Inca II (1993)

Name:Inca II
Number:220
Year:1993
Publisher:Sierra
Developer:Coktel Vision
Genre:Space Simulation/Adventure
Difficulty:3/5
Time:5 hours 20 minutes
Won:Yes (91W/70L)

I don't understand this game. Why it exists, what they tried to do with it, and what they expected people to get out of it. We're four games deep into Coktel Vision's space action games, and while we're slightly better in combat than we were in 1990, we're just getting to, well, it's acceptable, while the rest of the game has been suffering more and more. Galactic Empire had an excuse, it was 1990 and nobody knew what the hell a first-person shooter was, Inca II does not.

My best guess for all this, is that the people assigned to do a game with space combat were not fans of space combat games. They had a list, and had to stick with it. Of course, they didn't put any effort into the adventure game portion either, but we expect adventure games from Coktel, not space sims. The attempts at making the plot more shifting feels like it was taken from space games, since Wing Commander is the only game of this era that actually managed to do something like that.

Which goes all out the window when I look at the credits and see names that were the previous games, some even worked on E.S.S., so they believed in this idea. How are they six games deep into this vague concept and nowhere near being better than when they started? I realize that outside of E.S.S., it's all been downhill score-wise, but that hides that Galactic Empire and Inca were both more about the experiences than the actual gameplay.

He's spying on you!

Inca II is not really about the experience. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the game has the balls to treat its characters like people and to kill off a main character, but it doesn't keep itself going after that. When I started, I kept thinking about Krull, a visually interesting movie with an unimportant story. Inca treated its world of a resurrected Incan figure in space as completely sane despite being, well, crazy, and I thought Inca II was trying to make the story grounded, the forces of good are just Incan-inspired, the bad guys are just Spanish-inspired.

These space combats are the only place where the story choices matter, you get more if you chose certain actions, which may make the last one easier.

The plot goes off the rails when the main character, Atahualpa, dies and we're forced to play as the main character from the first game, Eldorado. Despite the promises of a branching story, there seems to be no way to avoid this. It's at this point that ideas seem to be pulled from places that have no place belonging in the story as previously established. Every planet seems to have a random person on it who seemingly could not have gotten there and there are frequently no signs of anyone else. It's not surreal, it's ill-fitting.

Eldorado is weird this time around. In combat, he's very obviously mortal, but the existence of his powers implies something a lot more is going on. Most of the game is dedicated to laying down his powers to destroy a great asteroid threatening the Earth, but not that it's going to crash into the planet. At other times, he seems subservient to people he shouldn't be subservient to, like his wife or someone who is effectively a random guy on the council he set up.

WHAT!?

To top it all off, we don't even get a resolution to the game, at the end it turns out that a here-to-unmentioned god (Unless you count the European title) got awakened, presumably by Eldorado, and then does some stuff. It's not even a sudden downer, he just comes back and shoves off. Nor is it a Cthulhu Ex Machina. What was the point of anything then!?

Getting to the gameplay, we now just have space shooting sections and adventure sections, no more ground combat. I can't help but feel that this change is for the worse, it's not that they were good in of themselves, but they made adventure sections you moved around in; Here every adventure section is very self-contained. Maybe this would be better if they were better, but I just feel limited in what I can do in every place.

Most of all, this feels like an interactive movie, better than that implies from the time, but worse than that should be. It's feels like you're just acting out your part in a script you haven't read, and everyone else just awkwardly stands there waiting for you to do your part. Things that would make sense for a character in a movie to do fill the game. The game frequently does these in a way that only works because you have such limited options that you would naturally do these things just by clicking around.

Look ma, a 3D cutscene!

Don't get me wrong, there are actual aspects of this that are an interactive movie, like little cutscenes that play to show some action has taken place or the overwhelming importance of the story. Which is odd because it doesn't feel like the story should be the primary part. It's just that usually when a game is like an interactive movie, it's either a crappy game full of FMV, or a game with a nice story that puts you in control of the nice action scenes. I'm guessing this is just a failed attempt at the later, but my last guess was very wrong.

Such lovely art, wasted here.

