The Forgotten: It Begins … Review

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The Forgotten: It Begins …

Review by Jen

A bit in the way of background: “It Begins …”  was the first in a planned series of seven The Forgotten games.  According to the information at the start of the game, you are just supposed to get your feet wet and get a feel for the controls, the basics of the story, etc. The designers said they have already begun work on parts 2 and 3, “The Collection” and “Anasazi,” and they said the games will become progressively more difficult and more technologically up-to-date. Supposedly, you would find items in this first installment that you won’t need until subsequent installments. It later came to pass, since this review was originally written, that the series was cancelled, i.e., “It Ends …”

Story

“It Begins …” with you trapped in a study. Whose study is it? Where are you? Who are you? How come you can’t leave?  You look around a bit and do some reading, find a gun and a pocketwatch, poke around some more, and finally find a mysterious card. You click on the card, and suddenly … you are traveling through time and space. “Huh?” you say, “what gives?”  Well, ever the intrepid adventurer, you look around your new surroundings, literally a road to nowhere, lined with buildings. You turn around in an attempt to see where you came from, and there is a gate with spots for three cards. You put the mysterious card from the study in one of the spots, and voila! it fits … but nothing happens. You figure you need the other two cards to return to wherever it was you came from, so you take your card back and go exploring. There’s not much you can do in any of the buildings except an old, dusty, abandoned, slightly creepy apothecary shop.  What do you find there? Where to next? Where are those two other cards? Who are the Forgotten? Who are the Collectors? Enough clues are scattered around that by the end of the game, I was totally sucked in by the plot, but the game ended extremely abruptly, in an attempt to leave one salivating for the second installment, I guess. It’s kind of like that Stephen King series, The Green Mile, where instead of buying one moderate to large paperback, you were supposed to buy six slim volumes, all at near full price, just to read one stinking story (which I never did, by the way).  And then on top of that, since I couldn’t go buy the second game right away, there’s no way I would have remembered everything from the first game anyway even had the second one ever been released.  The plot would have been great had it been fleshed out more, and fully realized, and stood alone, but as it is, it engendered a state of sheer pissiness on my part.

Graphics

The graphics are nice but slow-loading. This is a Quicktime game; I am beginning to hate Quicktime games. You always have to click to see something or move and then wait for a long time (we’re talking entire seconds here, not microseconds, and they add up quickly, especially when there’s a lot of backtracking) to see whatever you’re aiming at. The scenery in “It Begins …”  is all very nicely drawn. There are not many animations, but they are also well-done. There is one in particular that was spectacular.  You are at the end of a sewer tunnel wading in the muck, and you look down at the water and get your finger-pointing cursor. You can touch the water as many times as you want, wherever you want, and get little ripples that overlap each other wherever you click—it is totally realistic and totally pointless, but I wanted the designers to know I appreciate those little touches.

Sounds/Music

The sound effects are sometimes annoying but mostly well-placed and effective. There are a couple of spots where there is a clock tick-tick-tick-tick-ticking, ad infinitum, to no discernable end, and that got on my nerves in a big way. There is also a squeaky sign flapping in the wind that was too realistic—I wanted to oil my computer—but that was mercifully short. That was the annoying stuff; the rest of the effects were just there to do their job. The music should have been left out altogether.  The introductory and ending music was lovely, but the in-game music consisted of as few as two or as many as ten notes repeated over and over again, slowly, so as to sound dirge-like.

Interface/Gameplay

This is a standard point-and-click interface with inventory, but additionally there is an area called “collection,” which is where your more permanent items go, for example, the card that carries you out of the study. The onscreen inventory gets filled up with about four or five items, and then you must move it to the offscreen inventory to get room for new items, but I rather liked this feature because of the lack of clutter.  The “collection” works the same way, but I never got more than two things in it, so I suppose the designers were planning for the future installments with that one. There are a lot of red herrings. There are inventory items that never get used, like the original pocketwatch and gun, and I never did find all three cards to return through the gate, all due to the incompleteness factor. On the plus side, this is one of the very few games where I never needed a hint. You never die, there are no mazes, and there are no sliding tile puzzles, all of which are good for brownie points in my book.

Overall

I feel gypped by dint of not getting a full game. This series idea would have been okay if each game stood on its own merits and subsequent games simply built upon each other to fully flesh out the game world; however, here it results in an incomplete game. I certainly hope future game designers chuck the serial concept for the next game in favor of a series. Despite all my criticisms, The Forgotten was fun and interesting to an extent.

I am unsure whether this type of an easy, short game is a good way to attract future adventure gamers; on the one hand, they may find they really like adventure games, the slower pacing, the cerebralness, the (usually) strong stories, but on the other hand, they may wonder whether all adventure games leave you hanging in such a rude manner. The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Ransom Interactive Publisher: Dreamcatcher Release Date: November 1999

Available for: MacintoshWindows

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Screenshots

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System Requirements

PC: Windows 98/95 Pentium 133 MHz 16 MB RAM 8x CD-ROM drive or faster

Mac: PowerPC 133 MHz 24x CD-ROM drive 32 MB RAM minimum, 64 MB preferred

Both: 130 MB free disk space Requires QuickTime 3.0 or higher (Quicktime installer included on CD)

Where to Find It

Check the Game TZ

      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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