n a warm sunny morning in 1908, a brilliant meteor sped across the Siberian sky. A few seconds later trees were flattened for thousands of miles around the Tunguska taiga. Approximately 50,000 caribou perished, but there were no human casualties (there weren't a whole lot of shopping malls in Siberia in 1908, not like now). The explosion was equivalent to a 10-megaton blast, 500 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb.
That real-life event sets the stage for Project 2's Tunguska: Legend of
Faith, a science fiction/fantasy game that blends
puzzle solving, point-and-click adventuring, action, and 3-D fighting.
The story picks up four years after the cataclysmic Tunguska event, when several enigmatic monks living near the disaster area find an artifact that they believe was given to them by God. The monks establish a secret order that worships the artifact--an alien/machine hybrid--and in return they receive potent extraterrestrial knowledge. They build a fortress to house the alien entity, which then calls for human sacrifices and the building of strange machines. These machines spawn still stranger creatures, and the plot thickens from there.
In the game players take on the role of reluctant hero Jack Riley, a man who has been sentenced to death for slaughtering a Tunguska monk sect, even though the "murder" was actually a mass suicide. Jack is sent to the electric chair, and after a short nightmare sequence he wakes up in the alien fortress. Players take control of Jack using a cinematic third-person perspective that looks and feels much like Capcom's popular Resident Evil series. They can also switch to "fight mode" for close encounters with enemies, while a point-and-click interface is used for some puzzle solving.
Mixing it up with monks
Tunguska is similar to benchmark adventures such as Alone in the Dark and the previously mentioned Resident Evil. The downside to using this cinematic approach--as opposed to the "chase-camera" view used in games such as Tomb Raider--is that players may become confounded as they try to maneuver a character who is tucked away in a small, perspective-skewed portion of the screen. However, the adversity is tolerable, especially since the game's graphics are exquisite and the imagery is breathtaking. And because Jack is controlled using a fixed set of keys, gamers won't lose their bearings when moving from one screen to the next, which would
otherwise seriously hamper gameplay, especially during fight sequences.
Speaking of fighting, brawling with monks and alien foes is one of the pure joys of Tunguska. Though the game is not a genuine 3-D fighter, the combat sequences are extraordinary. Both Jack and his foes behave intelligently and realistically, so things like missed punches or kicks won't necessarily leave opponents open to attack. And, although the "fight mode" must be activated, once it is, characters will remain focused on the battle at hand. A long round-house kick, for example, will track a dodging opponent rather than simply hitting the air where the opponent once was. It's refreshing to play a fighting game that is intelligent yet still exciting and brutish.
But Tunguska is not all about combat. The game is also very much an adventure that forces players to explore not only their surroundings but also the character of Jack Riley. There is also a good deal of traditional puzzle and problem solving as Jack sets about finding three Talismans of Faith, Hope and Love (puh-leeze) in order to redeem his char-broiled soul and save the world. As noted, Tunguska will occasionally resort to point-and-click mouse control when players encounter various obstacles, secret means of access and/or pitfalls. At other times gamers will roam around the fortress using real-time control as they attempt to execute precision jumps, tucks-and-rolls or dekes...or combinations of all three.
While Tunguska is generally combat/action oriented, it is by no means a fast-paced, adrenaline-pumping adventure. It's more leisurely and decidedly calmer than a simple action title, blending familiar elements in a way that feels fresh, vital and virtually peerless.