The adventure game sections are pointless, they're just there for pretty backgrounds. But the space sections, well, they're just there because the last game had them. I could go into detail, but you basically move with the mouse and you have an infinite laser weapon, along with specialized missiles for special targets. I want to point out that I was playing along with the TAG review, and Ilmari, who lost every space battle last time, won the final space battle. If someone who admits they aren't good at the genre won, do I need to go into detail? Though I must admit, I'm not sure there's much detail to go into.

It's not technically just moving the face up and down, but it sure looks like it in motion.

Visually, it's very nice, the 3D is of the period to a certain extent, but the 2D art is very nice. Two complaints I have are that some of the 3D animations loop far too obviously, and the real actors are animated by moving parts of their face down. That's very awkward, and I can't help but feel like it was intended as a counter to Lost in Time's lack of showing the mouth. Like these guys felt that no mouth was a lame move. I think it's the opposite, no mouth gave a mysteriousness to that game, whereas this felt cheaply animated.

If anything, the game looks too good for what it is. It's like a book where the cover is really cool, but the actual writer is boring at best. Often, a really beautiful screen will flash by for a single moment, never seen before or after. A graphic artist's hours are not the same as a programmer's hours, but still, they were used for something that wasn't that important.

The CD version I played added in some stuff which honestly made the experience worse. There's a maze and then a final puzzle which add absolutely nothing to the game, much like the rest of the endgame. Then we have the voice acting. Everyone is terrible. Sometimes this works in the game's favor, like Atahualpa sounding like a whiny teen or the Han Solo knock-off sounding like he's collecting a paycheck. Other times it doesn't, like Eldorado being wooden in a way that never works. When Eldorado's son dies, his cry of "no" doesn't sound like he's dead, just that he ordered an expensive souffle for dessert and he wants to see a football game at home.

To close this off, I just thing that in most little ways this game was worse. Like I said, Inca was an experience, this was not. There are no little touches that make the game come off as Incan-themed, even the music is just sort of there. It's not really Incan themed, it's just sort of there, filling the void. I recognize it listening to it after the fact, but it just isn't interesting or memorable.

Weapons:
A laser weapon with a weird firing arc, and basically weapons that take out one kind of target. There's no crosshair, and there's no way to figure out where you're actually shooting. 1/10

Enemies:
The game talks up a lot about enemy ships, how many varieties there are, how they're all piloted by different kinds of pilots. The difference is that some don't move, some do, and sometimes there are way too many. 2/10

Non-Enemies:
Despite a great deal of implication, there are no in-game friendlies. 0/10

Levels:
Something I never thought I'd say, but the game flows too well. It ensures that the game doesn't get stale, but at the same time it plays out like a series of events with no buffer between them. 3/10

Player Agency:
You control 99% of the game with the mouse, shoot, turn, all the adventure stuff. Other actions require the keyboard. Plus and minus control speed, although it's sometimes automatic. The function keys select your weapons. Some other keys, along with spacebar, control your targeting. You can tell it's a European game of this era when the developers don't understand how a keyboard is supposed to be used. 5/10

Interactivity:
Click on things and things happen, sometimes the puzzle makes sense, often it doesn't even if it should. 2/10

Atmosphere:
In theory, a wide variety of differing places and moods should work for a space opera game...but that is done far better in other works. 3/10

Graphics:
For the most part, beautiful and well-animated. 8/10

Story:
I don't understand any of this, at all. 1/10

Sound/Music:
It's fine, everything works, nothing feels out of place, but nothing is memorable. 7/10

That's 32, but I feel it's inappropriate for it to be higher than Inca given what I've said, so let's subtract 3 more for 29.

Is this one of the worst games of all time? Personally, I'm going to say no, but I can see where someone could argue for it. Would I say it's one of the worst adventure and/or space simulation games ever? Adventure, no, any game that I can finish within 6 hours is not near that list. Space simulation, maybe. I haven't played enough yet to know if something like this would qualify. The thing is, to be one of the worst games you really have to have hated it.

I don't hate Inca II, I am confused by it. It doesn't know if it wants to be as crazy as the original or just a space opera game with an Incan theme, starting off somewhat mundanely before going into utter insanity. The space combat sucks, but somehow two people who sucked at it managed to bumble their way into winning it. Even the more chaotic battles. The adventure game sections, even when they come off as reasonable, manage to make themselves seem convoluted.

