A few days ago I finished a playthrough of The Journeyman Project II: Buried in Time. Herewith my thoughts on the game.

First of all, I started the game on the rebound: I was sorely disappointed by Darkstar, but I loved that game's atmosphere, so I wanted to try and find something at least vaguely similar. Buried in Time seemed to fit that mold with its future setting, sparseness of character interaction and engaging story (not to mention totally tripy credits music). Lackign anythign better (and not having thought of Mission Critical at the time), I set about unraveling Agent 5's mystery.

In terms of presentation the game fares rather well considering its age. True, the resolution is low, the gameplay window is ludicrously small and the audio fidelity leaves a lot to be desired, but the environments are totally rad, movement video is of good quality, and you can get lost pretty easily once you learn to ignore the interface.

Puzzle-wise it was rough going at the start. I don't think this is particularly unusual: you have to get into the right frame of mind for the overall puzzle design logic starts to make sense, and it's a rare game which can manage to lead you in so gently that you don't get a little stumped after a few minutes. Unfortunately Buried in Time is a largely inventory-based game, and there are only a very few minor pure-logic puzzles. Thus, the game eventually exhibited something I hate about inventory games: I was missing an item, had no idea where to look, and had to scour four different very large areas (one of which is timed; you have only so much oxygen in your suit, and die when you run out) looking for god knows what. Eventually I had to consult a walkthrough a couple of times because I had neither the large blocks of time nopr the patience to comb through so many different views looking for some item I wasn't sure even existed.

Still, the game is not without its highlights, including some really excellent historical locales, lots of educational content, a few really good non-inventory puzzles, and a cow launching. I'd have liked the game a lot better if I had had an item list (with just the names of all the items in the game) to assuage my paranoia about having encountered a bug or dead end (there are no dead ends, only death[1]), and sometimes the UI could be very unclear about what you could or could not do, but it's still a very nice game, and I found it very much worth playing.

It's available at GOG for a fair price amd works well save for task switching. Worth it, especially if you're good with inventory-based games.

[1] Saved game can however get corrupted when one is zoomed in or when enaged in a special sequence. Overwrite saves with caution.

I think I got the JPs from GOG, I haven't been to GOG for a while, actually, after the Xmas orgy.

Have you thought of trying out Alpha Polaris?

I had not, but looking at the Web site, it seems to be pretty nice, and certainly not a bad price.  Perhaps I should try it, eh?

I have the old big box CD edition. It has pretty high "cool" factor, but mired with a somewhat clunky UI [as noted] and the play screen is very small [noted as well]. As a result I never got very far, but it has not left my perenial list of "plan to finish" and is one I always re-install after a system upgrade with the intention of doing so; so kind of a mixed grade? I'd give it a try.

Then there is Legacy of Time.

I've played Legacy of Time some as well, but have never given it a concerted effort.  Perhaps I will, now that I have more TSA experience under my belt.  I had played in the Mediterranean area most, followed by the Andes and finally the Himalayas very little, so who knows?  Maybe I'll find lots to hold my interest, if I give it a try.

I really enjoyed Journeyman Project 3 - it was one of the earliest games I played.  However, I recently tried to play #2 and found the view screen claustrophobic so I stopped.  Sometimes nostalgia simply isn't worth the effort.

Legacy of Time is one of my all-time favorites.  I recently had a replay with the DVD version and enjoyed it tremendously once again.  I have Buried in Time but haven't tried to play it yet.  

I enjoyed both the second and third games in the series quite a lot, but definitely prefered the third game as it was a lot less clunky than the second one. I had the same problem JKing had with the timed sequences in the second game.

JP3 is definitely one of the all-time great games. If you got bogged down before; don't despair - give it a shot.

{That will be ten Dramoi}