The Daedalus Encounter

1995 Mechadeus
Designed by Mark Giambruno, Ned Miller
Reviewed 1995 June 1

Rating -5 Linearity straight
Reasonability deductive Connectivity minimal
Difficulty pedestrian Relevance weak
Interface 1st paned menu Real-time occasional

You are a member of a team of interstellar salvagers. You were human, but were blown to bits -- now you're a brain in a box with a small robotic waldo to act as your hands and eyes. Your ship crashes into a huge alien ship, and you must explore it to try and find a way to either repair your ship or to operate the alien ship. Unfortunately, all of the occupants of the alien ship have been killed.

The Daedalus Encounter is a sequence of logic puzzles interspersed in a sci-fi video. There is little relationship between the puzzles and the story. Most of the puzzles are minor variations on old puzzles and games. They're okay if you're new at puzzles, but they're not interesting if you've been around the block. It could still have been entertaining if the story was interesting, but all we're given is a tedious collection of clichés.

The game plays slowly. You have to wait through rather long stretches of video clips to get to the parts where you actually do something. Not so bad the first time through, but very annoying when you're restoring a game, or backing up from a fatal incident. There's also the drawback that there is very little range in what you can do because of the physical limitations of your character.

The story line is fixed, and you are just along to solve puzzles when Ari asks. Things pick up in the endgame. You get to wander about as you will, and you actually need some story knowledge to overcome the last challenge.

The Daedalus Encounter looks like a game that was rushed to market by the advertising department. There is no creativity in the story and little innovation in the puzzles. It looks cool and has a big name star, but the game aspect is very weak.


Solution by me.


David Tanguay's Game Reviews
Here's a description of all the gobbledygook in these reviews. It's also a bit of an essay on the nature of adventure games.