Zoo Map
Copyright © 1997 Balmoral Software (http://www.balmoralsoftware.com). Portions copyright © 1996 Maxis, Inc. and Some Interactive. All rights reserved. Republication, redistribution or conversion is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Balmoral Software. Contents subject to change! For the latest information, see http://www.balmoralsoftware.com.
On the positive side, Crystal Skull has fairly impressive background graphics, as well as an effective and educational feature by which various examples of Aztec culture are optionally presented throughout gameplay. The game can be played from any of its three CD's, with some scenes overlapping to minimize CD swapping. There is a save-game overwrite warning. Music is pretty good, with period instruments frequently used, adding to the atmosphere of the game. The player movement interface is standard mouse point-and-click, and does not use the keyboard.
Due to frequently-changing POV directions, particularly in the early stages of the game at locations in the zoo and city, you may find it difficult keeping your bearings, even after obtaining a rather-sketchy "map" from the Shaman early in the game. Our maps of the zoo and city, showing possible movement directions for your character, may come in useful.
Unfortunately, the extremely-linear gameplay of Crystal Skull precluded any workaround for logic bugs found in the game. We'll discuss a few specifics here, so if you want to keep the entire gameplay a surprise, skip this section. The first error we noticed was that it was possible to obtain a duplicate Eagle guard costume by revisiting the closet of of the Priest's Room after the guard had been knocked out. By again climbing the shelves to the top and then leaving the closet, it was possible to click on the guard's body to pick up another copy of his white costume. We didn't try this again, but one wonders if the process could be repeated over and over. At any rate, the costume was of no help in the Market, for neither copy could be given to the green-loincloth merchant - clicking on the icons merely produced a red "not available" indication. Secondly, we found it was never possible to win the shell game played by the Howard Stern lookalike in the Market. The QuickTime movie files for a different outcome are indeed on the CD, but never played for us, even after repeated trials. Of course, since we had only one cacao bean with which to play, we had to restore a saved game each time we lost the shell game, even though the sitting character offers us a replay. All possible combinations were tried with everyone else in the Market, but to no avail - it simply was impossible to obtain any extra beans and progress in the inventory exchanges anywhere beyond the rope stage.
Consulting the game's README.WRI file (which is actually written in Microsoft Word and is unreadable in Write) was of no help. The bugs were not recognized by Some Interactive technical support, and no response at all was received from Maxis. No information on a game patch was found anywhere on the web. Regardless of whether the stumbling blocks we encountered are true logic bugs, or parts of an extremely-obscure linear gameplay, we cannot recommend The Crystal Skull.
Copyright © 1997 Balmoral Software (http://www.balmoralsoftware.com). Portions copyright © 1996 Maxis, Inc. and Some Interactive. All rights reserved. Republication, redistribution or conversion is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Balmoral Software. Contents subject to change! For the latest information, see http://www.balmoralsoftware.com.
