Majestic Part One: Alien Encounter is a very short but super fun game that was created by Istvan Pely, who also created other short science fiction oriented games, such as Zero Critical and Symbiocom’s Syn-Factor. It features a great story line that is deep and engrossing, which is one of the things…along with good puzzles…that can hold an adventure game together. It offered a manual that was complete in several languages, making it a great play globally. A dedicated gamer could complete the whole game in perhaps six hours or less, making it an awesome rainy day play.
The story centers around a luxury liner, similar to modern day cruise ships, the SS Majestic. The main difference, of course, is that the Majestic is made to travel through space. The story of the Majestic is somewhat Titanic-esque. She is driven to almost unrealistic hype before her maiden voyage and is touted as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Similar to the Titanic, her first trip ends in disaster, only she is in space. Instead of hitting an iceberg and sinking, she simply disappears. She is deemed lost forever, until the Venus Observatory identifies a call for rescue in a distant nebula and identifies the signal as that of the Majestic. You will be in charge
of investigating.
Here is where the game starts to get fun and challenging. You will find the wreck of the Majestic and will be able to use and control four different exploratory nodes to search for clues, remains and survivors. You control all of them from your shuttle, which is fast paced multi tasking bit of fun. They flit around and dart from place to place, and by striking buttons in your control shuttle, you can switch your view from node to node, effectively moving from map to map within the game. You are not required to use multiple nodes if you don’t want to, but if you choose to, only one is allowed in a single location. Each node features a computer, a scanner, a grappling arm and a simple cutting torch. You will also control assignments on these features from the shuttle. Sometimes the node will locate a computer program at specific sites. Uploading them to your system will allow you to perform unique tasks with that node, likely necessary for solving puzzles in that area.
The puzzles you find are odd and mysterious, possibly to reflect the theme of the game. It is more mental than inventory based, making for a refreshing change. It is an interesting play that should be given a one time go.
