EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus

The Good
Sierra takes their years of adventure-game experience -- arguably some of the best in the business -- and applies its familiar formula to an educational game for the kids. They've even put some of Sierra's big name developers behind this game, like designer Jane Jensen (of the Gabriel Knight series), and programmer Scott Murphy (of Space Quest). What does that spell? F-U-N. It is most definitely an adventure game, cut from the same classic mold that Sierra's famous for. However, it's a simplified adventure, and it's considerably shorter than most adventure games, but that's perfectly fine for a kid with a short attention span who wants to be entertained, not be frustrated by impossible puzzles.

Educationally, the game does its job well. It presents the story of an ecologically-damaged coral reef, which not only teaches some basic marine biology but also instills ecological concern, a good subject you want your children to be aware of early in life. So Adam (that's the main character) is faced with the periodic task of keeping an eye out for trash and cleaning up the mess (who wouldn't want to teach their kids how to do that?) but also, as you're swimming around in the ocean, click on a fish or a plant and you'll be greeted with a short, educational encyclopedia entry-like blurb. The entire game is riddled with such real-life information, so there's plenty of factual trivia for children to learn.

There's even some in-jokes tossed in for the adult player, so they're not being completely ignored if they're playing the game with their kids. Look for a reference to the ghost pirate LeChuck from Lucasart's Monkey Island series. It's a good thing Sierra learned that lesson that made Animaniacs so popular with adults -- give them something to laugh at, it's not just all for little kids. Like those old Saturday-morning cartoons, there is a way to appeal to both kids and adults and even teach a little something in the process.

The Bad
Well, if you're used to exercising your brain in thought-taxing puzzle monsters like Monkey Island, you might be let down by this game's simplicity. While there's really nothing to hate, EcoQuest isn't going to be something that you can necessarily become obsessed about. You could very easily sit down, start playing, and finish the game two hours later. Don't look for challenge in this game, unless you happen to be eight years old.

The Bottom Line
If this were the early 1990's, I'd recommend parents to buy EcoQuest for their kids because it strikes a wonderful and working compromise between fun and education, which rarely go hand in hand in most considerations of the genre. But kids today won't be too impressed with EcoQuest anymore, which makes this a nice, and briefly enjoyable, collectible for the classic Sierra enthusiast.

The Good
The game was a very fun educational game during it's time, I thought just the whole feel of learning about the earth and pollution was fun. The game never bored me and I found everything entertaining about it. I liked the setting as well and the voice acting in the cd version.

The Bad
The ending somewhat disapointed. The game wasn't incredibly long but other than that it was a fun game. CD version is very rare and hard to find.

The Bottom Line
The game revolves around saving the earth so to put. The ecoquest series humanizes animals and their feelings of the earth and how humans are destroying their habitats. In ecoquest 1 you make friends with a dolphin whos home is being destroyed by pollution, he is being treated in a sea lab your father runs, and you have to basically gain this dolphins trust and come to his home to help find his king who has been missing. Most of the game takes place in the ocean. Sierra released 2 versions of the game, both I own. The first one was released on disk and the second one was released on CD which had slightly better graphics in certain areas, they removed you having to enter a keycode on the door, and everything used realtime speech and sounds opposed to the disk version which only included text.

When I had first played the game I was quite young and could never get past the cruise ship in the game but I was still fascinated by it as I was huge on adventure games. about 10 years later I wanted to play the game again but unfortunately my dad must have thrown it out or something since it was a really old game and we hadn't played them for years plus our modern computers couldn't really run older games. I had found a vaporware site but it wasn't the cd version I was looking for which apparently is very hard to find due to a limited number being released and vaporware sites not releasing them due to space constrictions. If you do find the cd version the speech really does add to the game and makes it quite fun. Being involved in scuba diving my self I always found the game interesting.

The Good
When the golden age of computer games (the Nineties, according to a really old MobyGames poll) was just taking off, Sierra introduced its “Discovery Series”, and if you brought a game that had these words on top of the cover, you know that the game was actually an education tool for children (although adults can enjoy them as well). I assume that the SDS games weren't as successful, since there were only six games released. One of these games was EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus, and it taught children about ecology.

The educational part of the game kicks in right at the start of the game when Adam Greene, the protagonist, has to get rid of the oil that a sea gull is carrying. In doing so, not only do they find out why they need to do this, but they find out how to do it properly so that they can apply their actions in real life.

Later, Adam plays with a dolphin he helped rescue from a fishing net. After being released, the same dolphin comes back to Adam, telling him that the underwater kingdom of Eluria is in trouble; and Cetus, the great whale king, is missing. What I like about the game is click the eye cursor on different fish and other plants causes Delphineus to give you information about them.

The majority of the game takes place underwater, helping any wildlife you meet and recycling any waste that found its way to the ocean floor. It is interesting to see other fish swimming by Adam. While swimming, I felt that I was actually experiencing life underwater for the first time, not knowing what dangers are lurking ahead of me and how I could deal with these dangers. Each underwater scene is filled with wildlife, and they look excellent.

Since EcoQuest is a kids game, the icon bar at the top of the screen looks quite colorful, and each icon is animated when you click on them. Some of the graphics are breathtaking, and every scene has beautiful, hand-painted backgrounds. The underwater scenes have plants and other creatures that are usually found in real life. Near the end of the game, the scene where Cetus occupies more than half the screen is just stunning. The characters are well animated as they mo

The way the sound effects blend in with the underwater theme to it is excellent. The game's soundtrack is excellent, and has that reggae-style to it no matter what sound device you use. (In my opinion, the Roland MT-32 sounds realistic.) The music at the end of the game is enough to make you feel good.

There are puzzles in the game, but they are not that hard to solve and take five to ten minutes to complete. One puzzle I know involves changing some pillars so that they match the ones on the other side of the room. Also, Adam also deals with a manta ray who threatens Eluria, and learns of a prophecy he must fulfil if he wishes to save the kingdom. This prophecy comes in a form of a poem, and it takes a few moments to make any sense of it.

The CD-ROM version of EcoQuest features some excellent voice acting. Adam is a young boy learning to be a ecologist just like his dad, so it made sense for him to be voiced by William Skirvin's son. Delphineus, the dolphin who guides Adam along the way, is done by a woman who I don't know the name of. The CD-ROM shows how some of the fish have a bit of attitude on them, especially Gregarious and Superfluous.

The Bad
Most of the cursors in the game are solid purple. They are a step backwards from the ones that were properly drawn in other Sierra games.

As stated in the description, there are some supernatural elements. The only one I can think of is at part near the end where Delphineus is swaying back and forth on a hook while Flesh-Eater is circling him. I found this quite disturbing.

Finally, I was disappointed at the ending. I am not going to spoil it for you, but let's just say that the biggest threat to Eluria wasn't destroyed, just stunned. Normally, when I play a game, I expect any antagonist to be dealt with and killed; and this did not suffice.

The Bottom Line
As I said before, EcoQuest is an adventure game that teaches you how to look after the environment. With the help of a dolphin, you must find a way to save an underwater city from destruction, and to do this, you must search for Cetus, the great whale king, and face dangers that await you. Along the way, you find rubbish laying on the floor, and you can pick this up for points The CD-ROM version of the game is quite rare, but if you find it, you won't be disappointed as it contains excellent voice acting and ambient sound effects that are not heard in the disk version. But even if you are unable to obtain the CD-ROM version, both versions of the game feature a colorful interface and excellent hand-painted backgrounds.