by Dale Farris, President, Golden Triangle PC Club
June 2001

Game Overview

In Cold Blood ($29.99) is DreamCatcher's latest new game and it should be another successful title in their long list of super adventure games. In this case, we have a nice surprise from this company more well known for their adventure game genre titles.

In Cold Blood combines action with adventure, with an emphasis on the action, which should appeal to gamers more interested in First-Person Shooter (FPS), Real-Time Strategy (RTS), or Role-Playing Game (RPG) types of computer games.

Set in the near future, you play the role of John Cord, an MI 6 secret service agent without a past. There is a very rich storyline here, and the background designs are just great. These scenes indicate the extensive investment in the design and layout of the game, which greatly adds to the overall mood and environment of the game.

The adventure begins as secret service agent John Cord tries to piece together the fragments of his memory. You are trying to reconstruct the events that led to Cord's capture and use the slowly revealed information to make sense of his current situation behind enemy lines.

Cord's mission is to escape the captors and prevent the launching of a nuclear crisis perpetrated by Dmitri Nagarov, a self-declared president of a Russian state called Volgia. Nagarov has figured out how to break into the radar systems of the two opposing countries of the US and the People's Republic of China, and create illusions of battleships and aircraft poised to attack. A nuclear missile fired from his hidden submarine will trigger a war that neither country will have actually started. Nagarov plans to invade the neighboring countries around Volgia unopposed, and after their submission, install his genetically engineered army as peacekeepers.

There are nine action-packed missions that increase in difficulty and danger, as your main character works through these challenges. Approximately 60 hours of gameplay are included, which of course depends on how good you are with the keyboard commands and how quick you can maneuver the character through the many harrowing scenes.

More than 100 environments are designed into the game, and the character interacts with many cleverly designed and imagined advanced communication computers, electromagnetic pulse-mines, hacking units, and motion detectors. These aspects of the game are impressive, and represent refreshing new ideas in interactive computer gaming.

The game is filled with suspense and many very difficult situations that may not easily be overcome the first time you encounter these challenges.

In many ways, the game seems to build on the successful strategy used in the Thief, Thief II, and Thief Gold games. The main character, John Cord, will many times have to crouch, walk while in this crouch position, or use stealth to get through the game, a requirement successfully employed in the well known Thief series of games. While this game does not allow for full motion movement, since you move the character around with keyboard commands, nevertheless, once you get the hang of the direction keys and the attack and weapon control combinations, you can manage to successfully get the character through the increasingly difficult parts. Te first mission is relatively easy, but the game does not offer a choice of difficulty levels, so you have to work with the settings coded into the game.

Make no mistake about this game. In Cold Blood is definitely NOT for those that have difficulty with rapid hand-eye coordination. Hard-core gamers more experienced with using the keyboard in action or shooter games should quickly master the keyboard requirements in this game, and I think they will find In Cold Blood a refreshing alternative to the mainstay of action games. Since this game combines adventure game elements with action elements, I think "shooter" gamers will likely find this game to be great fun, not easy to complete, and a long enough challenge to keep their interest. Gamers experienced with the Thief series of challenges will definitely find In Cold Blood of interest.

As in the successful Thief line of action games, you use a lot of stealth in the game, versus outright killing of enemies, to successfully complete the entire game. If you do try and use up all your ammo, to blast your way through certain situations, additional guards will respond to the sound of gunfire, guaranteeing your doom. Again, this is a nice feature that seems borrowed from the Thief series, and as in the Thief games, in the In Cold Blood game there are situations in which you must fight and successfully eliminate the "bad guys," in order to advance into the next scenes.

As you would expect, these situations that require using the weapons in order to get past certain points in the game are very difficult to correctly time and enter the correct keyboard commands. At least these were difficult for me, and of course I cannot predict how difficult these situations will be for everyone. I also think that experienced action gamers, more accustomed to having to repeat the timely and correct combination of character movement and weapon firing keystrokes, might find this approach here to be far less difficult than the challenges in the many well known action games, such as Quake, Half-Life, etc.

In my case, I find this high level of keyboard command ability too frustrating and too hard. I am just more inclined for slower, adventure game scenarios that do not force you into finally accomplishing the required nanosecond timing in order to finish a game.

With the very reasonable price of the game, the accompanying strategy and solutions guide, also quite sensibly priced, might come in handy even more in this game, than in other games. Because of the combination of the many well known adventure game aspects with the action game features, this means in addition to being quick with the trigger fingers, you will also have to figure out where to go and when, and what to look for and pick up. This is in addition to having to always be on the lookout for the many situations when you either have to make the character run very fast, or use your ammo to shoot it out with the "bad guys." Be careful with the ammo, because is not unlimited.

