“Quest for Infamy†falls short in its attempt to reignite the long extinguished spark of old school adventure games. Developer Infamous Quests’ heart is in the right place, with multiple storylines and an interesting overarching plot that could easily take players 20-plus hours to complete. However, the characters that encompass this tale and the irritating fetch quests restrain much of the enjoyment spewed from its narrative.
Fetch quests aren’t all bad, and they should be expected in a point and click role-playing game. But players will often find themselves running through the large-scale map in search of an object with usually not so much as a hint of its whereabouts. One fetch quest leads to another, then another, and one more. Voila. You’ve successfully completed one task.
There’s a good side to this though. Navigating the map can (and probably will) be confusing to newcomers, but that’s because the game’s world is impressively expansive. Each location is uniquely sketched and after a bit of wandering around you’ll realize how cleverly mapped out it all is.
The first place you visit in the game is Volksville, a burg in the center of the map. This is where you will spend your nights (when you choose to sleep at the Inn), meet the majority of important characters, purchase goodies and more. From here, you can exit and travel to either the east or west of town to find your next destination. It may feel like a maze at first, but soon after you’ll realize that Volksville is the heart of the world, and knowing how to return to it will makes things way easier… at least until you retrieve a map for fast traveling.
William Roehm is “Quest for Infamy’s,†er, infamous protagonist. He’s also probably the only decent voice actor in the game. The rest could very well be friends and family of Infamous Quests employees. It’s a shame, because when the game takes itself seriously and neverminds the mostly unfunny humor commonly present in dialogue, the writing is actually very well done. It’s probably best to quickly read everything yourself and ignore in-game voices, because, to be blunt, they’re annoying.
The humor does well at times, normally with Roehm. His smart-ass remarks and perverted jokes fare well and call for a few laughs, when they’re not going over the top, at least. Roehm’s attitude does make him trip over himself at times. Since he almost never seems to be in any real peril, even when looking death in the face, it prevents any true player immersion.
Combat is seldom needed throughout this adventure, and most of which is done towards the end, in which case you should be well equipped by then. The lack of challenge is a blessing. Fighting in the game is lifeless and unrelieved. Basically, you have three seconds to choose an attack before your turn is skipped. Three is more than enough since there are only three attacks to choose from, though this varies depending on which of the three classes you choose — Brigand, Sorcerer or Rogue. Either way you’ll likely end up choosing one attack and continue to click it until the battle is won. You can also purchase health potions at shops and use as many as you need at a time; plus, they’re pretty cheap.
“Quest for Infamy†may not be what the game that old school adventurers were hoping for. It’s impressive in many ways, but ultimately fails to deliver thanks to poor voice talent, repetition and an unbalanced tone. Still, there is an enjoyable story underneath it all, one that might be worth a second playthrough with another class.
For more information on the game, head to the “Quest For Infamy” official site, here.
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