It's not something I'll ever have a bugbear about, but it just leaves me scratching my head. Why did they do this, and why did they do this that way? A lot of good time was spent on this game, and nothing ever really tied it together. More than any other Coktel Vision game, I want to know what was going on behind the scenes. I understand where other games are starting and going, at least vaguely, this feels like three different plots tied together. Why the ending? Why the ending?

The next, and final Coktel Vision space game is 1995's The Last Dynasty, which by my current reckoning, will be played along whenever TAG covers it in 1995, assuming it's another adventure/action hybrid like the past four. Other Coktel Vision games will probably be played when I get to the years they're released in and whether or not they're actually worth playing here, I think only a couple are fully within my interest. For now though, it's time to return to Rejection, and not a moment too soon.

Inca II: Won

The spot Eldorado was taken to is some kind of crater. A remote crater divided into three screens, this one has a "stele" and three pillars...

...This one has some scepters and one part (that I didn't get) that needs a keystone. The first part of this puzzle I just stumbled upon without realizing it, just by mousing over stuff, proving that having words pop up over interactable items isn't always good design. The two scepters can be picked up to open a door to an interior area with a casabash, which I get by cutting it in half. Just by messing around I figure the scepters go into the pillars, and the split casabash should go into the keystone, but I can't do the latter yet.

And it turns out that the other half of the casabash goes on the pillar. Okay. This allows me to deposit the first power. We are teleported back to the native, who tells Eldorado to not worry about the Mangroove demon, the crocodile settled his dispute with him, before laughing ominously. Off to the next place.

A third there, with Eldorado hoping the other two are easier. Another space section, this one hardly worth putting in. Guess he was right. Afterwards, Eldorado gets a message from Kelt, one of Aguirre's squadrons is going after the in-construction Boomerang flotilla, could you kindly take it out so we don't have to? Maybe I haven't been hard enough on Kelt, after all, there must have been a reason why Ataluapha got on the council. I get the choice, and frankly I'm starting to wonder if the final battle is against the asteroid and these side-trips are increasing its strength.

Still, I go for it. 5 bombers with 20 fighters serving as an escort. Wow, they sent a lot here, didn't they? How am I going to deal with this one, you ask? Same as always, luck, half-remembered stuff from other, better games, and now I know that you can speed up and down with the + and - keys. In the end, it's just luck with the nukes weapons, killing enough before they branch out to be able to reasonably deal with. The game suggests you use the Tumi's superior speed to swoop in, which is horrible advice, you can't really swoop in on enemies.

Back to the goal of placing Eldorado's power in various places. It's a desert with a purple atmosphere, where we're here to travel to the something or another of the three dreams in the most remote corner of the empire. Here I find someone who looks like he should be playing a German SS soldier, apparently under rubble. It's another find your way to the dream world thing. This leads to a series of screens which just involve clicking once and then climbing something.

Now we're here at a...puzzle in which I have to remove this big rock. I think. There's a big rock here and a small rock under it, holding it in place. There's also above, which has a tree branch/root sticking out. What the game wants me to do is not clear, I can use the ballasted thread on the tree branch, then use the rope on that when I look back down. Then I just get lucky and find out that the peg is used in a hole in the rock, at which point I hammer it in, then attach the end of the rope to it. Not entirely unreasonable, but with this game you never know what you're going to get.

Then we get this hilarious guy, who seems to be invoking a Buddhist monk. He'll take Eldorado to his destination, but first we need to pray for the gods help. Yeah...I don't think this guy is the type to do that.

"Find the best prayers to win the trust of the gods!" Remember when I said this was more mundane? At first glance, this is not just confusing, but outright non-sensical. There are ten scrolls which shoot out energy which disappears after a few moments, you can click on all ten without incident. There is nothing else and no indication that any particular scroll is special. Some turn to the left, others to the right. Well, it turns out that this is the way to solve the puzzle, hitting the ones that turn in one direction but not the other. This gets me...a conch. "Keep it Eldorado, the gods never give useless presents."

He takes me to a "sacred place", which is...uh...this place. This is another one of those "why did you bother" puzzle rooms which seem so confusing. So, here there's an opening, with a chain, a point and a grindstone. The answer is to use the chain on the point, which attracts a lightning strike, which somehow creates a shield which I can use a crowbar to free.