In such situations, this type of game cries out for cheater codes, which at the time of this writing were not yet available. With this game however, I have suspicions that there may indeed be few, if any, cheat codes available to help get through these more difficult scenes. A good "God mode," "endless ammo," all weapons," or other similar such codes would likely come in very handy, even if you play with the strategy and solutions guide. When the many very difficult situations come up in the game, you just have to be sure you always save, save, save your game, in order to be able to start over and over again right at the part where you seem to not ever be able to get the right combination of keystrokes at the right time in the right place. Also, I bet a nice "skip to the next mission" code will quickly be a hot item with many gamers, especially as they progress to the later and much more difficult missions.

Controls

In Cold Blood totally eschews the mouse, forcing you to learn the many controls entered with both hands on the keyboard. The directional arrows move Cord up, down, left, and right, and the Z key makes Cord run. You hold down the Z key and then use a directional arrow to make him run in the various directions, and pressing and holding the Down Arrow and the Z key simultaneously will make Cord slide down ladders.

Left Shift is used for a sidestep, and the X key is used to crouch. The Left Ctrl key is used to interact with objects, choose items from the inventory, operate elevators, open doors and talk to other characters. The X key is also used with the Left Ctrl key to crouch down and search bodies for ammo, health kits, and other inventory items placed throughout the game.

Left Alt is used to automatically aim your weapon, and the Spacebar is used to fire your gun or punch an object or another character.

The Enter key is used to examine the inventory. When you want to use an item, highlight it and press the Left Ctrl key. You cycle through the inventory after it is opened with the left or right arrow keys.

The Delete key is used to access the Remora, the information and communications tool that will be heavily used all during the game.

The Escape key is used to pause the game, save/load, quit, and reload saved games, as well as give you a "time out" to think what to do in time limited situations.

Game Environment

The overall design of the game is very well done and a tribute to the designers who obviously spent many long hours and devoted much attention to the intricate detail involved in all the wondrous scenes. While the 3d card is used mostly for the nice depth in the scenes, as well as displaying the realistic effect of moving through the scenes, this also greatly adds believability to the overall impact of the game. As all hard core gamers know, the greater the ability to believe the game is real, the more tense the play and the more fun in playing the game.

The storyline is deep and quite realistic. The added twist of playing the main character, John Cord, who has lost memory but gradually recalls what happened as he is being tortured, is a unique approach that makes the gameplay all the more real. As the torture continues, you are remembering, and thus playing this past as his memory begins to rebuild. I thought this added greatly to the tension of the game, not that the difficulty level was not already high enough.

There is a super combination of action, strategy, stealth, and puzzle solving, that add up to a super gaming style that makes In Cold Blood stand out in the massive amount of computer games that have flooded the market. The story is solid, believable, and the beautiful graphic backgrounds are all very impressive. Although the controls are learnable, at times you must be very precise with these in order to successfully overcome the challenges and get on with the story. The background music and the voice-over narration are also well designed.

The setting is very "high tech" and impressive, adding to the overall feel of the game that helps pull you further into the story.

Thankfully, the coders allow you to save anywhere in the game, a must-have in the case of this game. Because there are so many points at which the required action is so difficult, you will at least be glad you can save your game right before these points. This way, you can concentrate on just practicing over and over the right combination of controls in order to successfully get through these hard parts. You would not want to have to go back through all that other stuff, just to get to the hard part where you only have the problem.

Overall, I found In Cold Blood to be a super, high tech action/adventure game that is a challenge to complete and that will definitely appeal to hard core gamers.

Game Play Notes

The game comes on 3 CD's, and you can opt to install all the files in order to prevent disc swapping as you get through the missions. The controls are all driven by keyboard commands, and you will have to practice these in order to be ready for the scenes that are more difficult and force you to be exact with the aiming and firing of weapons, while many times also running very fast in the right direction.

The accompanying official strategy and solutions guide may come in handy with this game, since it combines the adventure game features of moving around various scenes to find, pick up and use the required items in the required situation, while also forcing you to be very good with the keyboard controls in the more tense action situations.

The movement of the main character is completely driven by keyboard controls, and once you get the hang of these directional controls you will find it more easy to move in the desired direction versus moving around and around in circles. What becomes more difficult is the need in many situations to use both hands on the keyboard and to quickly coordinate the combination of these controls. For action gamers, this will not be anything new, but for traditional adventure gamers, they may find it a bit disturbing to learn they cannot use the mouse at all in this game.

