(Before you enjoy our review of Opera Fatal, we would like to thank the numerous readers who pointed out that indeed this game is available in English and can be ordered via the following link: http://www.klett-verlag.de/heureka/produkte/opera/operafatal.htm)

Over the years we have whole-heartedly recommended many adventure games that would have otherwise been unavailable in North America. Some, but not many, of our suggestions have fallen on deaf ears. More often then not though, our recommendations have been influential as said game has either found a willing distributor or our readers have provided a rash of overseas orders that breathed new life into the game. Sorry to say, that ain't gonna happen this time.

Considering that you have already limited your potential purchasers by developing an adventure game and then must limit it even further by choosing a subgenre such as humor, mystery, science fiction, etc., why then reduce it to the lowest audience imaginable by then building a game around one particular subject? In the case of Opera Fatal it is classical music. Music, music and more music. More than I personally ever wanted to know about musical instruments, composers and classical minutiae. Before this game is over you will have visited every room imaginable in an opera house and you will have absorbed scads of volumes on the history of classical music.

Opera Fatal had a European release in 1998. The version I played was entirely in French and, as far as I have been able to find out, it has never been localized into any other language. With the aid of a French/English dictionary, a walkthrough and my limited French vocabulary my front row seat at this opera was reserved and I was about to be lulled into a deep, deep sleep. Consider this last sentence a bit of foreshadowing.

The game is played from a first-person perspective and takes place entirely within - get this - an opera house. You are the maestro, or conductor, who is about to premiere a new composition to the classical aficionados of Europe, but alas and alack, some devious perpetrator has stolen the musical score and hidden it throughout the nooks and crannies of the opera house (don't you hate it when that happens). Since Scooby and the gang are currently on tour with the Harlem Globetrotters, it is up to you to find the missing pages before the grand opening or the only music heard will be Simon & Garfunkle's Sounds of Silence. Where to begin you wonder? Well, as you open the front door of the opera house, like the duck from Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life, a clue (yoiks! a clue Scooby) drops from the ceiling. If you think this is strange, then ladies and gentlemen, you ain't seen nothing yet.

As you proceed through these Myst-like graphics, hints will appear in the strangest places, but the clues are actually trivia questions that you must later answer in a notebook. Most, but not all, of the answers can be found by old-fashioned observation or solving puzzles that are typical to this type of game (open a safe, turn on the electricity, find a key to unlock a door), but some answers can only be found by searching through volumes and volumes of musical encyclopedias that are readily available for easy reference. And why must you find the answers to these riddles and then enter them in a notebook? To open up otherwise inaccessible areas of the opera house or else you cannot progress in the game. Since the game is broken into six linear sections, and since you cannot progress until you have solved all of the riddles in a section, this can make for a very discordant gaming experience.

These riddles are not your average stumpers either. Lest you think I am exaggerating, try some of these:

- What is the name of the priest who robbed Pamina?
- What is the 5th step of the scale in harmony theory?
- Where did the composer of the correctly selected piece of music live?

For this last question you must then deduce from other clues in the room, the correct key to press on a vending machine so that you will hear an extract from Debussy's string quartette and on top of that you must be able to identify Debussy's music. This is too much even for a hardcore adventure gamer like myself. Just as annoying is there are many, many drawers, chests and doors that must be opened and explored, but you can never leave a scene or a room until you have first closed the object you left open.

This is a lonely game. The only other living creature you will run across is a mouse trapped in a drawer that is later used to solve a puzzle. On the positive side, there are small touches of Peter & the Wolf as specific musical themes are used to represent footsteps, creaking doors and other sounds. Anyone who truly has a love for classical music would most likely adore Opera Fatal, but what are the odds of finding someone who not only loves classical music, but also adventure games?

Now I am about to do something that I have never, ever even thought of doing before and reveal the ending of Opera Fatal. For after struggling for weeks to get through this game and after translating endless text, you solve the final puzzle only to have (SPOILER ALERT!) your character awakened by an alarm clock and you find out that the entire stolen musical score scenario was only a bad dream caused by nervous tension surrounding the opening. If only I could say the same about the hours I wasted on this game.

Final Grade Opera Fatal - D.

System Requirements:

PC:
Pentium 166
Windows 98
32 MB RAM
8X CDROM
Sound Card
Mouse

MAC:
Power PC
12 MB RAM
8X CDROM
System 7.0