Bioscopia is an excellent adventure from Heureka-Klett that truly lives up to the "edutainment" billing. The editorial review at Amazon.com says it all about this little-known underdog: "Winner of the 2002 Bologna New Media Prize, this "science conquers evil" adventure offers a compelling mystery within an eerie, Myst-like environment. In fact, the game is much more "Myst" than science tutor-- players spend most of their time exploring strange locales, searching for clues and collecting needed items. Here's the premise: a young biologist has discovered the abandoned research station, Bioscopia. In Indiana Jones fashion, she enters and the big door closes behind her. Now she's trapped, and what's worse, she's contracted a deadly virus put forth by renegade robots. Fortunately, she's able to send out one last transmission which you, the player, pick up. Players must search the disabled, abandoned lab, solve biology puzzles and eventually create the antibiotic that will ultimately save the biologist. This is no easy task-- we became stuck many times and ended up needing the help file (located on the first CD-ROM as a PDF) too frequently. It's not that the puzzles themselves are that hard to solve; there is help available in a science "database" of sorts on the lab grounds. Rather, finding necessary objects and knowing how to use them aren't always clear. Science puzzle content deals with botany, mitosis, cell biology, animal behavior and so on. Logic and memory skills are required throughout. This is a captivating but very difficult game, heavy on logic, light on actual science content. Plan on spending a long weekend on this one." A truly outstanding title that should appeal to both fans of traditional point-and-click adventure, and anyone looking for a good way to learn about biology. The game is also one of those that probably slipped under the radar for most adventure game fans, due to its billing as a "children's title" ;) Highly recommended! Reviewed by: Underdogs |