The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time
| The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time | |
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| Developer(s) | Presto Studios |
| Publisher(s) | Sanctuary Woods |
| Designer(s) | David Flanagan |
| Platforms | Windows, Mac OS |
| Release date(s) | 1995 (GOG.com)(PC only) INT March 20, 2012[1] |
| Genre(s) | Adventure game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time is a computer game developed by Presto Studios and is the second game in the Journeyman Project series of computer adventure games.
Contents
Overview
Published in 1995 by Sanctuary Woods, Buried in Time was a radical change from the original. It is noted for establishing Agent 5 (the player's character) as Gage Blackwood, which in the original Journeyman Project lacked basic personality features and even a name. It also featured greatly improved graphics and seamless animation as well as many live-action sequences. The PC version was programmed entirely in C++ for improved performance. A PlayStation version was also prototyped, but was never released.
Story
As the story begins in the year 2318, six months after the events of the first game, Gage Blackwood (once again controlled by the player) is visited by himself from ten years in the future. Someone has framed the future Gage for tampering with historical artifacts and it is up to the past Gage to visit the past and find evidence to clear his name. Meanwhile, the Symbiotry of Peaceful Beings is deliberating on Earth's monopoly on time travel technology and this latest trial threatens to close down the Temporal Security Agency (TSA). After joining up with an interesting artificial intelligence being named Arthur, Gage visits locations such as the workshop of Leonardo da Vinci and the Mayan temple of Chichen Itza and eventually find the culprit, Michelle Visard, who is another TSA agent. Gage is kidnapped by her and taken to an old missile silo, where Arthur sacrifices himself to allow Gage to continue his mission. He eventually uncovers that another alien race, the Krynn, are behind the crimes and the framing of Gage, to further their own interests. Gage is able to stop the Krynn and save his future self, and is then mind-wiped and sent back to his own time.
Disc Layout
The game shipped on three CD-ROMs, with the data organized to allow the least amount of disc-swapping possible. The disc breakup was as follows:
Macintosh Version:
- Disc 1: Krynn Vessel
- Disc 2: Gage Blackwood's Residence, Farnstein Space Laboratory, Missile Silo
- Disc 3: Chateau Gaillard, Leonardo da Vinci's Workshop, Chichen Itza
Windows Version:
- Disc 1: Farnstein Space Laboratory
- Disc 2: Gage Blackwood's Residence, Missile Silo, Krynn Vessel
- Disc 3: Chateau Gaillard, Leonardo da Vinci's Workshop, Chichen Itza
Publishing
Buried in Time was published by Sanctuary Woods upon its original release. However, Sanctuary Woods soon went out of business, and Presto Studios self-published the game until Red Orb Entertainment picked up the distribution rights in 1998. Red Orb published the game until their eventual demise in 1999.
Releases and bug fixes
The initial 1.0 release of Buried in Time included a notable glitch near the end of the game that prevented the player from getting a perfect score. This bug and other problems related to running under Windows 95 were solved in a version 1.1 patch.
When the game was released as part of The Journeyman Project Trilogy box set, Buried in Time was plagued by a manufacturing error that affected many of the box sets. The disc labeled as disc 2 actually contained the data for disc 3, making the game essentially unplayable.
The game has since been rereleased through Good Old Games.
Critical response
The reaction to the game was mostly positive. Just Adventure gave the game an "A+", saying "...this is one of the best games I’ve ever played. It impressed me from start to finish."[2] Programmer in Black, while having a few gripes about the scoring system, finished his review with "I recommend this (game) highly."[3]
However, the reaction was not completely positive. The small view window, a potentially cumbersome biochip system, and the overwhelming number of ways the player could meet an untimely end drew criticism from some reviewers, such as Adventure Gamers, who wrote in their three-and-a-half star review: "The first thing you'll invariably notice about the game is its tiny viewscreen...a very disappointing return of windowed gaming...Once again filling up another large portion of the screen is the elaborate interface. The first game's interface walked the fine line between complex and complicated, but the one used in Buried in Time is altogether unwieldy."[4] Most of these problems were resolved in the next game in the series, The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time.
References
External links
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