If this sounds to you like this would be more frustrating than fun or "too hard," then you obviously are not into action. games. As for the targeted crowd, folks inclined to want to get the controls right, then In Cold Blood is tailor-made for you. In fact, I think what will make this game a success, especially with action gamers, is the combination of the adventure game features that I think greatly adds value for action gamers that may have begun to tire of always having to shoot everything in sight in order to get to another scene.

The coders have included the usual main character head nodding that indicates something should be looked at, and the always appreciated sparkling effect that is added to items in the screens that you should look at and likely pick up. Thank goodness for that, as without these added "hints," and since there is NO mouse movement cursor to change shape when you move it onto the right area of the screen, you would have no way of knowing what item the character needs to interact with in order to advance the story.

Since the action so dominates the game, you will need to be sure and keep up with your ammo, since your inventory is limited, and you might have to retrace your steps to again find downed bodies to again search in order to refill your ammo. A cheat code allowing for "endless ammo" would sure be nice.

While all this action oriented gameplay may indeed overwhelm some players, I think there are enough hard-core shooter gamers out there that are going to find In Cold Blood a wonderful combination of keyboard controls with the sleuthing, the stealth, and the puzzle solving that is interspersed among the more difficult action parts.

About Those Walkthrough Solution Guides

With In Cold Blood, I found the official strategy and solutions guide a must-have, at least for me, in order to get through the game. Even with the guide telling me what is about to happen next, nevertheless with so many situations requiring timely and rapid combination of the keyboard controls in the many action sequences, I still had to work at some of these over and over, before I could finally get it right. However, this is of course dependent on each gamer's own personal level of hand-eye coordination, degree of experience with these keyboard controls in other action games, and the overall willingness to be patient enough and determined enough to start over so many times and not give up. The guide is very helpful when needing to know when and where to go, what to look for and how to use it, but when it comes to having to "shoot it out with the bad guys," you are just on your own here. At least until we find the cheat codes to help us overcome these more difficult situations.

The puzzles in this game are not the most difficult I've ever run across, while the action is also not impossible, or at least not according to the official game instructions. The guide just helps you assure you are maximizing your time to get through the game faster.

In my situation, playing with a walkthrough means I can concentrate on moving the game plot along, and most importantly, open up all the wonderful scenes and action that the coders have worked so hard to include in the game. Without a walkthrough, I just feel I am not getting my money's worth out of the game. Also, I always appreciate having the help to get through the game so I can savor all the impressive screens and animated cut-scenes, as was the intent of the game creators.

With all the other things I have to do, I just do not have the luxury of working endlessly for hours and hours on end to try and figure out what's not working in order to advance to another key plot point. So, my perspective about walkthrough guides is that these help make computer games more fun, although in the more difficult situations, the only way to get through these is to just try the controls over and over until you get it right.

What makes this issue even more relevant here is that DreamCatcher seems to realize this, as evidenced by their always wise price points for their games and their solution guides. In Cold Blood is so reasonably priced that this makes buying the additional solutions guide (also very smartly priced) a no-brainer. You end up with a total investment that means you will more likely get through the entire game and not end up spending an excessive amount of time with the game. So, no, I don't think using a walkthrough solution guide is any indication of any lack of skill or abilities, but instead, a more appropriate way to invest minimal time with a game that ends up much more likely to be a fun experience.

Game Features

Gripping, graphical combination of action and adventure
Totally recreated settings in authentic detail
Original storyline & original score
Beautifully drawn backgrounds, objects, and characters
Aptly created sound effects and background score add impact
Complex use of objects and gadgets to advance the game plot
Unique but logical puzzles to solve in order to advance the game
Many difficult action sequences
More than 100 unique background environments enmesh you in the story
9 missions with 60 hours of gameplay
Combination of sleuthing with stealth and cunning
Beautifully designed
Well integrated, rich storyline

Some Game Concerns

While this game does combine adventure with action, the increasingly difficult action situations will challenge even the best first-person shooter gamers. This means that in these situations, you will want to remember to save, save, save your game, as in this game you can indeed die, and quite often. This action oriented approach means In Cold Blood may be perceived as an action game, or shooter, but it does not totally emulate the classic shooters, such as Quake, or the newest Serious Sam, for example.

You don't see your weapon in front of you all the time, as in these classic FPS games, but nevertheless, from this third-person perspective, you will still have to get quite good with the keyboard controls, in order to use the weapons in the correct manner and fast enough, in order to get past these tougher situations and advance the storyline.

