Zero Critical, also marketed as Satin Rift, is a science fiction themed game that was released for Windows in the late nineties. It is meant as a true sequel to the game Majestic, release just a few years earlier. It is a third-person, top down adventure game.
Chatt Rhuller has been assigned to the planet of eternal daylight, Rhoem 1. He is an Interstellar Transportation Commission field agent sent to the SATIN research facility on Rhoem to investigate the killing of a scientist by another scientist.
It is rumored that the planet causes people to go insane, making people question Dr. Frayne’s claim that she had acted in self defense. As Chatt becomes delayed on the planet, he discovers some unusual goings on as the madness continues to spread. The game play takes place over four days, adding the stereotypical adventure game time limit to the plot.
The story is a good one and the characters are well-developed and three-dimensional. There are aspects of a murder mystery, a love story, and the classic alien-ridden science fiction adventure all rolled up into the same tale. There is a lot going on to keep the gamer wanting to advance the plot. However, the game is fairly linear and simple, and it will not take
long to complete…maybe four or five hours. At least, however, the puzzles make sense and fit logically within the context of the story, even if they are a bit too easy. The game world is also small, adding to the ease of the game and the short finishing time.
The interface is a standard one for a point and click adventure game, using the mouse to acquire items, use inventory tools, and examine objects. The inventory bar resides at the bottom of the screen and is always visible. Dialogue is in the form of a canned series of texts. There is no voice acting. The gamer has to rely upon his or her imagination to determine the mood of the non-playing characters with whom you will interact. Still, the soundtrack is good (if you can get the sound to work through the bugs) and the incidental ambient noises add nicely to the game play. The game’s creator was a graphic artist, and the drawings are realistic and fun, but not very colorful. They are still 90’s graphics, but they are still very good overall.
In short, this is a good enough game for a download. It has a good story with a lot of interesting elements in it, and it is very logical and linear. It would actually make a good tutorial for the beginning adventure gamer since it is short, features a standard interface, and does not offer frustrating, illogical puzzles.
