Byzantine: The Betrayal
Sold Out		(Win95/98/ME/XP) (Retail) (BYZANTPR)

Stormfront Studios / Discovery Channel Multimedia / Interplay

Game

ESRB Rating: Kids to Adults - Realistic Violence

Ratings:

A from Just Adventure

from Four Fat Chicks

Prepare Your Imagination

The summons from your friend in Turkey promises you a story that any investigative journalist would die for. Once in Istanbul, you begin to suspect your friend's words may prove prophetic, as you are plunged into a conspiracy that's plundering the legacy of a lost civilization. In this dangerously authentic adventure, you'll need all your reporter's instincts and skills to solve your way to the truth...or perish in the attempt. Now, let the journey begin. But remember: Trust no one. Suspect everyone. And play as if your life depends on it.

Immersive 360º environments, authentic ambient sounds and originally scored music draw you into the thrilling, mysterious world of Istanbul.

The intricacies of Turkish art and culture create a myriad of intriguing plot twists and puzzles.

Stunning, detailed 16-bit 3D models create a graphic backdrop unlike any other adventure game.

45 minutes of live-action video shot on location in Turkey bring the exotic people, places and action of Istanbul to life in a plot mired in ciphers, betrayal and intrigue.

Introduction

You're a freelance American journalist looking for your big break, when an e-mail from Istanbul offers you the scoop of a lifetime. Your old college friend, Emre, has stumbled upon a secret that could bring an international antiquities smuggling ring to its knees. Pack your bags - you're in for the ride of your life.

Istanbul - crossroads of East and West, city of contradictions - where passion meets betrayal, and unimaginable wealth meets abject poverty. The minute you step off the plane, the intrigue begins. Emre has disappeared, the Turkish police are in hot pursuit and you're alone in a teeming foreign city - left out like bait, to see which sharks come up to feed. Before you can even unpack, you find you've become the prime suspect in a brutal international murder.

You need all your investigative skills to track Emre's trail and bring to light the international plot he started to uncover. Your adventure takes you through three thousand years of Istanbul's mysterious past: from ancient Ottoman palaces to the frontiers of high-tech virtual reality. Only you can piece together the truth in this landscape of deception. Unravel the ancient intrigues of sultans and emperors. Decipher which of Istanbul's elusive inhabitants will lead you to the truth, and which to death. Turn your reporter's instincts on high.

Trust no one. Suspect everyone. One wrong move and you're HISTORY!

Requirements:

Windows 95/98/ME/XP, Pentium processor 90 or higher (133 or higher recommended), 16MB of RAM, quad speed CD-ROM drive, hard drive (up to 55MB), Windows 95 compatible sound card, video/audio card compatible with Microsoft Direct X drivers, mouse, SVGA display 16-bit color (thousands of colors), local BUS (PCI or VL), Intel MMX technology (not required).

6 CDs. Works OK under Windows XP; may require Windows 95 compatibility mode. There can be problems saving the game. We believe this problem occurs on hard drives with large amounts of free space but we are not certain. We installed it to a smaller drive and it worked fine after that. There is also a utility program which creates large temporary files to solve this type of problem called Philip.exe.

Reviews:

Just Adventure by Ray Ivey

"However, there's one more element to this game that pushes it right over the top and onto my All Time Greats List. And that is the use of a virtual reality simulator.

"I have come across the virtual reality gimmick in several games, most notably in Ripper and Nightlong, and I must say that, as gimmicks you can use in building an adventure game, it's a darn good one. In the case of Byzantine, it's simply a masterstroke.

"Again, without giving too much away, let me just say that you have to use a virtual reality simulator to help you foil the smugglers. This involves scanning sections of the real, present-day buildings and artifacts, using the scans to help complete VR recreations, and then exploring the resulting recreations in order to discover new facts. It's not only a chance for the graphic artists to go crazy, it's simply an irresistible feature to an already good story.

"I played the game with a friend who works in a museum, and she felt she had died and gone to Game Heaven. Playing out across seven CDs, the game is large, rich, and of appropriate length. By the time we had finished the game, we felt we had actually been to Istanbul and foiled the smugglers ourselves. It was one of the most satisfying games I've played."

Four Fat Chicks by Skinny Minnie

"Wending my way through both the virtual areas and the lavish filmed portions of the game never proved disorienting, except for a somewhat nasty timed hallway maze at game's end. I did wind up with a couple of unused inventory items, but I hesitated to label them red herrings as I questioned whether I just missed fully completing a scene or two in the game. This may possibly have been because I had half of Istanbul gunning for me by the end, but perhaps your trip through the game will be somewhat different all around. There were multiple conversational options, which occasionally prompted different responses from interviewees, and maybe different final choices at those times could have redirected my path through the game."

"I absolutely loved the many layers of Byzantine's thrilling tale; they slowly swelled to a final climax, explaining a lot and wrapping up the loose ends in a very satisfying way. The many puzzles were all very organic to the plot while still being varied and original, as well as appropriately challenging for a seasoned adventure gamer. Its educational aspects were mostly optional via museum tours and the like, but I felt compelled to soak up every last bit of this engrossing game.

"In case you couldn't tell, Byzantine: The Betrayal quickly planted itself among my top-10 favorite computer games of all time—a star among stars. My only regret is that there was never a Byzantine 2 ..."

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