We're closer now, and many things are hidden beneath the ice. This is another non-puzzle puzzle screen, in that you have no choice but to guess what item the game wants you to use, since you can only interact with the "Lama". I use the conch which turns the Lama solid and then creates two new items, a log and snow. From here, I just sort of stumble onto using the log on the snow, then the strap and finally the shield, making a gong. This, and the Lama playing the conch, shatters the ice, revealing a temple.

This puzzle at least makes some sense. We have icicles, a ray of sunlight, a waterskin, along with a crystal egg I have to breech and a bowl I can pour things in. Hammer, icicles, then melt them in the sun and pour them into the waterskin. Using this on the bowl, the egg freezes and shatters, allowing Eldorado to place the second power.

Off for the final power, and that means more space sections. No news from Kelt, and we're surrounded by Aguirre's armies again. We even get a shot of Aguirre himself in the flesh. Anyway, just three fighters. This isn't very difficult. The game then gives another cutscene of the horde of Aguirre, but then the Boomerangs arrive to drive them off. Glad I spent the time earlier. Kelt says that the whole thing is a trap, that there's a mole in Eldorado's forces. He says Angelina left and kidnapped Eldorado's wife, which leaves little doubt as to who it was.

Kelt has a plan to distract Aguirre's forces so Eldorado can charge in and save his wife, but it doesn't entirely work. Another space section. This one doesn't go so well. It doesn't matter that I have speed now, because I can never get enemies off my back, worse yet, luck in this case is going to be non-existant because the game isn't giving me more than one nuke. Honestly, I think the AI might honestly be too damn good for even a game that had a competent design for its space sections. I just can't shake off enemy planes.

There's probably some trick to this, but I also start to not care. The flight model frustrates me more and more I learn about it, you seem to move in strange ways if you go up or down and after a few tries I decide to cheat. Just giving myself infinite nukes via Game Conqueror. I do better upon starting this. I also realize the problem on my first try, these guys are turning on a dime! No wonder I can't seem to win when they gang up on me! Still, I don't even need to cheat to win...somehow I manage to win just by shooting most down, not even using the nuke.

Midway through the fight Eldorado contacts Kelt, inquiring about the rest of the battle. Chaotic, basically. After winning, there's silence, before Eldorado does an approach on the asteroid. Aguirre can't believe it. He seems to have the same voice as some other character, but I can't figure it out off-hand.

Another adventure sequence. We've got a hatch and a guard who is unconscious through some method. The puzzle here is one of those, yeah, might as well do that kinds of puzzles. Click on the guard, use a knife to break his necklace and steal the symbols on him, then use the crowbar on the hatch to reveal holes you can put the symbols in. You have to hammer these in, and inside is a weird puzzle where you press buttons to light up parts of a key. Which seems to be more complex than it really is, the problem is that what it solves is on the other part of the screen, creating another opening. It eventually closes again. The solution is to use an item to prop it up, then take the three pieces from the other section.

This reveals Eldorado's wife, who tells him that Aguirre knows of his plan and has placed an army there. Instead, he should place his power inside the asteroid, this should destroy it. The next section's save? Maze. Yippee. This is weird, because you're going down endless tunnels with no indication that anything is happening until it does.

The first room I find is filled with Maoi heads, who in turn, are filled with diamonds. Well, that was something.

Secondly, I find a room full of paintings of the game's characters. This is uhm...something. Eldorado says that objects brought in from the real world have become virtual or something. That's an assumption I don't quite get where it's coming from. At this point I get lost and end up at the statues twice, so I look up a map.

With a map from the hint book, I find my way to a room of mirrors. This more or less causes things to fall into place. With the diamond, I can cut the mirror to get a piece of glass. With that, I can cut a picture of Atahualpa in the painting room. Why the shard of glass and not the diamond? Dunno, but it gets me a music box. Back to the statue room, getting very lost along the way, I put the music box on one of the statues for some reason, which creates a ball called a rock of light.

This brings me...uh...here, in an endless void of flowers. I can move forward, which just brings me to another flower. This game is feeling very Japanese in this last third, minus the space sections, just by how it seems to be missing anything resembling logic. At least the original had an internal logic to it, this just seems like a fever dream. I can click on a flower to open it, where I can use the rock on the pedals to turn them blue, or take the pollen and use it on the flower to cause it to regrow.

