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Plane crashes were always a popular stylistic device to create tension and dramatic movies like 'Cast Away', 'Alive', 'Die Hard 2: Die Harder' or 'Fearless' speak volumes. But not only Hollywood makes use of such an initial situation, but the computer and video game industry, too... just think about the prelude to 'Tomb Raider', or more precisely, the crash landing straight into the heart of the Himalaya, which makes Lara Croft the person she is today an adventurous archaeologist! Another example would be the mercenary drama 'Ikari Warriors', in which the combat aircraft of the two hard-boiled fighters Paul and Vince crashes right into the 'green hell' of the murderous jungle! Moreover, there's Mirrorsoft's action-adventure 'Bermuda Project'...
But also the youngest generation of games has rediscovered that dramaturgic trick for itself: It doesn't matter whether Brian Basco's extremely ungentle and painful landing on the (fictional?) Hawaiian island of Mala in the introduction of the second part of the 'Runaway' trilogy 'The Dream of the Turtle' or the stunning air crash into the ice-cold water of the seemingly endless sea of Ken Levine's first-person action-adventure masterpiece 'BioShock' until today such a tragic incident enjoys great popularity... although this may sound a little sarcastic...
In autumn 1995 (okay, rather at the end of the 1940s), a similar memorable accident has taken place: the propliner 'Amazon Queen' was forced to make an emergency landing straight into the heart of the Amazon jungle. Fortunately, all passengers escaped with no more than a fright. But although he managed to land the plane safely, the survivors of this disaster blamed Joe King, pilot for hire, for that 'misadventure' how unfair, after all the bad weather alone was responsible for the crash landing of the 'Amazon Queen'... well, someone is always the loser...
The title screen...
Lean Years...
So, it's 1995... year 3 after 'Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis', one of the best 'point and click' adventures of all time indeed! But sadly, it should become the last LucasArts title at least on the Amiga! Already, Tim Schafer's next 'SCUMM' highlight, 'Day of the Tentacle', the long awaited sequel to the classic 'Maniac Mansion', wasn't ported to the Commodore machine anymore. But there was still the famous company Sierra On-Line, which was mainly specialised in creating adventures, too however, with 'Kings Quest VI Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow', also that software producer gave its farewell performance on the Amiga in 1994... and even the still quite young development team Revolution Software ('Lure of the Temptress', 'Beneath a Steel Sky') was unwilling to convert the first part of the successful 'Broken Sword' epic to the once so successful system...
No, 1995 really wasn't a good year for fans of this popular genre at least, if they only owned an Amiga...
But already in the previous year, interesting news about a brand new adventure of Renegade ('Uridium 2', 'Elfmania', 'RuffnTumble') became public knowledge remember, in the early nineties, this label was founded by the famous Bitmap Brothers... and so it was no wonder that the name Renegade was a guarantee of quality, particularly on the Amiga (and I don't just talk about the in-house classics of the Bitmap Brothers themselves!). Already in the run-up to its release, the title has received advance praise and the first pictures looked very promising. Wild speculations spread like wildfire: Could it be that the colourful screenshots were taken from a special AGA version?
Finally, in autumn 1995, 'Flight of the Amazon Queen' was released for the Amiga. Unfortunately, it emerged that the graphics contain only 32 colours and a specific, enhanced AGA or CD32 version was never available. Nevertheless, the result was nothing to sneeze at there's no sign of colourlessness... apart from a few exceptions. But why the complete intro of the original PC version has been cancelled? God only knows...
Meet King's archenemy Anderson, an unscrupulous business rival - well, actually he isn't as unscrupulous as you may think...
'Welcome to the Jungle...'
So, Joe King, hero of the adventure, crash-landed the plane (well done, Joe... clap, clap, clap). But what the hell he's doing in such an inhospitable place, far from any civilization? Well, actually Joe was scheduled to fly movie star Faye Russel to an Amazon jungle location for the shooting of her latest film, 'Jungle Passion'. But when he arrived at the hotel 'Copacabana' to pick her up he was tricked by his rival, an unscrupulous Dutch flyboy called Anderson, and locked in one of the hotel rooms. Anderson planned to fly Faye to the jungle himself in an effort to run Joe out of business...
But King wouldn't be King if he can't handle such a situation: After a spectacular escape including 'cross-dressing', brutal goons, an ex-girlfriend and a hot pursuit he finally arrived at the airport and was able to thwart Anderson's wicked plan at the very last second. Unfortunately, a few hours later Faye, Joe and his mechanic Sparky got into a heavy thunderstorm, the plane was struck by lightning and went down...
