Review RHEM 2 Developer: Knut Mueller Publisher: Got Game Entertainment Genre: Adventure Release Date: November 2005 Platform: Review by Robert Washburne November 4, 2005		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:

Puzzles! GLORIOUS Puzzles!

Pathways. Catwalks. Stairs. Elevators. Rotating walkways. Trains. Numbers. Colors. Numbers. Keys. Numbers. Meandering pipes. And more numbers. Layer upon layer of devious, sneaky, WONDERFUL puzzles.

Welcome to the Puzzle Palace.

Welcome to Rhem 2.

First, I would like to say that I don't normally review a game until I have finished playing it. But in this case I am going to make an exception. It has taken me several weeks of playing just to get through what I think is the first half. At this rate it will take over a month to finish. That is too long to get the word out on this game and I am not going to ruin the fun I am having by resorting to a walkthrough just to blast to the end. I am going to savior every delectable conundrum.

In case you didn't get the idea yet, this is a puzzle-centric game in the tradition of Jewels of the Oracle and Safecracker. If you don't like puzzles for the sake of puzzles, then you might as well move on. But if you love puzzles as much as I do then prepare yourself for an orgy of obsessive puzzle overload.

Rhem 2 is the sequel to (surprise!) Rhem. In Rhem you are driving your little Cooper Mini Train along the track when you end up in what appears to be an abandoned refinery. There are pipes, wires and pathways running everywhere. But there are also locked doors and locked boxes and clues scattered everywhere. You find notes from Kales, an earlier visitor, who first discovered what he calls the “city” of Rhem and decided to repair and fix it up. He speaks of finding parts of a mysterious key which will take him to another world. It is imperative that he get word back to his brother, Zetais, but rather than send the note himself, he cuts it into pieces and trusts that the next person to come along will assemble them and stick it in the fax machine. No plot hole here. No sir.

Rhem 2 continues with you picking up a piece of the key from Zetais and driving your little Mini Train down into an underground area similar to the Rhem of the surface. There you find a message from Kales:

"Hello. My name is KALES. By the time you receive this message, I won't be here anymore. If you were with my brother ZETAIS, you will have certainly received the first part of the key. I found the second part a few years ago in another area of RHEM, above on the surface. Maybe it was you that helped me back then and informed my brother ZETAIS. The third part must also be hidden here in the caves. With these three parts it will be possible for you to open the entryway to a deeper, more hidden part of this cave system. There, in an unknown part of the caves, lies a secret artifact..."

Where is Kales? He couldn't waste time here because he has to go and explore the entrance to Rhem 3. So it is up to you to uncover the secrets of Rhem 2.

Needless to say, story is not the strong point of this game. Nor is it intended to be. It is an excuse to get you here and start working on the puzzles. And it is adequate fore job.

The graphics are also up to the job. While not the high art of a B. Sokal, they are definitely better than your average independent developer. Good mood setting and no jarring pristine renderings. There is dirt and rust where it needs to be.

Sound effects are right up there with the pros. However, the best you can say about the voice acting is that it is an improvement from Rhem. In Rhem, a woman obviously did the voice and then it was slowed down to sound like a man. I understand low budget, but come on! In Rhem 2 Knut at least found a couple of guys to do the speaking. English wasn't their primary language. Acting wasn't their primary skill. The words didn't sync with the lips. But at least you could understand them and there isn't much of it.

So it is safe to say that this game stands or falls on its puzzles. It stands.

The puzzles are all logically thought out and nicely layered. At first, you have to find your way around. Rhem 2 is a concentrated version of Rhem – the pathways are shorter, tighter and more complex. Clues are scattered everywhere – pinned to walls or formally mounted as works of art – and eventually you will collect enough to unlock the doors to get to the remaining passages. The entire game counts as one giant maze.

Minor clues open the puzzles which reveal the major clues which open the major puzzles. It takes three or four layers of puzzles just to get to the next area.

So far, the puzzles have been of two basic types: Navigate the maze and find the combination to the lock. Mazes, however aren't just finding your way along the path. They also consist of unsnarling the miles of tangled conduit which runs through the caves. And while you may only have to find the combination to one door pinned to the wall, there are others which will require high school algebra to decode. Very few are single step puzzles. There are a few mechanical puzzles as well.

But as complex as the puzzles have been, they have been logical. There were only two times where I was so stuck that I had to resort to a hint. Once was where I knew how to solve a puzzle, but I had confused BLUE with GREEN in the dim light of my office. Another was where I had missed the small hot spot which allowed me to turn an object over to see what was on its back.

Which brings up the point of navigation. The interface is classic 2D Slide show. 3D would have been nice – there was always some angle I would have liked to look at - but 2D does the job. And while the pathways can get very complex, they are tight enough so that you never loose your sense of direction. There is a compass to help you as well.

The only objections I have had were the small hot spots which I missed and the small dabs of color which were easy to miss-read. (It would have been nice if each color also had a unique texture for the benefit of the color-blind.) Otherwise, no complaints.

My final evaluation? This is a independent game written by a single person. That counts for a lot, but there is very little to forgive. Everything short of the voice acting is professional. Knut Mueller wanted to give us a puzzling experience and he nailed it to the wall. If you love puzzles, then you will want this game.

Final Grade: A-
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