After some wandering around some, I discover that not every flower turns blue or uniformly blue. Sometimes they don't turn, sometimes they turn yellow, and sometimes not all pedals turn. If I walk away it turns back to red, so what I'm trying to do is beyond me. And then I win by accident, discovering that it was a mix of pedals I wanted, because using the pollen on a yellow flower created a tricolor flower.

We get a cutscene of Eldorado putting down his last power. Then, we get this, explaining that Wiracocha came back and the game ends. What the hell was that ending? I don't understand why that happened at all. I don't understand a thing. Why did the ending cause something to happen that wasn't even implied before the game ended? What happened to the asteroid and Aguirre? I'm not getting any answers. The funny thing is, this was added in the CD release, the floppy release had none of this, and the branching story I mentioned? Not really that important, it seems.

This Session: 3 hours 00 minutes

Final Time: 5 hours 20 minutes

Inca II: Anywhere in the Galaxy

Locking someone on the bridge of your ship seems like a foolish thing to do, but then again Eldorado did just put Atahualpa on the council. The screen here is odd. It looks like there are three usable items here, but there are actually only one. The throttle lever on the right. Not that turning it does anything. Despite more interesting stuff, you turn in a complete 180.

There's an airlock, locked, and this control panel. I can interact with anything, until I put in a code, and I don't know the code, so I just put it in randomly. Kelt calls Atahualpa telling him he's screwed up and lit the base up like a Christmas tree. (An Incan Christmas tree?) He deactivates the security system so we can fight back, but the only thing I can interact with is broken, literally, in-game, the turret is busted. I try a bunch of stuff, but the door is unlocked now.

Vodka? Wait, am I on Kelt's ship? I mean, I guess this is only confusing because I played the prequel...which I was likely to do. You can't pick it up, the game just says "Oh, no, Atahualpa." It turns out I needed a crowbar to open it. There's enough spirits here to perk up the spirits of a whole army battalion. I then use it on a nearby hose, which allows turning up the throttle to heat up the turret.

Combat. It's basically a turret section. I say basically because the only difference between this and the regular space sections is that I'm slower turning around and don't move. It's really, really boring. Really, really boring. It takes FOREVER to swing the damn thing around. FMVs break up the battles, more ships coming my way. The last one is interesting, because it's just one ship constantly swinging around and I fail to hit it. Shocking, I know, without a crosshair or anything to base it against. Atahualpa supposedly dies. A cutscene happens in which Eldorado's actor does a poor job of acting while attempting to be sad for his son's death, and then Kelt goes off in a tail spin.

I actually get to continue. Normally, I wouldn't do this, but I'm curious to see where this goes. Am I going to see a campaign where my actions matter? That would be pretty cool, even if there's not a lot that could be interesting with this game. This is where the grappling hook is required, though it comes off as pretty lame.

Kelt enters the Tumi with Eldorado, and takes over the controls. I, being Eldorado now, get to navigate. I feel a lot better being the gunner, but this is fun. Follow Kelt's directions to put down directional markers. Less graphic adventure and more children's game but amusing. Even though it had be do it twice for no apparent reason. This is apparently on Earth, since I see Australia.

We get a neat cutscene of us traveling through a valley, but crash before we can reach our destination and have to travel the rest of the way on foot. This is a cutscene, because designing gameplay around two days of blazing hot weather is probably not fun. Narrated, by the guy who narrated the items in Jagged Alliance for some reason.

There the duo meet with one of Kelt's friends, a scientist who observes the stars named Yuna. Eldorado tells Yuna about the asteroid and how Aguirre intends to take over the world with it. This leads to an easy puzzle in which I have to move a dot on three poles. We're doing this to find the asteroid's weakpoints, as it's in a rapid evolution phase in which it gathers energy for Aguirre's purpose. To destroy the asteroid we need to lay down "great energy" at three planets which we'll know about in two weeks.

She has her computer, looking suspiciously like something out of Galactic Empire, and then Kelt and Eldorado talk about getting the Tumi working. Oh, Yuna just happens to have a rail engine around. What is this, Atlas Shrugged? This is another adventure section, firstly, there's another crowbar. I'm starting to get the feeling they were running out of ideas here. I use that to get a lever off the tower.