After the 'Amazon Queen' ditched into a pond, Joe immediately initiates the evacuation and moments later the trio finds itself on the shore of this body of water. At once a quarrel erupts between Joe and the arrogant Faye while the plane slowly sinks... and with it all provisions on board (not to mention Miss Russel's outrageously expensive clothes!). Soon the feelings have cooled down again and our hero heads off to search for help. Let's be honest, does he really think that he'll find someone in that 'green hell' who gets him out of the jam? After all, in such a remote corner of the world, there shouldn't be a soul in sight... but he's totally wrong with that assumption! Already, since their arrival in the jungle, the crew of the 'Queen' is observed by a strange female warrior of an Amazon tribe...
After a mysterious meeting with a talking parrot and the weird encounter with the mirage(?) of a gorilla, Joe reaches the pinnacle of a mountain that allows a marvellous view of the surrounding area and acts as sort of map alternative. Suddenly, he discovers a small native village at its edge there's a discount shop called 'Trader Bobs 24 Hours Convenience Store'... ermm, didn't the parrot mentioned that very same name before? When you've entered the shop, Bob tells that a certain princess Azura has been kidnapped Bob suspects the Amazon-based company 'Flφda Inc.', which produces lederhosen! A following conversation with Bob's girlfriend, the charming Naomi, unearths that she's in search for a new perfume... well, maybe Faye could help? However, back at the crash site, King finds only Sparky: He tells him that Faye lost patience to wait for Joe's return any longer so, she headed off by herself to search for help and walked towards the mountain, which our hero has climbed before. But as it seems, she disappeared without a trace...
Lola, just one of Joe's many love affairs...
King of the Jungle...
So, there's a lot to do for poor Joe King and he must take very good care that he won't get lost in the whirlpool of events. During his adventure he finds out that a mad scientist named Dr. Frank Ironstein has created a technology to turn human beings into dinosaurs with that invention, he plans to take over the world! While he tries to save mankind, he meets many bizarre characters, like e.g. the missionary couple Jimmy and Mary-Lou Cook, whose makeshift church is only visited by some monkeys... or the screwy puppeteer Bert, who's kept imprisoned in the dungeon of the Amazons. Next, we have the two wanna-be archaeologists Skip and Bud for last one; Joe has to get hold of an anti rash ointment. Last but not least, there's the sinister ferryman Charon (no, not Sharon or Charlene, just 'C-H-A-R-O-N'...), who looks like a certain Grim Reaper as well as the above mentioned Trader Bob, who helps with words and deeds anytime...
As you can see, 'Flight of the Amazon Queen' is an extremely exciting, but also very funny game entirely in the tradition of the old LucasArts titles. If you didn't know better, you could mistake it for a further 'point and click' adventure of this company, because the whole presentation of 'Flight of the Amazon Queen' bears a striking resemblance to a program like e.g. 'Monkey Island 2 LeChuck's Revenge': Also here, there are several commands below the graphics window with these, you're able to interact with the surrounding area. Though, those aren't displayed as words, but as icons. An example: The command 'Look at' was replaced by a magnifying glass, whereas a speech balloon allows conversations with other characters. Next to it is the inventory just like in 'Monkey Island 2', all items are shown by small images...
But Renegade's/Interactive Binary Illusions' adventure has enough originality to be far more than just an unapologetic rip-off! Nevertheless, it's an already perfect mixture of LucasArts' famous 'Monkey Island' saga and their 'Indiana Jones' games: For one thing, there's the cool main protagonist Joe King, daredevil pilot and lady-killer ('Ive always had a thing for brunettes. And blondes. Redheads too...') - his job takes him to the most exotic and at the same time most dangerous places of this world... well, you can't deny a certain resemblance to the lifestyle of Dr. Jones. The central location again, could be 'borrowed' from a 'Monkey Island' episode... just like the bizarre characters that populate the jungle. Moreover, there are many quotes of famous movies like 'Star Wars' or 'The Terminator' thus, Hollywood fans will get their money's worth...
Chasing the lady(?) in red...
'Joe King and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull...'
Also the exploration of an ancient, and most of all, spooky temple on an isolated island, the so-called 'Sloth Island', wouldn't appear misplaced in an adventure of our whip swinging favourite archaeologist! The reason for Joe's forced visit of this cult site is the legendary 'Crystal Skull' only with the help of that mysterious (and extremely ugly) artefact he's able to reach a place called 'Valley of the Mists'. Legend has it that this is the last sanctuary of the dinosaurs and exactly these are the creatures, mad Ironstein needs to put his plans into action...
The ultimate battle for the future of mankind has begun...
There's no business like show business...
What about the Return Flight?
'Cause 'Flight of the Amazon Queen is a 'modern' adventure game, the main character can neither die nor get into blind alleys just like the 'Monkey Island' saga, also this program is separated into several parts. After King succeeded in escaping the hotel 'Copacabana', his plane crashes straight into the heart of the Amazon rainforest now, the second (and at the same time most extensive) part begins: Here, our hero explores the surrounding area and pays a visit to the several locations. The third act again takes place in the temple of 'Sloth Island' (in my opinion the best chapter of the whole adventure), whereas the fourth and final part represents the great showdown in the 'Valley of the Mists'...
