	The Secrets Of Da Vinci: The Forbidden Manuscript
	Developer: Kheops Studio Publisher: Nobilis Release Date: Out Now Players: 1	Words By:
Despite its ‘coincidental’ release around the same time as the film adaptation (and game tie-in) of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, The Forbidden Manuscript shares only two things with the popular franchise: it involves puzzles and mystery and the story involves the great Leonardo Da Vinci, a little. Anyone looking to speed around Paris in a smart car with a sexy young French detective will be right out of luck here, as TFM is set way back in 1522 following Da Vinci’s death. You play as Baldo, a former student of Da Vinci’s greatest disciple now hired by a mysterious benefactor to recover a lost manuscript from Da Vinci’s old house. To be fair there’s little mysterious in comparison to the modern-day counterpart but the puzzles are not only more challenging but more satisfying. The game is played in the first-person over static screens (like the Myst series), where movement between areas is simple “teleportation” rather than real-time movement. The first problem I came to with this game was that, like Myst you’re given pretty much no clues whatsoever about where to go, what to pick up and where to find puzzles, let alone solve them! This reduces the game to having to move from screen to screen, scanning the mouse over every surface looking for the all-important pick-up or ‘interact’ icons so you can actually do something! To be fair, when you actually find the puzzles they’re not too taxing; they’re good logic puzzles and if you need any items to help solve them you’ll be able to, if only by scanning everything you’ve picked up, so no boring backtracking! They’re harder than the quite remedial puzzles found in the Da Vinci Code game but a damn sight easier than the MIT-grade teasers that Myst throws at you! There are some rather tedious tasks mixed in with the good puzzles though, like running from one NPC to another all the way across the mansion grounds, which doesn’t really require brainwork just the patience to keep clicking through the screens! Also, minting your own coins was a fun process until having spent ages figuring out how to do it, the game makes you do it over and over for no reason other than to extend the game’s lifespan… The puzzles may not be too complicated but one thing that’ll have you tearing your hair out with frustration is the inventory system, which seems to have less organisation than a prison riot. There are five pages for your inventory and items are only sorted by when you picked them up. If you happen to use something the next item you pick up will go into that slot and you’ll spend ages thinking you lost it. I know it’s not a huge gripe but when there’s a bit of trial and error with some of the puzzles it takes bloody ages to switch between items! The environments although static look very nice, with great levels of detail on every period item on every screen and the interactive NPCs look smooth (except for the rough old gardener). The sound is quite non-intrusive but even after a few hours still doesn’t get on your nerves and the classical tones chill you out after scouring endless rooms for a single item. The Secrets of Da Vinci: The Forbidden Manuscript is a more factual puzzler following the works of Da Vinci. If the Da Vinci code had never have been released on such a large scale the game would probably have passed by unnoticed, but some people are bound to buy this in error thinking it’s a tie-in. Some of the people who buy it will be disappointed at the slow pace and meticulous nature of the game but those who prefer a more laid-back approach to gaming and fancy some good puzzles (and a couple of crappers) mixed with a period storyline then TFM is definitely worth a look.

Best Bits
- Some good puzzles
- Nice graphics
- Laid-back

Worst Bits
- Perhaps too laid-back
- Tedious scouring for puzzles and items without any hints
- Naff inventory system
- No Audrey Tautou…


by: Crazypunk