Next, I enter the engine room. This is another rousing game of find the object, then the use will become rapidly clear. There's a peg in the forward/reverse controls, and a leather strap. An ignition controls the fire, but something is missing, and that valve turns, but it's purpose is a mystery. I go back out, realizing that I wasn't just supposed to take out the lever, but use the oil on the nearby and somewhat hidden pulley, then use the lever to pour in water.

This is enough to activate the train for reasons that escape me as someone who doesn't understand trains. We get a neat cutscene and then, uh oh, they're under attack. They say to flee, but Eldorado does...nothing but stand at the front.

Another action sequence. You know, maybe if they spent less time designing HUDs and more time designing other things we wouldn't have had to use a crowbar with two separate characters in two separate situations. It's another turret sequence and it runs too fast in DOSbox. I had to slow it down. I'd complain about it, but considering I half-assed it and still somehow won, I'm not going to beyond it being pointless.

We've driven them off, but they'll return, hey, a cave, we'll be safe in there. Yuna says she longed to explore this, and Eldorado for some reason says that gold prospectors are squatting here. They should split up. Suckers. As I write this and see the next save, the sound has gone mental and just has a loud squarewave for some reason.

Ah...this is finally a reasonable adventure section rather than one that seems like it was put in because you expect Coktel Vision to put in an adventure section. There's a drawer I can't open, rope around it, a safe I can't interact with, and a chest with a half dozen things in it. A shaver, some ballasted thread, a mallet, an old key behind the thread, and mercury in a wine bottle for some reason.

So cut and get the rope with the knife, use the key, only its rusted, good thing I have the oil...oh, I can't use items on other items. Huh. Turns out there's a sand item I have to use. This reveals a file, which is a blueprint for a ship, and the code, 183. Okay, cool, except...I can't use the safe. Oh, that's what the mercury is for...for some reason.

Inside is a device that shows the ship, called the Boomerang, which Eldorado calls slightly archaic. Kelt says he can build it in two weeks, while they repair the Tumi. Two weeks later, Yuna has the location of the planets. The rough location, because we waited all this time for imprecision. Eldorado wants Kelt to give a letter to the council, telling them that Eldorado is appointing Kelt as leader of his armys, so he can build many Boomerangs.

I get a screen in which I'm only allowed to flip a switch. Then I put a crystal in a slot and select point A or point B. I question the purpose of this, then another space combat. Eldorado briefly mourns his son again. I get the intention, but the voice actor for Eldorado is given absolutely terrible voice direction. Anyway, this fight is against the guy who killed Atahualpa. I end up using some missiles, but the fight's still not very troublesome.

His ship is only damaged and he flies off. THEN I GET A CHOICE. Ohohoho, the story does branch off. Do I go after him and weaken Aguirre's armies or do I go after the points and speed up the destruction of the asteroid? I decide it's probably best to weaken the armies first, saves me a nasty fight later in the game.

It's still a nasty fight, because the game promises a great horde of ships from three stations, which require me to use the heavy weapons. Specifically the torpedoes. I think. The game proves to be very troublesome in this regard, because I don't know how close I have to be, and naturally I am surrounded by enemy ships.

This is where the game proves to be difficult to play as a space simulation, for the simple fact that it is poor at doing so. When faced with serious, unending opposition I have no real tactical ability to fight back short of turning and hoping I can safely turn fast enough. Which doesn't work. My tactic in Red Baron of doing this while playing with speed to get better turning arcs doesn't work here, because I cannot control anything beyond my ability to turn, shoot and aim. So the strategy isn't anything wise, it's go berserk and hope that my supply of weapons will replenish the next time I need it. I don't win because of my skill, I win simply because I got lucky.

Anyway, this takes me to an adventure section, a nice looking adventure section. This is honestly a kind of pointless one beyond just the awesomeness of the graphics. You click a few things, things happen, and then you're in another place, not even a puzzle, I'm just along for the ride.

Then we get a "puzzle". Because I don't understand it at all. You get an oyster, crack it on the rock and then throw it at the Ibis, the bird. I guess we're going to the bird's nest? This brings down an ape, which I then repeat who then scares off the bird. This reveals a jade egg and then the Jagged Alliance narrator says "Don't be in a hurry, Eldorado." It turns out I wasn't cracking open the oysters, because I have to use the mallet, revealing a magic pearl. Still can't take the jade egg.