Due to this modular game design, it's impossible to get into dead-end situations and because there's also no chance to die, there's no frustrating 'game over' screen as well... that's very commendable...
Although 'Flight of the Amazon Queen' doesn't reach the genius of the LucasArts' titles, it belongs without doubt to the best representatives of its genre. Sadly, it wasn't only one of the last big (commercial) 'point and click' adventures, but also along with 'Virocop' and 'The Chaos Engine 2' one of the last programs of the renowned label Renegade. Hence, the guys of Renegade/Interactive Binary Illusions would have named their product 'The LAST Flight of the Amazon Queen' just as well, because a sequel was never released... until today (besides, Joes plane couldn't be salvaged anyway)...
But what was the reason for not making a second part well, maybe the game wasn't that successful, because of the top-class adventures of LucasArts and Sierra On-Line respectively (at least on PC). On the Amiga again, it was unrivalled so, it should have sold well. Whatever the reason was, it's very unfortunate that there was no second (or even third) part of this title a further adventure with Joe King would have been very interesting...
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Releasing an Amiga adventure in 1995, which doesn't take advantage of Commodore's AGA models, seems a little strange to me. After all, a 1:1 adaption of the 256 colour PC version would have been tailor-made for those computers! Nevertheless, I must admit that the graphics look great, even in the used OCS/ECS mode apart from a few exceptions, there's not much of a difference between PC original and Amiga port. However, a specific enhanced version for the models A1200/4000 would have been desirable. However, the animations of the several characters are beyond any doubt particularly Joe's gesture is a real eye-catcher: It doesn't matter whether climbing down a deep shaft, extracting a wooden stick from a big rock (probably a homage to 'Excalibur'?) or during a conversation with another person (in such situations, sometimes even a big portrait of the interlocutor appears) the love for detail is omnipresent. One of the graphical highlights of 'Flight of the Amazon Queen' should be the unusual map: Our hero stands on the top of a mountain and looks onto the wide jungle he's surrounded by. When the player moves the mouse to the left and to the right respectively, the whole panorama scrolls to the respective direction, whereas the pinnacle stays always in the foreground that results in a stunning 3D effect, which makes the static island maps of the 'Monkey Island' saga appear ridiculous! Another nice 3D effect is the zooming of the several characters when they disappear slowly in the distance or appear from the depth of the landscape and become more and more bigger. Like mentioned before, the adventure features a very good scrolling routine but because most of the locations fit completely on the screen, it's used rather rarely...
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In terms of the music, 'Flight of the Amazon Queen' outclasses the two final LucasArts adventures, which were still released for the Amiga. Nevertheless, the several compositions don't reach the quality of the 'The Secret of Monkey Island' soundtrack by Michael Z. Land and Chris Hόlsbeck/Rudolf Stember respectively! Especially, one track, which you can hear during the exploration of the ancient temple on 'Sloth Island', makes you realize that people like e.g. music genius Richard Joseph (to name but one) were responsible for the game's soundtrack. The several background tunes fit almost perfect to the respective locations and the supply of melodies isn't only very big, but also wide-ranging: starting with cheery swing music at the hotel 'Copacabana' right through to the grim-sounding compositions at the ancient temple and Bavarian folk music at the closely guarded 'Flφda Inc.' camp nearly all styles of music are represented here. On the other hand, there are just a few sfx...
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Strictly speaking, the user guidance is a 1:1 rip-off of the famous 'SCUMM' system by Ron Gilbert and Aric Wilmunder like mentioned before; the several commands have been merely replaced by respective icons. So what? It doesn't harm the gameplay... in fact, quite the opposite is the case! Moreover, the puzzles are always logical and every single object, which is important for solving the game, is clearly recognizable and can hardly be missed. 'Flight of the Amazon Queen' is one of the few adventures, I've completed without any walkthrough or the like but this doesn't mean that 'beating' this game is a walk in the park! In spite of everything, solving it is not that easy and it can take quite a long time until you'll enjoy the ending. Because the title is pretty extensive, it contains eleven floppy disks to guarantee a comfortable playability, a hard drive installation is essential...
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| So, not only LucasArts and Sierra are (were) able to produce excellent 'point and click' adventures with 'Flight of the Amazon Queen', Renegade/Interactive Binary Illusions has given proof of its talent to create an outstanding adventure game, too. Apart from 'Inherit the Earth - Quest for the Orb' and the second part of the 'Simon the Sorcerer' series, 'The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe', there weren't any noteworthy titles released for the Amiga family in the following years (at least for those with OCS/ECS architecture) sad but true... |
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