Blue Ice Review

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Blue Ice

Review by Jen

If you can imagine that Salvador Dali had done the illustrations for Alice in Wonderland, which would amount to a double whammy dose of surrealism, you might have the wee beginning of an inkling about Blue Ice. I don’t even know quite how to go about reviewing this game—it is certainly different than anything else I have ever played.

The game takes place in a land called Icia that has had some 700-plus King Edwards, who each are responsible for several million petty laws, numbered sequentially, which all combine to dictate every teeny action and thought of every subject of the land. King Edward LCCXI dies before his son is of age to ascend to the throne.  The prince is expected to stay inside studying all the millions of laws and living according to a very rigid schedule until he is old enough to be king. He spends his time wondering how he will measure up to the greatness of his ancestors in promulgating new laws. It is your job to bring the young prince to an understanding of the five things that make life worth living—music, food, nature, color, and love—and thereby break the evil hold of history on his young mind. There are five characters in the game: the prince; the housekeeper and her daughter, the chambermaid; the stable lad; and Hope, a sprite or spirit who is the daughter of Orseppo, the wise witch who is behind the quest to enlighten the prince. By clicking on each character with the magnifying glass, you can read his or her thoughts in the particular scene, which all combine to tell the story and give you insight into their individual personalities. One of your first tasks is to make the prince’s breakfast, and before you can complete that, you are likely to find parts of the other treasures. Once I knew what the plot was, it was very clear and moved along nicely by the game.

A caveat before I continue: I did not finish this game, nor at the time of this writing is there any known living person who has finished it. According to the author of the only walkthrough extant on the Internet, Bonnie Collins, this game was originally conceived by Psygnosis as some kind of contest where the first person to solve the final riddle could win lots of money. Psygnosis for some reason backed out of the contest part but released the game anyway, and it still contains the contest parts. I did complete the five quests to bring understanding to the prince, which constitutes the “game” portion, but I did not complete the “contest” portion.

“Surreal” is the first word that comes to mind in attempting to describe all aspects of this game; “weird” is the next. At the beginning, you must enter the pupil of an eye to access the courtyard of the house. From there, you pluck the sun out of the sky and use it to thaw a frozen pond, jump into the pond and retrieve a key from a fish, and then use the key to enter the house. Every time you pick something up that you can carry, it changes into a cursor, so you basically scroll through your choices of cursors to see what item you want to use and then choose one. Sometimes it was hard for me to tell what I had picked up; half the fun was in trying to find out what it was and where it could be used. You get keys to new locations by clicking the magnifying glass on occupants of the house. A warning, though: it is only possible to hold one key at a time, and if you get a new key while you are holding one, the old key is lost forever. Once you get a key, you have to discover what it opens. There are some really strange locations in this game; I don’t want to say too much for fear of giving away too much. After I got used to the inventory-as-cursor method of play and the odd entrances to other rooms, I enjoyed the style of gameplay very much—it is purely mouse-driven and becomes very intuitive. There are only some hotspots, however, so you still have to do a lot of clicking on everything. I had to start the game over a couple of times due to the type of flaws that let you progress for a little while but eventually get stuck if you don’t do something correctly, for example, losing a key by picking up another one. I also had to resort to hints and the walkthrough quite a bit because of the obscurity of some of the steps in the game—for instance, in order to go fishing with a maggot, I had to first warm the maggot by placing it on someone’s lips. Who’d’ve thunk it? A fish doesn’t want a cold maggot? Gameplay probably could have been better, but it was so very satisfying when I did the right thing on my own.

The graphics are largely stagnant—most of the scenes contain very little movement—but each scene contains a great deal of information. For instance, clicking on the “Blue Ice” logo at the top middle of the screen gives an aural clue about the scene, clicking on the scroll at the top right of the screen gives an Ician law that relates to the scene, every scene has a question mark, hidden or in plain sight, that you can click on with the magnifying glass to get another clue (finding the question mark was half the fun in some cases—kind of like “I Spy” or “Where’s Waldo”), and every scene has the character Hope in it, again hidden or obvious. The scenes are all decorated with semi-hidden numbers which seem to have no significance—maybe they mean something with regard to the “contest” portion of the game. In addition, the game is beautifully packaged in a little box containing the manual, CD, and a little book of poetry from the game. The package could sit in amongst your books and nobody would know it was a computer game. The graphics fit well with the overall style of the game and are beautifully drawn, even with the lack of animation.

The music in the game is outstanding. Each room has a different piece associated with it, and all of the music comes from published CDs. It covers the whole range of western musical history, from classical to swing to jazz to new age. Some of the more well-known artists are Duke Ellington, Tangerine Dream, David Sylvian, and Brian Eno. The voice acting all has a dreamlike quality that exactly suits the feel of the game and is therefore also outstanding.  There was absolutely no room for improvement in this category.

