Shortly after their last adventure Alex and Lisa are returning home when they get transported back to two different time zones by an ancientShortly after their last adventure Alex and Lisa are returning home when they get transported back to two different time zones by an ancient portal called the Gates of Fate. Separated from one another they’re going to have their work cut out this time. Alex ends up in 1989 and Lisa ends up in 1979. The only person who can help in each time is a young girl named Nicky but she may not be who she says she is. Join Alex and Lisa as they try to unite through time and restore a future which has been ravaged by a powerful volcano.
The first game in the series The Treasures of Mystery Island (2008) by Five-BN wasn’t exactly mediocre. In fact it was pretty bad with its contrived storyline, repetitive gameplay and budget 3D what-were-they-thinking character designs. The game was also pretty much over after playing for more than an hour. Hopes weren’t high for a sequel so when Alawar Entertainment released The Treasures of Mystery Island: The Gates of Fate (2010) anyone would have had very low expectations. But...what about it was a lot better? Now I don’t mean a massive improvement but that it got those major issues I listed before ironed out somewhat? Well the sequel does just that with a time travelling story that shows some depth. The game is also a lot longer in length. You have the mysterious Nicky who is able to help Alex and a redesigned Lisa (how did she have time to change clothes?); helping them find some ancient tablets that will hopefully send them back to their own time. Meanwhile an equally mysterious figure stalks them from the shadows. Action still happens on the island yet it’s not the same five or so locations so you visit places like caves, a ship, local archives, etc. There’s much more variety. With an emphasis on story it could be argued Gates of Fate is not a HOG but a HOPA since this time around there’s some actual adventuring. The game plays the same as the original with having to find pieces of inventory items dotted from screen to screen but it’s nowhere near as repetitive as Treasures of Mystery Island. The poor click detection field that rendered the original game at times unplayable has been fixed thank goodness. The puzzles are more plentiful in this sequel yet the challenge is unbalanced. Some puzzles are way too easy and some are too overly difficult. What’s worse is some are based on physical rotations or advanced visualising rather than working out solutions. Untying knotted ropes is difficult enough without adding limited spaces to move an angle of the rope too. Some of the puzzles are too extreme in difficulty to be fun and you’ll end up skipping a few that you know didn’t need to be so difficult. The story itself still doesn’t make much sense with Alex in 1989 and Lisa in 1979. Why doesn’t Lisa end up in 1989 to meet Alex? The whole time travel idea feels like it’s been tacked on as the developers never utilise the time periods. If it wasn’t for an onscreen date you would never know both were transported to different times. You have Lisa walking into rooms with 21st Century office phones or the characters using technology that wasn’t available in that era. Did Five-BN get so caught up they forget such obvious things or did they simply not care? If the answer to those questions is a no followed by a yes then why should we as the player care about these characters if the developers didn’t?
Gates of Fate manages to improve somewhat over the original game but the story flaws and a lack of care with the way the time zones are presented mean the potential for a better game is there which goes unfulfilled. If that wasn’t bad enough the puzzle difficulty levels are too high at points to be fun. Improvements were made but not enough to make this worth recommending which is a shame as the potential is there.… Expand
