I had heard about this game for many years now (approx. 12 years), from many different sources, magazines, net reviews and so forth. But it was always out of mind for many years, until a few days ago I was looking at old classic PC games for DOS on the web until I came across “Dark Seed II”. This title suddenly awaakened some memories of the things I have read about of this game, having forgotten about it for so long. So like any other person would, I downloaded it.
When I started playing it, it brought back memories of such games like “Sam & Max Hit The Road” and “Day of the Tentacle." If you are familiar with those titles, you would have guessed by now that Dark Seed II is a point and click adventure game. But with one big difference, the game uses actual human actors integrated into the game's graphics instead of comic book drawn characters. This is a very fun addition and does a much better job of advancing the plot throught the cut scenes than a cartoony blurb after you do something well.
Having not played the first game in the series I was a bit skeptical on playing the game, by maybe not knowing the storyline, but
it was quite easy to understand after the first 15 minutes on not knowing what happened in the first game.
“Dark Seed II” starts of as you playing moustached mid-twenties guy named Mike Dawson; he is at first glance a normal, average looking guy who lives with his mum, but some years ago he had many experiences with an alternate reality called the “Dark World”. But no one believed him, so a lot of people thought he was bit of a mental case.
So life seemingly has returned to normal for Mike, but when an old high school friend, (a girlfriend) is murdered (Rita), Mike embarks on a journey to find the killer. At first he is made the prime suspect in the case by the local sheriff, but as his investigation gets more involved Mike realises that there are more sinister forces involved with this murder. With help from odd characters, Mike will find his way from many different locations within the “Normal World” and “Dark World” which are alternate universes that are very similar to each other.
The game play is good and is standard point and click adventure fare. There will be a lot of inventory to collect, some seemingly random puzzles and some very nice scenery for pixel hunting.
The game’s graphics are inspired than none other than H.R Geiger, which he is known famously for graphic portrayal of the 70’s Sci-Fi Horror Classic “Alien”. With rich detailed graphics (especially a game of this time era) of Gothic/Horror detail in the “Dark World” section is fantastic and the “Normal World” graphics are of great detail as well.
Dark Seed II is of moderate difficulty, anyone with a logical brain can get past most of the puzzles without too much trouble but some will have you scratching for head for a while. You must pay attention to what the characters say as they almost always give vital clues in your journey to help you to where to go next.
As an overall game it does very well for its time and considering what other competition it had at the time from various games i.e.: Lucas Arts games. It does very well.
Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Overall: 8.5/10
