Temujin

23 October 1997
Updated 16 November 1997

Copyright © 1997 Balmoral Software (http://www.balmoralsoftware.com). 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.

Notice

We invariably reserve judgement on the merits of a game (or the lack of them) until we've played through most of it, but in the case of Temujin we're making an exception. Simply put, we can't recommend you purchase this game. The reason: Southpeak Interactive failed to live up to their own advertising to ship out a demo of the game. We patiently waited a full six weeks, but no show. There was absolutely no explanation, indeed no response of any kind, to repeated e-mails sent to various contacts at Southpeak, including their sales department and webmaster. By this time, the game was available for purchase in many outlets, so any possibility of getting an advance idea of the game's playability was lost. Instead of a response to our queries, we received a bulk e-mail describing how we could get a whopping $5.00 rebate if we went ahead and purchased the game before the end of November 1997. It's not a question of getting burned with an unplayable or buggy game (as long as it is purchased at one of those rare outlets having a generous return policy), but more a matter of principle. Southpeak apparently generated enough advance demand for Temujin without needing to fulfill earlier promises made to visitors to their web page. Their complete lack of response is a cause for concern should any problem develop in the actual game. For this reason alone, Temujin should be avoided.

UPDATE:

We did finally get a chance to play some of Temujin on a friend's computer. What we saw fully reinforced our feeling that Temujin (and its marketing) leave a lot to be desired. Temujin has the absolutely worst gaming interface we've ever seen! Far from being the immersive gameplay engine that Southpeak Interactive has touted it to be, Temujin's "Video Reality technology" is really just a very poorly-designed navigation interface. Supposedly providing full 360-degree movement, rotation halts every few degrees and requires a keystroke or mouse click in order to continue a sideways scan. This in turn causes scans to pass over objects of interest, so navigation quickly becomes frustrating as you try to move back and forth trying to use the cursor on an object.

Graphics consist primarily of photographed locations and so look quite realistic, but they are presented in a miniscule box in the center of the screen, using only about one-quarter of the available area. Combined with the unbelievably-bad navigation engine, the limited size of the graphics make it extremely difficult to get a feel for your location in a room or your surroundings. Navigation was so awkward, we couldn't play more than a few minutes of the game. As a result, we can't comment on any of the other features of the game (puzzles, plot, characters, etc.), but it's hard to believe they could be good enough to elevate Temujin above its poor design.

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