A serious point and click third-person traditional detective adventure? What red-blooded adventure game enthusiast wouldn't be eager to get their mitts on THE MYSTERY OF THE DRUIDS (MOTD), if only to relive a bit of the memories of great games such as Sanitarium, Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templar, or even Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers?

Alas, good memories are all you'll have. I'm very unhappy to report to you, Dear Reader, that The Mystery of the Druids is not even close to being a good game.

The merriment begins with a disturbing cinematic involving a bunch of demented druids sacrificing babies at Stonehenge. Cut to present day and to your game's character, a perky New Scotland Yard Detective named Brent. It seems there have been a rash of bizarre murders around southern England, and your man has inherited the case from a lesser colleague.

The first impression the graphic present is not a very positive one. The character animation particularly is flat, sloppy and uninspired, and the office sets are boringly generic.

However, as soona s the game departs its initial settings, the graphic get better fast. Each new location is more attractive than the last, and the game becomes a genuine pleasure to look at.

There's one screen in particular that I want to single out. As an adventure game player, I've had to peruse and explore an uncountable number of bookshelves. Bookshelves tall and bookshelves short, bookshelves chic and bookshelves shabby. Most of these bookshelves had one thing in common, however: there was precious little visual variety in the appearance of the books. Well, dear reader, there is a certain wall of bookshelves in this game that is hands-down the best-looking I've ever seen in a game. Why? Because the art department actually went to the trouble to make it look like a real bookshelf. The variety of size, shape, design and color made for a bookshelf that was a delightful surprise.

In general, the varied and lush graphics are the chief pleasure of this game. Exteriors are particularly well rendered, and hopefully their beauty will distract you from the ugly problems the game has in other areas.

The most serious of these problems is the game's extremely sloppy conversation tree programming. Subjects will be available that haven't been introduced yet by the plot, utterly defunct topics will still be available, and annoyingly long conversation loops abound. This makes conversation a frustrating process indeed. In a detective story, this is a serious drawback. Frequently you have to go through conversations again and again to stumble on to the one correct choice that will open up the information needed to move the game forward.

This general fussiness mars most of the game's puzzles. Frequently you know exactly what you are supposed to do conceptually, but end up banging your head on the wall to figure out what hoops the game expects you do to in order to accomplish these goals. One irritating example is a small chest that you have to work really hard to uncover. Once you've found it, of course your task is accessing its precious contents. But how to open it? It turns out the darn thing will only open when you place it on a particular spot in the room: a nondescript stool (or "magic stool" as my friend and I referred to it).

There are a few satisfying puzzles with reasonable logic, but mostly they are a mess. In fact, I have to say that the solution to the final endgame puzzle is the single WORST puzzle solution I've ever seen in a game. It's illogical, unconvincing and even offensive. You'll see what I mean if you make it that far.

The voice acting in the game is subpar as well. The main character's boss is particularly annoying.

I must also report the plot is pretty awful as well. I'm all for stories involving evil pagan priests and conspiracies that cross the centuries, but at every turn the plot of Mystery of the Druids strains credulity. From the minute the story starts at New Scotland Yard, nothing rings true, and when the story moves back a thousand years, things just get worse.

It's no fun to beat up on a new point-and-click adventure. Trust me, I want every game to be good. But when I play depressing dreck like this game, I have to risk sounding like a stuck record and repeat my mantra: The adventure genre will not be saved by BAD games.

Feel like playing a dandy recent point-and-click? Pick up Road to India.

Ray's Final Grade: Mystery of the Druids - C-

If you liked Mystery of the Druids then:

See: The Wicker Man
Play: Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templar (Circle of Blood)
Read: The Magus by John Fowles

System Requirements:
P200
32MB RAM