Mini-review of Safecracker Introduction: Safecracker is not a game everyone will enjoy, but it certainly kept my wife and I happy for several evenings. There is very little plot to the game; you must crack all the safes in a house as an advanced "job interview" with a safe manufacturing company. The rest of the game consists of a sequence of safes which you must open. No danger, no action, no interaction with any characters, just one puzzle after another, all while wandering through an old mansion. Graphics (quality, animations, cut scenes): The game is set inside a large mansion, with a safe in almost every room. It has secret passageways, little corners, offices, libraries, and so on. The graphics are acceptable, but certainly not oustanding by current standards. The game engine is based on Quicktime, and the virtual reality display did not cover the entire screen. Instead, you had to watch a window into the world, with this big, clunky looking control panel which covered the bottom and sides of the display. This game could have used a better graphics engine, since the actual house interiors were very well designed and quite pretty. I *really* wanted full screen display. The cut scenes were mostly of a safe mechanism opening, or shots of the camera view moving from one location to another (like climbing stairs or watching the elevator walls jiggle). About the only good thing I can say about the Quicktime engine was that it gave you full viewing control of inventory objects; you could tilt, rotate and spin them to your hearts content. Sound (music, voices, special effects) The music selection was very nice, but I ended up turning the volume down very soon; instead of a full musical piece, the game played the same bar or musical phrase over and over again until you moved to another room. Story (plot, theme, depth): As I have already mentioned, there isn't much of a story here. There was exactly enough story to provide a reason to be opening all these safes. I will give the game designers credit for one thing -- they didn't invent a story where I had to be a thief. It's nice to be doing something legal in a game. Characters (depth, development, interaction): No other characters, not even security guards. The closest to character interaction you get in this game is trying to figure out the developer's mindset from some of the jokes that you run into during the game. Puzzles (difficulty, uniqueness, suitability, ugliness, linearity): The entire game had a 12 hour time limit, with this clock displayed on the control panel to remind you. I hate timed games, and was ready to throw this one in the trash for that reason. However, the good news is this: the saved games are normal text files, which you edit to set the clock to whatever time you want. As a result, I ignored the time limits, and I don't even know what happens to you if you take too long. Some of the puzzles were just too easy. You could solve them by trial and error even before you found the clues. One puzzle (slot machine) seemed way too long and pointless, and a peek at the walkthrough revealed that it had nothing to do with the core part of the game at all. I wish they had mentioned this is the manual, since it would have saved us a lot of tedium. There was a slider puzzle, and to make matters even worse, it was buggy. Some of the random starting positions were not solvable, so you had to back off and start all over again. There was one music puzzle which may give some people grief. My wife is good and picking out tunes on a piano in different keys, so she got it right away. It would have driven me to a walkthrough almost immediately. I wish more of the safes had been hidden and integrated with the house. As it was, most of them were just sitting there on a table, which ruined some of the fun. Controls (user interface, save/restore, sound/video adjustments): The game was completely controlled by the mouse, and fairly easy to use. Hold the mouse button down to spin around in place, and click the button to move or interact with objects. The inventory slider bar was very touchy. I had a lot of trouble getting it to stop at a point where I wanted, and usually had to go back and forth a few times before I got the inventory item I wanted in view. Bugs or problems: The game did not change my screen resolution for me, which usually meant I had to exit the game, change the resolution, and start again. The game did not remember the setting for music on/off. The game did not remember where my save game directory was, and always wanted me to put them in "My Documents". This got irritating enough that I finally gave up and put them there. Install/Uninstall: Safecracker installed cleanly, and didn't put anything where it shouldn't have. It also uninstalled completely and correctly (it did leave my saved games behind, and never asked if it should delete those). Quicktime was it's usual ugly, nasty installation. It put 39 files into my Windows and Windows\System directories and modified a huge number of registry keys. When uninstalling it, it left almost all the registry keys behind, and some files as well. I really do hate Quicktime. Pros: It's fun to wander around a nice old house and solve puzzles Some truly unique puzzles A fairly good sense of humour throughout Saved games can be modified easily to set time back Cons: Some puzzles to easy to solve by trial and error 12 hour time limit to play entire game It used Quicktime as a game engine Graphics weren't full screen Music repeats same bar over and over Inventory scroll isn't very controllable Slider puzzle bug Had to change resolution before starting game One music puzzle Didn't remember music on/off settings Didn't remember selected save directory (My Documents always) Conclusion: Safecracker isn't a great game, but I still enjoyed it. I like wandering around in new surroundings and solving puzzles to get at yet more areas to explore. The developer's sense of humour also helped make the game more enjoyable. It had a fair number of flaws, but I would still recommend it to anyone that likes this kind of puzzle game.