Puzz3D: Notre Dame Cathedral Review

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            Puzz3D: Notre Dame Cathedral

Review by OrbMarch 2002

I recently tried playing a real live jigsaw puzzle with a couple of family members. Remember those? Game pieces that actually get held in your hand? Elbows kick pieces onto the floor; your head begins to throb as you cannot see all the pieces on the table with your reading glasses either on or off? Neck strains and stiffens?  Gee, what fun. Let me tell ya, virtual is better.

The best part of a virtual jigsaw puzzle, of course, is that you don’t get to the end of it and realize that you are missing three pieces that have been lost from the box. And those last five pieces? Why, those are from another puzzle entirely.

Notre Dame Cathedral is played in the same way as the other Puzz3D titles. These are very clever games, and the person who thought up the idea of assembling a 3D puzzle in a virtual setting, then allowing the player to be drawn into the assembled building to explore and enjoy a small adventure game, ought to be given a gold star.

The puzzle portion of the game is extremely addictive. There are many perks throughout to assist you in assembling the pieces and a variety of strategies that you can use to put them together.  The game gives you the option of trays that can be used to separate out pieces in color or style sections, and these can either be locked at the bottom of the game screen or kept on the assembly table.

As sections are completed, you are given snippets of videos detailing the historical significance of the section of the cathedral that’s just been completed, and the stories behind these sections are interesting and entertaining. Studying them, however, is not necessary to study to complete the game, and they can be skipped completely if one so wishes.

You are given a number of snazzy tools to fiddle with to assist you in the assembly of the cathedral: stats by which you can gauge your success rate in completing the game at a festive clip, sections of the cathedral to study, instructions to refer to covering the structure of the puzzles and how they are to be assembled.

The game overall can be played at three difficulty levels, as is true for all of the Puzz3D games. The only level worth its weight is “platinum;” at this level the puzzle consists of almost a thousand pieces, but once completed, the resultant mini adventure game can be fully played in its entirety, and all areas that can be explored in the cathedral are open. At the two earlier levels, access to exploration is curtailed to much less of the cathedral.

Once the puzzle is completed, you are allowed inside the Notre Dame cathedral to explore and enjoy a small adventure game. The story of the adventure game lifts its characters from Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The places in the cathedral that can be gotten into are tightly controlled, and you are pretty much led from one area to the next. Each open area contains a hotspot containing some stones for inventory and a cheesy video with bad acting. As the environments are navigated, the stones are collected in inventory, along with clues that enable you to put them together in the correct order to complete the game.

Throughout the game, there are small videos of characters from the story of the cathedral and, later in the adventure portion of the game, from the Victor Hugo tale. These are played by what looks suspiciously like the crew from the deli down the street from where the game was built. It’s a real “hey you!”  cast. This would be disconcerting except for the fact that there are so many other clever and interesting things about the game that the bad acting, in this instance, can truly be forgiven. 

The game ran buggy in the adventure portion, on a 466 MHz iBook, with frequent crashes and dumps to the desktop. This has also occurred to the same degree with the Victorian Mansion Puzz3D, so it appears that the quality control on the Mac ports is consistently lacking. They have, of course, solved this with their most recent title by not bothering to port it to the Mac at all.

Puzz3D: Notre Dame Cathedral is a very enjoyable game for any lover of puzzles and adventure games. You get two bangs for the buck with both the puzzle and adventure games included. The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Wrebbit Interactive Publisher: Wrebbit Interactive Release Date: 1999

Available for: Macintosh Windows

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System Requirements

Windows: Windows 95 or higher Pentium 100 MHz (200 MHz recommended) 16 MB of RAM (24 MB recommended) Microsoft compatible mouse 45 MB free (21 MB for files, 24 MB for virtual memory) 640×480, 16-bit colors, DirectX certified video driver (1 MB of cache video memory is recommended) 2X CD-ROM drive (minimum)

Macintosh: MacOS 7.5 or higher PowerPC 80 MHz (200 MHz recommended) 20 MB of RAM (32 MB recommended) 32 MB free 640×480, 16-bit colors 2X CD-ROM drive (minimum)

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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