to another aspect of The Mask of Eternity that is new to the King's Quest series. That of RPG-style character development. As Connor defeats enemies and solves the adventure's puzzles, he gains experience. When enough experience is gained, he advances a level. Advancing a level increases Connor's combat abilities. This aspect is integrated with less effect than is the combat. The leveling up that Connor does is such a minimal aspect of the game that the player will not even notice when it happens except that Connor's health bar recharges with each level up. Other than that, level advancements have no effect on gameplay and this is indicative of what I feel is one of the more serious failings of The Mask of Eternity.

Connor Is Lame

In an age of games charged with strong characters such as Lara Croft and Duke Nukem, Connor comes across very weakly. He has good potential but inconsistencies make him a character with whom it is difficult to sympathize. Connor is steeped in the King's Quest tradition of gallantry. He is dexterous, intelligent and handsome. His Old English phraseology carries a certain charm. By all rights, Connor should have been a winner. Where Connor fails is in his inconsistencies. Connor is portrayed as extremely gallant and heroic, the very just and noble Champion Eternal. Yet the first thing he does when everyone in Daventry turns to stone is to rifle through their belongings, even breaking into their dwellings to do so. He will often say, "I am sure that these good people will understand my need for their gold," yet he has no need for it. It is not until much later in the game that Connor ever spends any money and by then he has collected enough from slain bad guys that he never needed to have stolen his neighbour's money in the first place. Connor is extremely polite and chivalrous, yet in the presence of a lady he tears off the most fearsome Duke Nukem / Barney Gumble belch that ever reverberated through a video game. He leaves a small girl to make her own way out of The Dimension of Death after freeing her from a prison. He just isn't consistent enough for the player to really get into the roll of chivalrous and noble Champion Eternal. The voice acting is also an inconsistent mix. Some of it is very good and some of it, especially his death scream is so cheesy as to spoil any immersion that the player may have gained from the game.

It Is The Delicate Leaps

These small faults that I have mentioned are just that, small. They might keep the game from perfection, but not from excellence. By far, the greatest failing, and the one that flaws The Mask of Eternity is the preponderance of dexterity based puzzles. Almost every area has a section of dexterity based puzzling. In these areas, Connor must make precise leaps from rock to rock and so on. These jumps are damn near impossible. Connor can make a simple forward hop, a back flip or a huge leap that carries him nearly past the visible range and into the black mists of undrawn-in blackness. Trying to make dexterous leaps from stone to stone is very difficult and extremely frustrating.

That alone is not sufficient to ruin the game. Tomb Raider has made a living on such gameplay. It isn't just that Connor is hard to control. His leaps are very difficult to control, but exacerbating matters is the fact that, in the recommended and necessary third person viewpoint, the camera can only rotate. Connor is incapable of looking up or down. He is also incapable of catching a ledge. He must jump and plant both feet squarely on whatever he is aiming at, which very often, because of the camera, he can not see.

The enormous bore is that each death brings with it a huge load time before it is possible to return to play. The load times are so long that I seemed to have time enough to make supper after one death, eat it and do dishes after the next and sit on the toilet after the third. The inordinately long load times, coupled with the extreme difficulty of performing what look like and what ought to be simple leaps mire this game deeper than ever Connor sinks in the poisoned Swamp. There really are not very many of these dexterity sequences and in between them the game is very enjoyable. However, the arrival of each dexterity puzzle is about as much fun as falling off a cliff.

Broaden Your Horizons

The Mask of Eternity is far from being a must buy. It is rather, an expand your horizons sort of experience. It attempts to be all things to all people and does not fail by very much. Adventure gamers who have been shy of purchasing 3D action games or first person shooters can get a good introduction to such gaming from within the comfortable confines of an adventure game. Action gamers who wonder about adventure games can get an excellent introduction to them from an action perspective. It really is an excellent cross-genre experience. Just don't make me say, "I told you so," when you spend all afternoon swearing and reloading while you try to make one little leap. The very poor implementation of the dexterity style gaming, exacerbated by the enormous load times is a near fatal flaw. Unfortunately, in the game, as in life, the chaos below is hidden by a mask. In this case it just happens that the mask is Roberta Williams' well deserved reputation and a very good adventure game. The chaos that boils beneath is poor characterization and dreadful dexterity sequences.

We wear the mask.

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