It turns out I have to put the pearl in the egg, which then reveals a demon. So much for this game being the normal sequel. Seriously, this is something out of Dark Seed or a game going for Satanic vibes, not the charming trip through Incan space. He then says the trip through the forest is treacherous, but with the egg and the pearl I can safely go through and back. He also says if I come back without it, he'll take my soul.

We then meet a native of this world, who told me he foresaw my coming in the magic smoke. He'll help me, but I need to give the crocodile what the demon stole from him. Well, there are only two things I can interact with, the crocodile's eyes, so it isn't much of a shock that I need to use the egg and the pearl. This satisfies the native, and he takes Eldorado into a trance to find the spot he needs to use his power. Which is where I shall leave for the time being.

While this isn't bad, blogging about it feels like blogging about a movie, you're stopping so much just keeping up that actually enjoying it feels difficult. This game is really committing to being an interactive movie, but at the same time the player is not really allowed to fail. I really don't know what to think about this.

This Session: 1 hour 20 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours 20 minutes

Inca II: Introduction

Since Inca II is finally getting played over at TAG, it's time for us too, to see Inca II. After two Coktel Vision games that involved roughly the same style of gameplay that didn't sell, I have to wonder what changed for Coktel to presumably make a sequel. Was it just that having Sierra publish the game was enough for Inca to sell? I don't think Sierra was that much of a golden goose then to have helped that much.

Inca II is interesting, in that it seems to have had a bizarrely negative reaction in some places. Computer Gaming World has it as one of the 50 worst games of all time, which feels like proto-clickbait for two reasons, one, they wrote a single line of text, I would be kicking someone in the face for paragraphs of text to put in for something I hated enough to put on a worst of all time list. Second, The Dark Half was infamously hated enough that someone at the company making it was sending letters to them about it, that doesn't count for a worst list? Really?

The story is, Eldorado, the player character from the last game, became Grand Inca after finding the stuff he needed to find in the last game, and now rules of the Four Quarters of the Empire. Only the Old Lands, where Aguirre rules, is not under his control. His rule was great and peaceful, but recently a menacing asteroid has been orbiting the Earth, space communication has become hazardous and natural disasters have struck the Suyus. He called a council to decide what to do about all this.

Eldorado's son, Atahualpa is just old enough to be on this council, but decides that his father's "thoughtful" approach is unwise and decides to do things "hotheadedly". Will he vanquish Aguirre again? Then we get story characters and various important bits of information. It's seemingly the same as Inca I, but with various minor changes. I see a battlefield map option for some reason.

There's a demo mode and a play mode. Knowing AGE, I play the demo mode first. We get some generic Adlib music in comparison to the epic Incan stuff from last time, and some very obviously pre-generated video, and something about how Kelt is plotting against Eldorado.

The generic music was just in the demo, once it ends we get some Incan stuff. Anyway, Machu Picchu. We get some scenic building and then we get some dialog with a guardian who tells me I have to take one of two tasks, mental or physical. Atahualpa sounds awful, by the way, his image is that of a serious adult, but his voice is that of an annoying teenager. Now, this is an important choice, because this changes how the endgame goes, according to the manual. I really want the mental choice, but eh, I guess since Ilmari is going to completely fail at the action sections again, it's up to me to do the fighting.

It's not great in motion, but at least you're not constantly staring at the dude's open mouth.

The guardian explains how this action section goes; It's an assault course in which I have to destroy statues in order, not missing one, while getting used to the game's controls. At least this is how it seems.

In practice, this is actually the perfect introduction, it's fairly simple, but does expose the problems of the game right away. You get five weapons, really four with one dedicated to boarding ships. The weapon I'm likely to use all game is the standard laser which has a fancy name. It starts off firing quite fast until it goes down to 80 and starts slowing exponentially until it's in the 20s and shooting at about 1 shot every three seconds and draining about 9 a shot. Stopping recharges it.

It's basically the same as last time, annoying movement where you constantly go at a constant speed. I don't remember if the mouse aiming was like this last time, but it's nice for now. My cursor doesn't actually show where I'm shooting, but we'll worry about that later.

