With the transfer to 3D, it was inevitable that there’d be some changes to the gameplay. As the game progresses, I found myself getting more and more into this story. This time he's after the entire universe, with the aid of a supercomputer called the Nexus. Sordid doesn't just want to conquer his world and ours. This isn’t just the usual Simon storyline where he winds up in their world and spends the entire game trying to get home. But as the game progresses, a story far superior to that of the previous games starts to unfold. It’s the same old Calypso giving the same old useless advice to the same old snotty Simon, whose voice will irritate you as soon as he opens his crude pixelated mouth. It’s the same old Sordid trying to take over the same old magical land. Initially, the storyline doesn’t seem innovative. So rather than harp on about the negative aspects that have been written about again and again, I’m going to look at why I enjoyed this game. You don’t need yet another review going on about all that. Plus there’s the simple fact that this game does not live up to its predecessors. The game suffers from blocky graphics, annoying terrain-style puzzles, Simon’s mannerisms, and his incessant jokes that the game is only a game. You’ve probably already read plenty of reviews about all the negatives-and I'll confirm that the complaints are legitimate. OK, so the controls are shocking and Simon’s uncanny ability to walk into every wall becomes a tad annoying, but beneath all that are the bare bones of a good adventure game that I found myself wanting to complete. I’m a huge Simon fan, and as devastated as I was to see such an ugly game, I actually found myself enjoying it. I could spend this entire review going on about how much of a disappointment this game was-frankly, Brian Bowles as the voice of Simon once again would be reason enough to leave this game untouched on the shop shelves-but I don’t want to. After all the waiting, dashed hopes, and new dreams, Simon 3D hit the shelves. Adventuresoft was having a lot of problems getting the game published, and my expectations were becoming more and more tarnished with every update. Months passed and I was still getting all the updates from the News Mole (Adventuresoft’s regular Simon 3D news updater) but there was still no game in sight. Unfortunately, my rapture was a little premature. After all this waiting it wouldn’t be long until I’d be playing the third part of my favourite adventure game series. Then in early 2000, official confirmation came through that Simon 3 was in production and that it would be in amazing 3D. It turns out Adventuresoft had planned a third 2D style game, but plans were soon dropped after only a few test renders as it was decided that not even God himself would be able to come to earth and get a 2D adventure game published ( their words, not mine). Still, Simon 3 never appeared on store shelves. The manual from Simon Pinball even had a sort of advert for the third game. Around this time there were murmurs of another Simon sequel. Around 1997, Adventuresoft brought out The Feeble Files, a good-looking but insanely difficult adventure game that failed to capture the charm of Simon The Sorcerer and just did not fill the gap that Simon fans were waiting for.īy 1999, my family had finally caught up with the times and gone online, so it was easier to check for updates from Adventuresoft. During this time the hapless consumer was presented with a fiercely addictive Simon the Sorcerer Pinball (well worth getting a copy of here) and a Simon the Sorcerer Puzzle Pack (not so worth getting), but still no third game. Had Sordid truly invaded our dimension? What the hell was that hedgehog boy all about? Unfortunately, there was not even a murmur of a third game. I had to find out what happened to Simon. The end sequence of Simon 2 had me hungry for more. How to start a review about possibly the most controversial sequel of any adventure series? Do I start by highlighting all the negative comments that flooded the chat rooms and Amazon reviews? Or do I try and soften the blow by writing about the positive aspects in great depth? How about I start from the start, way back in 1995.
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