This makes this game more suitable for those more experienced with shooter games, and more adept with commanding the keyboard controls with both hands at the same time. For those more inclined to playing slower paced adventure games, In Cold Blood may overwhelm them and be perceived as "too hard."

Hints and Notes

Save, Save, Save, as you can indeed die quite often
Visit previous locations to find information previously overlooked
Load previous games, find out what you need to know, and then return
Use the Remora tool often
Keep track of equipment
Limited to five ammo packs and 2 health kits
Search bodies of downed guards for supplies
Load a game to retrace a route and gather supplies
Never kill technicians - they are your best friends

Targeted Customers

With In Cold Blood, DreamCatcher seems to be striving to reach computer gamers more interested in first-person shooter (FPS) games. This game totally ignores the mouse, and all game action and character movement is driven by keyboard commands. This means gamers with more speedy hand-eye coordination and nimble with their fingers on the keyboard will find this game appealing. Of more interest I think is that the game also combines adventure game features such as moving the character around in order to find and open doors and other objects, storing an inventory of items that have to be used in later scenes, solving puzzles and overcoming obstacles, and retracing steps to find out information or pick up objects not earlier accessible.

The control of the game with both hands does mean you have to learn the many built-in keyboard commands, especially when the main character has to run very fast to get by guards while at the same time aiming and firing weapons, all with different keyboard controls. With so many gamers so accustomed to this, I suspect most will find the game easier to master this required combination of keyboard actions than I did.

However, I also understand the seeming strategy here, as adventure games are so notoriously ignored by FPS gamers, or RTS gamers. Their perspective about adventure games is that all the pointing and clicking, and going back and forth to pick up and drop inventory items is so boring and dull. In this case, I think DreamCatcher has succeeded in combining the action interests of these hard-core gamers with just the right amount of puzzle deciphering to make a rare hit in the very competitive computer game industry.

Compared with today's state-of-the-art first-person shooter (FPS), real-time strategy (RTS), or role-playing games (RPG), I think In Cold Blood has a chance of impressing even the most hard-core gamer with this super combination of features. For gamers tired of the tedium of adventure games, In Cold Blood should appeal with its emphasis on the speedy action required in order to advance the plot.

Install and Setup

If your machine has 2 CD ROM drives, or more likely, a CD RW and a DVD drive, the installation and setup may look for one or the other of these drives. On my machine, the install routine looked for the DVD drive as the source of the files, rather than the usual CD RW drive. You can cancel the installation of the DirectX 7.0a files, if you already have this version or a later (8.0a) version of the DirectX files. Also, as is usually the case, the newer the video and sound board drivers, the more likely this and any other computer game will successfully run.

If you do wish to load the maximum files, be sure you have enough space for these files as well as the always necessary additional left-over space. You never want to maximize a hard drive with files.

The game does require a 3d accelerator card, but I could not find any additional technical information regarding exactly what this means. Since the game is designed to run in Windows 95, this may mean some gamers might be loading this on "older" machines with some of the earlier 3d cards. So, even though the minimum 3d card requirement is an 8MB VRAM board, I suggest folks seriously consider running this game on a newer 3dfx graphics accelerator board. I think this game can be considered as representative of how game manufacturers are beginning to catch up with the never-ending release of newer video boards, and write game software with increased hardware requirements.

I loaded the game on a Win 98 SE machine (P III-850, 256MB SDRAM) that had a Creative Labs Annihilator 2 video card (an nVidia GeForce 2 GTS board), and a Creative Labs Live X Gamer! sound board, and the game worked fine with these boards and the latest drivers for each. The DVD drive, and not the CD RW drive, had to serve the CD ROM disc function both during installation, as well as during actual play. Although you can select a Custom install option to load the maximum files onto a hard drive to speed up file access performance, the #1 disc must be loaded into the drive bay in order to play the game. This just means that during game play, there will be no disc swapping as you work your way through the entire game. The included Readme file explains this possibility. 

Price

$19.99 (super bargain!)
$  9.99 the official strategy & solutions guide (a great bargain also)

Minimum System Configuration Requirements

Windows 95/98/ME
Pentium 233 MMX
32MB RAM (64MB RAM recommended)
4x CD ROM Drive (16X recommended)
8MB 3D accelerator video card capable of 640x480 and 32-bit color
(16MB graphics card recommended)
DirectX 7 compatible sound card
400MB hard disk space (1.4GB hard disk space recommended)

At the time of this writing, no patches for this game had been released. Also note that this game is also available for the Playstation game console.

