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Odysseus: Long Way Home
PC (Steam)
Outis
1.5/5 stars
Thomas Bowdler was an 18th Century Englishman who is remembered for his highly censored or expurgated renditions of various classic works of literature, including both Shakespeare’s plays and “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Bowdler’s work is not remembered in a particularly glowing light, as everything he touched was watered-down, cleaned-up, and purged of most of its character in the name of protecting the sensibilities of children and/or pre-Victorian women whose over-tight corsets caused them to pass-out at the merest mention of sex, violence, or God’s name taken in vain. Political Correctness to this very day owes its existence to people like Bowdler, whose name lives on in the term ‘bowdlerization,’ which has become synonymous with expurgatory censorship in all forms of media.
“Odysseus: Long Way Home” (“OLWH”) is a heavily – HEAVILY – bowdlerized adaptation of Homer’s Ancient Greek epic, “The Odyssey” to the medium of Casual videogames. I first encountered “OLWH” on Steam Greenlight, where I voted for what was promised to be an epic Adventure game based on Odysseus’ 20-year journey to his home in Ithaca from the battlefield of the city of Ilium (a.k.a., Troy). While the shady Russians of Rainbow Games technically delivered what they promised, my expectations were certainly not met.
Presentation
“OLWH” is very much a mixed bag in regards to its presentation. The game is built in a canned engine called Astralax Studio, which I’d never heard of before. The visuals are fully 2D, using a layering system similar to more advanced Flash-based games. The art is competently done, with a unique style ever-so-slightly reminiscent of Vanillaware’s 2D games (though without the Japanese flare and all of the sexy). The artists behind “OLWH” certainly did a fantastic job creating cluttered, busy environments for players to search through, despite a handful of anachronistic inclusions (such as hand saws that look like they came from Home Depot). Animation is very limited, and for the most part looks really bad. Character lip flap during dialogs is especially offensive, making everyone look like ventriloquist dummies.
The soundtrack is incredibly generic. It doesn’t really have any kind of Ancient feel to it, but is very reminiscent of pretty much any cheap/free casual game with next to no budget. There is no voice-acting, but I can’t say I would have wanted to hear Odysseus and Agamemnon have a chat with thick Russian accents.
The single biggest ding against “OLWH’s” presentation, though, is the fact that it features NO resolution options. As a point-and-click game, I can live without native Xinput support. That’s no big deal… but having to play the game in a small window in the middle of my 1080p screen surrounded by a huge-ass letterbox on all four sides? No, I can’t accept that.
Story
Thomas Bowdler would have loved “OLWH.” All of the violence is gone. Instead of gouging-out Polyphemus’ (the cyclops’) eye with a burning pole, Odysseus cooks him a delicious fish dinner. The sea nymph, Calypso, with whom Odysseus had a decade of hot desert-island-sex is completely omitted. The Lotus Eaters and the sorceress, Circe, are conflated into a single encounter. Aeolus, the King of the Winds is replaced with Helios, the Sun God, and the whole incident with the Cattle of the Sun is omitted. Hell, even the ending, where Odysseus must fight-off suitors who want to marry his presumed widow with the help of his son and a swineherd is completely bowdlerized into Odysseus shooting a beehive out of a tree and chucking it into the suitors’ den.
Anyone who has ever read and enjoyed “The Odyssey,” or, indeed, any work of Ancient, classical, or classic literature should understand just what an affront this kind of expurgatory censorship is. It completely destroys the integrity and intent of the original work. I can’t help but wonder if – just maybe – the Russians who work at Rainbow Games only had a copy of some ‘babby’s furst mythology’ book from which to draw their narrative structure. And the fact that they’re Russians comes through clear as day, considering the dreadful English as a Second Language quality of the game’s script. Clocking in at around 5 hours, I still had a rough time finishing “OLWH,” it was just so cringe-inducing and cheesy.
Gameplay
I probably should have looked more closely at the Steam Greenlight page before voting for this game. I saw ‘Adventure,’ and ‘Odyssey’ and immediately thoughts of a game like “Shadowgate” with the story of “The Odyssey” popped into my head. I didn’t even see the category of ‘Hidden Object Game’ until I was about to start playing it.
Hidden Object Games are a type of very Casual game based on the children’s brain-teasers commonly found in sources such as “Hi-Lights Magazine” (yeah, I’m dating myself). These games, be they based in paper or computer code, display a very cluttered scene, then task the player with finding a bunch of items from a list hidden within the scene.
Fortunately, “OLWH” doesn’t just lean entirely on the Hidden Object schtick for its gameplay. There is actually a (very basic) traditional point-and-click Adventure game in here as well. Odysseus must navigate a variety of environments by USING items on other items… and when he’s in need of an item he doesn’t have, he must typically return to a prior screen and dig through a Hidden Object scenario to find it. Unfortunately, instead of just tasking the player to find the item Odysseus needs to proceed, each Hidden Object scenario also tasks the player with finding a number of other completely-unrelated objects.
In addition to the typical USE ________ on _________ Adventure puzzles, there are a number of other, more traditional puzzles included in “OLWH,” such as sliding tiles to create a picture and arranging McGuffins in a particular order. Most of these puzzles were reasonably well-done (though I thought they required waaaaay too much clicking and dragging). However, one puzzle, which involves untangling a spiderweb so that none of the threads intersect any of the others was completely impossible for me to solve. Luckily, “OLWH” includes the handy ability to SKIP puzzles.
Yes, “OLWH” has built in hints. Clicking on Athena’s Aegis in the corner of the menu bar guides the player to the right screen to find the next puzzle they need to solve, or directly points to an undiscovered object in a Hidden Object scenario. Likewise, each of the puzzley-puzzles has a skip button that allows the player to proceed as though they’d solved it without actually solving it. Each of these help tools has a charge timer, so the player can’t just get help over and over and over without waiting for a minute or so between hints.
Overall
“Odysseus: Long Way Home” is a stupidly bowdlerized and sanitized-for-the-protection-of-the-children (THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!) take on Homer’s “Odyssey,” which largely neuters it and removes most of its narrative value. As an Adventure game with a strong influence from the extremely Casual Hidden Object Games, “OLWH” is merely tolerable, though it does tend to spike in difficulty at the most in-opportune times. Mythology fans should definitely skip this stinker and play “Apotheon” instead.
Presentation: 2.5/5
Story: 1.5/5
Gameplay: 3/5
Overall (not an average): 1.5/5
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