Overall, this game is well worth playing. However, I think it would mainly appeal to women because of the level of intuition that is required—it just doesn’t strike me as a man’s game.  I would recommend locating a walkthrough because I guarantee you will need hints from time to time. Blue Ice is unique, artistic, and very fun to play. The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Psygnosis Publisher: Psygnosis Release Date: 1996

Available for: DOS Windows

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Screenshots

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System Requirements

DOS: 4 MB RAM (8 MB recommended) 486DX 33 or greater SVGA 2X CD-ROM (4X recommended) Popular sound card Mouse driver

Windows: 8 MB RAM (16MB recommended) 486DX 50 or greater Win 3.1 or greater 256 color graphics mode (at least 640×480) 2X CD-ROM (4X recommended) Any popular sound card

Where to Find It

      Copyright © Electric Eye Productions.  All rights reserved.  No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.

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14 Responses to Fear Factor

  • Fear Factor | Tap-Repeatedly.com | Reality Topics Blog

    […] nobody@flickr.com (graftedno1) wrote a very interesting post today.   Here’s a quick excerpt:My greatest fear is to be trapped alone in a confined space with a blind human, in total darkness. They have a heightened sense of smell and hearing, and. […]

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Lewis, you made me think of the scariest moments I’ve experienced in gaming, and we’re very similar people.

    Bioshock had two moments – the dentist and the flooded room filled with mannequins.

    Thief had Return to the Cathedral, which was terrifying to me. Thief 3 had Shalebridge Cradle, which is so scary it ought to be fined.

    System Shock 2 kept me on the edge of my seat, but it was more lonely panic than true fear.

    Korsakovia was so scary that I uninstalled it.

    And STALKER. Oh, god, the haunted labs in STALKER. The latter two games don’t have scares like that. Few games do.

    It’s especially rare for a game to have more than mere “moments” – for a game to be scary from beginning to end, that’s a triumph.

    Wonderful article. As if Gregg’s review wasn’t enough to convince me that Penumbra is not something I have the courage to play!

  • DPenn

    I’m with you Lewis … I’m a bit of a puss. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of dread as entertainment.

    Still, I’m drawn to dark stories when they have something interesting to say, whether it’s a game like Thief or a film like, say, Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible. So I’ll push through, sometimes peering through my fingers.

    The trouble with games, though, is that if you look through your fingers, you’re probably just going to have to play through the scenario again. :~)

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    I wanted to play this game. I downloaded the demo but the controls were just too wonky for me to get my head around. I liked the atmospheric vibe a lot. I think I’m a bit desensitized from an overdose of horror movies in my youth so I don’t so much get the dread thing from these games as a nice creepy vibration. If only the controls were better…

  • Lewis B

    @ Mike, what’s wrong with the controls bud? As someone who despises poor control schemes, Penumbra’s is just like any other FPS, except to examine things you right click on them.  To use things you left click.  I’m not sure that can be considered difficult 🙂

  • Gregg B

    @Steerpike: Yeah my greatest shit-scared moments were with those games too. A few spoilers below people, so beware.

    Bioshock – Haha, I remember the dentist. I didn’t really find the game that scary overall but the bit where you go into the wine cellar and notice a mannequin facing the wall and after upgrading your weapon it’s stood directly behind you motionless and quiet just for a moment before attacking you. I shat a brick. I also missed that bit originally until Lew told me about it.

    System Shock 2 – same as you really, more unremitting tension all the way through rather than specific terrifying moments. Oh actually, theres a bit where you call a lift and it breaks then you realise a service droid is coming to fix it… I do remember having sleep issues after my first encounter with the cyborg ninjas though.

    Thief: The Dark Project – The Sword and Return to the Cathedral and Down in the Bonehoard and well, loads of them. The Sword made me break out into goosebumps though because there was a bit where you could hear this creepy giggling which seemed like it was following me about then it suddenly changed to this horrible throaty noise. What made matters worse was that the EAX (bless you Creative) made my foot steps sound like somebody else was there with me. That level was incredible, a bit too incredible as it seems I missed great chunks of it because I was so eager to leave.

    Thief II: The Metal Age – Trail of Blood where you end up in that opening with those damn tree beasts. God the first time I saw one of those hurtling towards me I actually died shortly afterward. Do you remember that Mechanist child walking around on one of the levels? That was a little creepy.

    Then there’s Penumbra: Overture – quite a few bits but I’m not mentioning them here.

    Oh and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – The brain scorcher lab just because it was so damn quiet. My imagination seriously got the better of me there. Those stuffed animals and heads I’d seen in various buildings led me to believe that those creatures were lurking somewhere in the Zone, specifically that lab.