It takes many statues, some seemingly shot out of order, before I eventually win. "You are worthy of your father, Atahualpa, you are now the crown prince." What. This takes us to a cutscene, in which Atahualpa tells his father the good news. By name, which seems hilarious considering how nebbish Atahualpa is. Atahualpa is now on the council because why not?

The council, they show a video from a probe they sent to the asteroid, which just shows a nice 3D animation, for 1993 anyway, and then Eldorado jumps to the conclusion that the asteroid caused the communication issues. I mean, obviously it did, but that video showed nothing.

Kelt, WWI ace and one member of the council who was sent into the Old Lands, or Ancient as he says, informs us that Aguirre is up to his old tricks again and is plotting to destroy and enslave the new empire. Atahualpa then proceeds to act like an ass to Kelt, at which point Eldorado tells him off and has him leave.

Then we get Dona Angelina, wise woman of the south, who then encourages Atahualpa's act of defiance by saying she doesn't trust Kelt. He should do something, after all, he can access the super ship Tumi and use it to fight Aguirre's forces. I note that the manual informs us that Angelina is half-caucasian and a bit of a femme fatale. Yeah, I'm sure she isn't a secret agent for Aguirre.

A narrator tells me that the Tumi's guard has to be neutralized before I can grab it. Adventure section. And let me tell you, this is first-person and you can scroll the screen. A long way. So much so that it's truly awful. It would have been better having multiple screens or something.

If Atahualpa was intended to look as serious and mature as he actually does, I have to wonder why they picked these scenes.

Continuing to be really goofy, I can throw a stone at the guard, really the wall, and he says I'm not that young anymore. I can also hide behind a fence or some vegetation, which just comes off as hilarious even if I suspect it fits into the solution.

The actual solution, which I spot fairly quickly, even if it feels lame, is to pick up some coca leaves, then pick up the post and rope they were attached to. Put the post on top of a gate, then use a stone on the guard, and quickly rush over to the fence. This causes the guard to investigate and you hit him on the head with the post.

I quit at this point, and on a different day started the game up again. I had taken a screenshot of the passwords, assuming, as was the case with past Coktel Vision games of this era, that I would need to input the passwords. Not so, instead they're just pre-made saves. Weird.

Atahualpa went straight to the Old Lands, where Aguirre's forces immediately spot him, we get a cutscene of his interceptors taking off. The 3D graphics have improved remarkably over Inca I's, helped by everything that could put it off not using 3D graphics. On the other hand, people are a series of still shots, which is creepy when they make characters talk this way.

Space combat is weird with proper opponents. I can't really aim, I can't really dodge except by spinning around like an idiot, so I'm just sort of there, shooting at things. Somehow this strategy works, I hit enemies, even far away. Enemies flee, it seems, because after killing two the third runs away. Bringing up another cutscene.

Aclla, Eldorado's wife and Atahualpa's mother, is criticizing Eldorado for putting Atahualpa on the council when he's barely an adult, then humiliating him in front of the rest of the council. Then Eldorado says that Atahualpa is forcing him to act without knowing where they are headed. You know, I'm not used to this, that is, characters despite having differing viewpoints coming into conflict in a reasonable way that doesn't make someone look like an idiot. Especially Coktel Vision, since I don't associate them with character drama.

Another space shooting section, this time I have to take out a space station. It's fairly simple, even if my auto targeting system seems to get permanently locked on the space station. It's...fine? I don't seem to be having any trouble with things at all.

We get another cutscene, Eldorado has taken control of the Tumi and brings him to some satellite thing, where he chews out Atahualpa. Kelt is also there. Eldorado thinks the whole thing was a trap for Aguirre to declare war on the Incan Empire. They attack the station, so Eldorado goes out in the Tumi and Kelt takes his own ship out. Eldorado tells Atahualpa to not touch anything, yeah, like he's going to do that. I'll end here so I don't finish the whole game before Ilmari even starts.

First impressions, this game is nowhere near bad enough to be on the worst 50 games of all time, or the decade or year. So far it's better except in terms of the weird Incan mysticism than the original. This is just a space opera game with an Incan theme. The worst things I can say so far is space combat is boring and the main character is an idiot, but at the same time, he's not entirely wrong in his assumptions and his idiocy is called out. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

This Session: 1 hour