Today is another Ben Jordan adventure game! Wow, Ben Jordan seems to be getting a lot of cases under his belt now. The Skunk Ape, the lost galleon of the Salton Sea and now his third adventure, The Sorceress of Smailholm. I keep wanting to say Snail home but Smailholm it is. This time it takes place in Scotland… oooh spooky Scotland, land of Highland Flings, Caber-tossing, and the most horrifying thing of all HAGGIS! (No offense to the Scottish but I think minced sheep heart, lungs and liver with oatmeal, suet, and onions boiled in an animals stomach is pretty darn scary!) Since I am going to be revising the format a bit, I should start by saying what I think of it. So here it is.
What I think of it: It doesn’t seem much different than case 2 in graphics and design, however an interesting story coupled with a “competitor” for Ben Jordan makes up for that. Ben Jordan’s 3rd case is fairly solid. Details after the break.
The Break.
Now the details.
The Details:
The game still uses the same interface as Ben Jordan 2 does. Right click to switch through icons, or click on the drop down bar. Drag inventory items on to stuff. This is the actual Sierra-style mouse interface that started with Space Quest 4 and King’s Quest 5. The graphics are still amateur looking (Sorry Francisco). Ben’s face looks long like a horses face, and sort of smashed in. It’s quite humorous to watch him talk. The music is still as great as ever. The story is interesting as the other two. The puzzles aren’t too difficult so far. I haven’t had to look in a walkthrough yet. Whereas, there were several seemingly illogical puzzles in Case 2. The biggest problem for these games is that you don’t always know you can go off screen, and sometimes when you attempt to test the boundaries in windowed mode you end up off the window.
Oh, heh heh, I almost forgot to talk about the story. Today must be upside-down day as we started with my final analysis, which is now called “What I think of it”. Sounds like the name of a new game show. The game where you present everyday items and I tell you “What I think of it”. Okay so what *is* the game about? As I was saying earlier it’s set in Scotland. Apparently two children have been murdered, and the whole town suspects witches! It’s up to Ben to crack the case, as usual, except this is unusual. See there’s this English professor named Percival Quentin Jones. He doesn’t believe in the supernatural, ghosts, witches, and all that junk. No he’s a snobby, stuffy, British professor type, and he doesn’t like Ben at all! Ben doesn’t like him either, and I don’t like him either. I imagine him having a Terry Thomas type of accent. Anyways he tells Ben in no uncertain terms to stay out of his way. Of course Ben was sent for and a case is a case, and men are men and women are women, and I’m, well, me. Anyways, this may be Ben’s toughest case yet.
This is Keith Weatherby II signing off.
Name: Ben Jordan Case 3: The Sorceress of Smailholm
Developer: Grundislav Games
Price: Free
Where you can get it: Here – Ben Jordan Case 3
Tags: Adventure, ags, Ben Jordan, Casual, free, Freeware, fun, game, games, Grundislav Games, independent, Indie, point'n'click, retro styled, review, reviews, windows