    @Mike: My control setup was perfect after some tweaking (as well as the simple weapon swing fix). If you ever fancy giving it another go, give me a shout and I’ll let you know my setup.

  • Lewis B

    I’m not sure why guys, but one of my starting paragraphs had gone missing, even though I copied it straight from the original source, and It was fine earlier. 

    Incase you missed it due to some technical issue you might want to re-read just after “Well no she wouldn’t in truth, but in Penumbra: Overture you don’t want to move anyway.” at the very start for those who’ve already read the article. Apologies 🙂

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Lewis, it was the weapon swing. It had this terrible, unresponsive feel to it, like trying to hit through molasses. I couldn’t stand using it. I tried the .ini fix as mentioned in the review but it didn’t seem to help. Of course this was the demo…but that shouldn’t have made any difference. I might try the second game instead as I guess they did away with the weapons thing.

    I’m see your first paragraph just fine. It’s the dialogue, right?

  • jdeuel

    I like the argument that weapons can remove fear, but even loaded to the teeth with ammo in AVP’99 the Marine missions were frightful because the enemy was anywhere at any time.

    As for Penumbra Overture, if the controls are anything like the original Penumbra they need to hack in some Wii-Remote 3d controls. I did not like using my mouse for 3d movements.

  • Gregg B

    @Mike: I’ve read that many people avoided conflict altogether in Overture which incidentally is something forced upon you in Black Plague. As somebody who has been renovating a house over the last 6 months with no DIY experience I can safely say that swinging a hammer is significantly easier in real life than it is in Overture without the fix. The fix balanced that for me.

    I’d highly recommend completing the first Penumbra because it’s one big build up to Black Plague which spoils the ending to Overture in the intro. And it’s a great ending too. Just so you know!

  • Lewis B

    @ Steerpike, those moments you mention are all my worst too!!  Do you remember the Robot labs in SS2? Absolutely terrifying, waiting for robots to burst out on you! 🙁 oh and have you ever player Condemned?

    @ Mike, The use of weapons in Penumbra is different to say HL2, where the player is physically holding the weapon, as in Penumbra it floats slightly infront of you.  However, if you change the control method to normal weapon swing, it’s no different!  Speak to Greggi and he’ll tell you what to do 🙂

    @ jdeuel, AVP the original and its sequal were scary however what type of fear do you think it is? I don’t think it’s anything more than sheer tension.  Having a Smart Gun makes you feel incredibly powerful.  I can honestly say in Penumbra the fear is sheer unrivalled terror, where you actually have to force yourself to play on.  It genuinly is that scary! 🙂

  • Jason Dobry

    It’s so true, an arsenal of weapons and ammo rapidly deflates any sense of horror or uneasiness in any game for reasons you already mentioned. Sakey, I thought Bioshock was more “lonely panic,” while I was pretty much always terrified in System Shock 2. I really, really, REALLY did not want to enter The Many’s nursery, and my weapons were so unreliable and ammo so scarce that I never felt safe.

    Silent Hill was terrifying for the same reasons. Ammo was rare and I frequently had to rely on my pipe for self-defense.  Even when I had ammo, the game mechanics prevented my character from being anything other than marginal with any firearm.

    Fear had one moment for me: I was climbing up a ladder, and as I reached the upper platform, my guy briefly looked down as he climbed off. As my perspective looked up again, that Ring-esque little girl was RIGHT THERE, reaching for me. I screamed and she was gone.

    What else…the original Aliens vs. Predator sent me into a locker room and I could only hear the facehuggers scurrying about somewhere within. I had to go in there. I advanced about three steps before the damn thing screamed and filled up my screen with its repulsive underside as it implanted me with its spawn. My roommate made fun of me for weeks for screaming like a girl child.

    Korsakovia–meh.  I was too annoyed and frustrated by the box rearrangement/jumping puzzles to be scared. I uninstalled it after an hour of play, I think. Maybe the scary parts were later, but I doubt it.

    As for Penumbra, I did play through about half of it before other games distracted me. I remember unease and creepiness, but no sweaty fear. I think I’m to blame here, or, more precisely, my daughter, who was still an infant at the time and generally allowed me only to play during the day for 45 minutes at a time. I was denied total immersion and the fear effect suffered. Maybe I should give it another go after I finish Call of Pripyat since she sleeps through the night now. With any luck, Penumbra will keep me from doing the same.

  • Gregg B

    I played the demo of F.E.A.R. but that ladder scare is the only bit I remember. Christ, that made me jump. I’m not too good with cat scares.

    Also I felt exactly the same about Korsakovia. It was creepy at first but then it began to irritate me far too much and it just soured the experience. I stopped playing as a result. Not to mention, when I realised I could bash those smoke-things with my crowbar they didn’t bother me nearly as much.

  • Online Up

    Great article. I look forward to reading more in the future.

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