Fatshark follows up their release of Lead and Gold with a new puzzle game named Hamilton’s Great Adventure. Hamilton’s Great Adventure tells the tale of Ernest Hamilton, a overweight Indiana Jones look-a-like, as he scours ancient civilizations for treasure while avoiding Lovecraft Cthulu rejects. While the aesthetics and puzzles were very interesting, the story and use of other peoples’s character ideas just made the game itself fall flat. Let’s get into the details of Hamilton’s Great Adventure.
Story:
Hamilton’s Great Adventure is told through a series of flashbacks as Ernest Hamilton tells his granddaughter about his past exploits. These exploits take place in many exotic and ancient civilizations, such as Incan ruins, the Himalayans, Egypt and even Atlantis. Besides the played out search for treasure and glory, there isn’t anything else going on here.
The story of Hamilton’s Great Adventure just left me uninterested. I started off by watching each and every cut scene, but found myself skipping them later in the game. I just felt like I’ve played this game before from the story point of view, and other games have told this story better. You are following a clone of Indiana Jones as he just collects treasure, there’s your story. I feel that if you are going to at least take somebody’s ideas and make a game out of them, at least make it humorous. Magika is a great example of this, the developers took many names and ideas from other properties, but put their own unique humor to tie it all together. Hamilton’s Great Adventure is missing that major key. It just feels like the developers tried to find as many properties that would draw people’s attention to their game.
Gameplay:
Here is where Hamiloton’s Great Adventure at least gets interesting. Each level is designed for you to get from point A to point B, while collecting as much of the treasure as possible. If you just focus on getting the key and leaving the level, you will receive a bronze rating. However, if you take the time to find every piece of treasure on the map, you can raise your ranking by the time you hit the exit.
You have a companion with you in the form of a bird named Sasha. Sasha helps you out by grabbing items and hitting switches that are just out of your reach. Sasha was an interesting idea, but really did not pan out that well for me. I will talk about why a little later in my review.
As you move through the levels, the difficulty will increase. You will run into different types of platforms, like streams or scaffolds, that will change how you move through the level. The game also throws some evil minions at you that you will need to avoid. These minions are based off of Lovecraft’s Cthullu mythos, so you will see Cthullu himself along with some Deep Ones.
In the end, the puzzles were nicely done, but the game itself did not run as well as I would have liked on my PC. Sure, my PC is not a top end machine, but come on, it should have been able to run Hamilton’s Great Adventure better then this! Hamilton moved like a dead, bloated elephant through the maze of puzzles, and Sasha would completely ignore many of the commands that I tried to give her. The leve designs were done quite well, but the actual game play and how the game ran left a lot to be desired.
Aesthetics:
The game is interesting to look at. Yes, many of the items and characters are ripped off from other ideas and stories, but the game itself uses color and design to make the levels interesting by themselves. Hamilton’s Great Adventure is done using a cartoon aesthetic, which fits in perfectly with the overall design of the game. The levels are bright and well done. The character design, however, is strictly taken from other people. Hamilton himself really does just look like a fat Indiana Jones, sporting a mustache instead of a hat.
I wasn’t pleased at all with the sound design of the game either. The voice overs are nothing more then just grunts and groans, even during the cut scenes. Sure, doing voices as mumbles and grunts can work, again I’ll reference Magika, but here the grunts and mumbles are completely done without any type of humor or aesthetic choice. It just feels like a cheap way out for Fatshark. Other then that, the other sounds in the game are passable for a budget title.
Final Thoughts:
Hamilton’s Great Adventure is, overall, a passable puzzle game for $10. The puzzles are interesting and pleasing to look at, but the story and sound aesthetic really left a lot to be desired. If Fatshark would have used their own ideas instead of taking ideas from Indiana Jones or Lovecraft, Hamilton’s Great Adventure could have stood on it’s own. Instead, you are constantly comparing certain aspects to the original sources that Fatshark borrowed from. If you are looking for a budget puzzle game that is not from Pop Cap, Hamilton’s Great Adventure is worth some time, but other than that I would just say skip it.
