Windows Phone Thoughts: Atlantis Redux reviewed

Tapping on the screen starts the dialogue. Sometimes it's a fixed exchange between yourself and the character, in which case the characters are shown saying their words, along with the text on the screen. The dialogue is very high quality but sometimes slips out of synchronisation with what is happening on the screen. One of the downsides of these fixed exchanges is that you can't skip through them as you can in, say, FADE. This means that if you've reloaded to a point you previously reached, you've got no choice but to sit through the dialogue again.


Figure 8: A fixed exchange of words.

More normally, though, when you start a dialogue, you will be given a number of icons representing topics to talk about, as shown in Figure 9. This is typical of games of this genre, where you are given a choice of dialogue topics.


Figure 9: Four things to talk about.

The third method of interacting with the game is puzzles. When you come across a puzzle that you need to solve, the display will often change to display a cog wheel, as shown in Figure 10. I say "often" because, just sometimes, the game gets a bit tricky and doesn't show the cog wheel until you try to use an object you are carrying with the background. Another way that the game can be tricky is that it might show you the cog wheel but tapping on it does nothing - often this is an indication that there is something you can do here but you don't yet have all the bits you need.


Figure 10: A puzzle to solve?

The last way you can interact with the game is through taking objects and then using them. As Figure 11 shows, the display changes to a hand and tapping on the screen adds the object to your inventory.


Figure 11: Take it - you know that you want to!