Review Isles of Derek (comparative review with Derek) Developer: Virtue Games Publisher: Virtue Games Genre: Adventure Release Date: 2005 Platform: Review by Alexander Tait July 19, 2005		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:

I’ve just revisited a place I enjoyed visiting very much previously, only this time it is the newly revamped and repackaged Isles of Derek. I’m not going to rehash the old review. You can see my 2003 review of the original Derek for information about that. Rather, I wanted to do two things. One, I hope this review allows buyers who don’t have the game to decide whether they ought to buy it. Two, I hope people who own Derek are given enough information to decide whether to get the upgraded version.

For those unfamiliar with it, Derek is a Myst-like game based on Christian principles and utilizing the Bible to solve its puzzles. It was created by Cheyenne Wolford of Virtue Games, a one-man company that has since grown into a subsidiary of Thousand Mile Productions, taking on more staff including his wife, Evie. With this enhancement of resources, Virtue Games felt it was timely to update some of Derek’s features. Perhaps they might consider updating Nacah, the prequel, at some stage (hint, hint, Cheyenne!)…

So, what’s new?

Strangely, not the title, or at least, not consistently. The title above is from the interface screen in the game. Not a problem, obviously, but certainly an inconsistency…

For a start, though hardly a reason to buy the game, is an elaborate introduction for Virtue Games, which includes its philosophy, which is pretty and very professional looking.

More importantly, the game contains a new introduction. This time a sepia film shows the protagonist walking on his journey. Again, high quality, and a cut above the detail in the original Derek.

People who played the original Derek undoubtedly would have laughed riotously through most of the game’s spoken dialog. The voice of the captain, the game’s only significant speaker, has been dubbed with a professional voice actor. Virtue Games is to be commended for the excellent job they did of matching the voice to the video footage. The voice actor is far better than the original actor is (Cheyenne’s father, if I recall) and has a somewhat Irish lilt to his voice. Call me strange, but I missed the old man’s voice and laughable acting-perhaps the thought that the game was a family affair endeared it to me in the first place. Anyone who has not played the original Derek are going to cherish the better acting of Isles of Derek, though, I am certain.

The team reprogrammed the sound in the game, utilizing different codecs, and I am pleased to say I did not run into any sound problems. With the original game, I sometimes only had voice and sound effects and the music did not play. I am happy to announce that I was able to hear and enjoy the immersion of all three this time around. Subtitling is unchanged from the previous game. The majority of the speaking is subtitled, but not all, strangely. The captain and the monk have full subtitling and represent the majority of the speech in the game. Despite being able to hear all the sounds as intended, there is one shortcoming: not all sounds struck me as being recorded at the same loudness levels. This took away from the immersion in a minor capacity only.

I noticed that some of videos are of better quality also. Although the pixellated QuickTime appearance is still there, many of the videos were less smudged and crisper looking. I experienced no pixel hunts this time-all items that needed to be interacted with were in plain view and there was no touchiness about cursor placement to interact with items.

Nothing has been added to the story-the original storyline is untouched and all puzzles are exactly as they were in Derek. There are no bonus areas, Easter eggs, or anything else that I could tell but in my interview with the team, they mentioned the inclusion of Easter eggs.

All in all, though, one word comes to mind about Isles of Derek: “polished”. The whole package is one that exudes quality. The game comes on one CD-ROM now, instead of the two partly filled disks that Derek had. The interface is fancy and has many added features:

• A “how to play” adventure games section
• A detailed troubleshooting section with an invitation to email Virtue Games if your problem is not accounted for
• A video showing how the “magic inventory” works (a good in joke for experienced gamers-love that outfit, Cheyenne!)
• The option to turn on context-sensitive hints (these are available at certain points throughout the game)
• “a little adventure”-this is the superseded introduction from Derek, which allows players to experience how Cheyenne originally viewed the game ought to begin

All in all, this is a quality product. The only significant problem I detected was that if the disk wasn’t in the drive at the onset of the game, the introductory Virtue Games video would hang and subsequent videos required that I press “Esc” after each them to return to the game. Otherwise, everything ran normally.

People who bought Derek will be disappointed not to have waited for Isles of Derek but I doubt the improvements, significant though they are, would justify the expense of purchasing what is essentially the same short game in better packaging. But for those who didn’t get it first time around, here is the chance to get hands down the best Christian game that has been made to date. I recommend this game to anyone who enjoys Myst-like games, especially if interested in a Christian bent. Undoubtedly, there will be many adventure gamers looking forward to Mayabin, released later this year, and future Virtue Games products. This game deserves an A.

Final Grade: A
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