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Review
A direct sequel to Gateway, I was psyched to finally sit down and play one of the more heralded games by Legend about Frederick Pohl’s Heechee Saga. While it’s a well built game and has several high moments, I was overall disappointed, only because it failed to be as excellent as its predecessor.
Following the events of the first game, you’ve retired wealthy from your collection of Heechee technology. The game begins with you watching television when you get a video call from your previous employer, letting you know there’s an artifact outside of Pluto that they believe is an active Heechee ship. He asks that you consider joining an expedition given your expertise. However, you quickly realize this is a set-up and you’re a marked man.
The last game by Legend to employ a text parser, Gateway II does an excellent job with its implementation. While a noun and verb list are available, the parser understands quite a bit and I rarely found myself trying to guess the correct phrasing. This is proven right away with a tense chase scene, a rarity with text adventures. While pressed for time, I wasted no turns battling with the parser and felt a rush of satisfaction when I solved some clever puzzles and escaped alive on my first try.
The graphics engine is identical to its predecessor. Each scene has a hand-drawn still graphic that helps capture the environment. Conversations happen on another screen with a better detailed image of who you’re talking to. And there are several animated cut-scenes that are low-res but still pretty. The music, on the other hand, is a disappointment, with repetitive digitized tracks that began to wear on me after a while.
Your adventure takes you to the Heechee ship and beyond as you learn significantly more about this race. Without spoiling the details, I didn’t find this an entertaining this time around, perhaps because a lot of the mystery was resolved and, while powerful and technologically advanced, the race just isn’t different enough from humans to be interesting. On the other hand, my favorite part of the game sees you on an ice planet with a crystalline species called Kords, capable of telepathic imagery and exceptional mimicry skills. Their history and societal structure is significantly more compelling than the race the game is about. There’s also a spot where you can talk to several people who don’t realize they’re dead but whose personalities are stored in a computer; there’s no puzzles involved, but I found the conversations entertaining.
The game is also disappointingly linear. The first game was relatively open world for a good majority, allowing you to travel to different planets at will and work on several puzzles at a time. Here, if you get stuck, you’re pretty much stuck. While this isn’t a huge problem at the beginning, the game’s final section has many puzzles that stretch credibility, and I began to seek out hints frequently due to exhaustion. At least the game shipped with a hint book, a rarity in 1993. One nice feature is the game often advising you to undo your last move if you’ve put yourself in an unwinnable situation (of which there are few).
Conversations (text only) are also underwhelming. There is little to do other than exhaust topics. You can return to conversations repeatedly, but few characters ever have anything more to say, and continuity is ruined as they almost never update their responses based on subsequent actions you’ve taken.
While I was a but underwhelmed by the ending and a little tired at the end, I raced through the game rather quickly, a testament to its entertainment value, especially early on. If you enjoyed the first game, then Gateway II is definitely worth a play.