Unless otherwise noted on the product pages on the DreamCatcher games website, or on the system requirements section of the packaging, DreamCatcher games will NOT be supported using the operating systems of Windows 2000, Windows NT or any Windows emulators. Although some may find that the game may install and may be played on these business operating systems, gameplay and the overall performance of the game may be questionable. Also note that DreamCatcher games will NOT be providing patches or updates which will allow the games to run on Win NT or Win 2000.

This is an excellent example how the computer game industry has mainly focused on coding their software to run mostly on home machines in the standard retail market, running Microsoft's primarily retail market operating systems.

At the time of this writing, DreamCatcher games sells some of their games for Mac machines, with more soon to be available also for the Mac. No other information was available on the future continued support of their software for Apple machines. I am guessing this support is very likely to continue.

Also at the time of this writing, there was no information regarding the planned compatibility of DreamCatcher games with the upcoming Windows XP operating system, either the professional or home editions. I would also guess that this company will very likely soon be releasing games for this newest version of Microsoft's operating system, since it will be the OS installed on so many newly purchased machines in the retail market.

The above system configuration requirements indicate the minimum and recommended system configuration requirements, and as any experienced gamer knows, you just don't ever want to load and run any computer game on minimally configured systems. Computer games are notorious for taking over machines, and this is why users will need to be sure and close out all their other open files, before playing this and any computer game. 

While there was no additional technical discussion regarding the requirements of the video card, other than the 3d accelerator card item, I am guessing most of today's newer cards will support the game. However, I strongly urge you to be sure your video card can handle at least the minimum 8MB video RAM requirement. In the case of this game, the newer the 3d card, and presumably the more video RAM and technical performance capability, the more likely this game will run with no problems.

About DreamCatcher

In 1996, DreamCatcher Interactive launched their first title and since then, they have become a very successful publisher in the computer game entertainment software industry. In my opinion, one of this company's strongest assets is their dedication to provide customers with high quality entertainment software at very affordable prices. Some of the best interactive computer games now on the market come from DreamCatcher.

Bringing to market titles that are affordable, without jeopardizing content quality, is another significant factor that helps distinguish this company from the many that flood the market with countless game titles. DreamCatcher thrives on innovative marketing strategies, solid retail and developer partnerships, and on providing excellent customer support that is well above industry standards.

A new partnership with Her Interactive has enabled DreamCatcher to now be able to sell the three super games in the Nancy Drew series, including Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill, Nancy Drew: Stay Tuned for Danger, and Nancy Drew: Message in a Haunted Mansion. Check this link to read a review of these three Nancy Drew Interactive Mystery Adventure Games.

Dracula: The Resurrection and In Cold Blood are two current games for the PC that will soon be released for the Playstation, and DreamCatcher also plans to release more games in the future for the Playstation 2 and the GameBoy Color platforms.

Other super games from DreamCatcher Interactive include The Messenger, Traitor's Gate, Riddle of the Sphinx, Jewels of the Oracle, Jewels II, Egypt 1156 B.C., Odyssey, TimeScape, Ancient Conquest, Beyond Time, Beyond Atlantis, Lightbringer, Legend of Lotus Spring, Nightlong, Seven Games of the Soul (also sold in Europe as Faust), SafeCracker, The Forgotten, The Sacred Amulet, and Time Machine.

All these are similarly designed games, and all are priced very reasonably, with most around $14.99, and many even priced at $9.99, which I think are super prices for these super games. At the time of this writing, I have purchased and played nearly all these games, and these reasonable price points have always gotten my attention.

I think these affordable price points represent a very important strategy of DreamCatcher that has helped them achieve their success. When you consider the very expensive proposition to invest in the coding and other very expensive costs to develop and produce a computer game today, I think it is quite remarkable that this company markets their products at such a reasonable price.

I also think it is important to remember that DreamCatcher is still very much in the business of producing quality computer games, something many other companies can no longer attest to since they have gone out of business. What is even more remarkable, in my opinion, is that at the time of this writing, DreamCatcher Interactive remains wholly owned and self-sufficient, and has not yet been absorbed by a larger company.

So, with the easy on the pocket-book price of the game, and the also minimal price of the solution guides, you have the makings of a winner in the hotly contested battle for our limited disposable income and free time to invest in playing computer games. DreamCatcher Interactive is certainly a company worth watching and supporting.

Contact Information

DreamCatcher
The Adventure Company
5000 Dufferin Street
Toronto, Ontario
M3H 5T5
info@dreamcatchergames.com

You can also order from other retailers or online vendors.