Despite some good features, Alternative fails as an adventure game experience. The biggest weakness was the clunky game design. For example you are standing next to a large object and try to interact with it. The programmer has determined that the character must be not just next to it but in a particular location next to it. He therefore walks painstakingly slowly to that location,Despite some good features, Alternative fails as an adventure game experience. The biggest weakness was the clunky game design. For example you are standing next to a large object and try to interact with it. The programmer has determined that the character must be not just next to it but in a particular location next to it. He therefore walks painstakingly slowly to that location, often for no purpose as there may be no interaction possible at that moment. This slows the game down and becomes very annoying. Most of the game time is spent watching him move slowly across the screen. You also have to do every little activity in the right order. Thus you are required to read a car numberplate and tell it to someone. You click on the numberplate to bring up the close-up screen, memorize it, cross several screens to meet your colleague, but there is no dialogue option. What you should have done was get to the close up screen and then click on the numberplate again, so the character realizes that he knows it. This sort of thing happens frequently and invariably means you have to go back and forth between locations, watching the hero walk slowly all the time.
Another example. You are in a room with a friend. You have just acquired item A and you know you need item A and item B to achieve a task. You need your friend's help to get item B. Unfortunately, the right dialogue option does not appear until you have crossed town, tried using item A on its own, and heard your character say, "I need item B" Then you have to go back to your friend and the dialogue option will appear.
Alternativa has some novel approaches to puzzles, for example a combination lock where, instead of searching for clues, you have to spend a minute testing all the combinations. That was neat. This is a clever example of a solution that is similar to what you would do in the real world. Some of the reality touches are just annoying. You hunt all over for a clever solution but the solution is just to go back to you friend and ask for the item you need. I could go on and on. There were plenty more little irritations. The graphics are very good. The animation, e.g. when your character performs an action, is appallingly poor. The English language voice overs are mediocre. The sound effects are reasonable. For the low price it would be just worth it if it wasn't so slow.… Expand