Author's Note: This is the second part to a two-part series on The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time. If you missed the first episode, here's a link. If you are interested in reading other entries in this series, feel free to consult the following list:
- Episode 1: The Dig
- Episode 2: Atlantis: The Lost Tales
- Episode 3: Loom
- Episode 4: Drowned God
- Episode 5a: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Part 1 & Episode 5b: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis - Part 2
- Episode 6: The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime
Farnstein Lab (Part 2)
Pressurizing The Biomass Processing Room - [Rating: 9/10] - Of Buried in Time's many set-pieces, the Farnstein Lab and Mayan Temple are the only ones that require multiple trips during an optimal playthrough. As I mentioned in the first part of this retrospective, the Farnstein Lab is inarguably the most challenging level in the game and because it is here where you pick up Arthur, one of the game's most important. As was the case before, you first need to purchase a can of aerosol cheese that you use to propel your character towards a space station. Your target location during your second visit is the Biomass Processing Room, and there are multiple routes you can take. However, because the exterior and interior of the station lack any atmospheric pressure, you also have to contend with a dwindling oxygen meter that acts as a timer. The route I took involved going to the main central room from before, using the computer terminal to pressurize the Biomass Processing Room, and then attempting to find the oxygen refilling station near the mining facility. It took me several tries before I completed this level, and I was not too fond of it.
The first issue with the lab is immediately apparent; the level has a time limit. Worse, there are required cutscenes and dialogue sequences involving Arthur, and the game continues to diminish your oxygen reserves while these occur. The second problem concerns the multiple routes leading to dead-ends. Exploring the space station is interesting in concept, but with the oppressive time limit, you can't appreciate any of the game's worldbuilding and need to stick to a critical path. Finally, and this is the most significant issue, the game does a terrible job of signposting how to get to the Biomass Processing Room and what items or equipment you will need to get there. The flask of water and oxygen refilling station are incredibly easy to miss. In the latter's case, passing it over makes completing the mission impossible in a normal playthrough.
More alarming, several steps are involved in refilling your oxygen tank, so if you are not careful, you might not be able to replenish your stock in time before you get a "Game Over." What you need to do in that case is find a terminal and select the "Run Mining Cycle" option to extract ice chunks from an asteroid. Next, you need to select "Run O2 Extraction" to remove oxygen from the ice, then move Forward-Right-Right to face the recharge station. Once there, you touch a specific nozzle to refill your tank at the station. Fun fact, there's a "Drain Oxygen" nozzle right next to it, and clicking it will result in an immediate game over. This sequence was an absolute ballbuster, but it is far from the most complicated puzzle I have seen during this feature.
Getting The Flask And Filling It With Water - [Rating: 6/10] - I have mentioned how I have difficulty gauging pixel hunts for this feature. This sequence is one such example. While making your way through a series of elevators that take you to the Biomass Processing Room, you first need to stop at the second level of the space station and explore a nearby room by moving Right-Right-Forward-Right-Down. You then pick up a plastic flask in a room with no other purpose but to give you this specific item. On a good day, I could excuse this sort of game design as "of an era,", especially with The Journeyman Project operating under the shadow of Myst. HOWEVER,the flask itself is not easy to find, AND if you have any hope of completing the game, you also have to fill it with water. The second part of that sentence is the real kicker, but to the game's defense, it lists the flask as an "empty water jug," and the oxygen station has a marked "H2O Mode." It's not that big of a leap to know that you need to use the jug on the terminal with that mode activated. Nonetheless, it's as fiddly as the previous puzzle.
Using The Green 3D Printer - [Rating: 3/10] - Using the elevator from earlier, you reach the top floor and use a vehicle to move to the door of the Biomass Processing Room. Fun fact, if you fail to pressurize the room, it will explode and kill you. Once inside, the good news is that you no longer need to worry about your oxygen meter and can freely explore the level. Eventually, you will notice a floating glob of green material and a command terminal with frequencies. Using the dial on the screen causes the green orb to transform into different statues, but what you want to do is set the frequency to 11kHz. If you explore the room long enough, you'll find notes talking about a UFO that attacked the station and how the signature of the spacecraft emits that frequency. When you touch the statue after setting the machine to the correct frequency, it reveals a schematic you can collect as evidence. There's a slight "hunt and peck" factor considering only one note in the entire room is applicable to moving forward, but that's not as pressing an issue as you'd think, considering there aren't that many notes to review in the first place. Of the many tasks at the space station, this was my favorite as it organically encouraged you to learn about the story as you solve a simple but clever puzzle.
The Mayan Temple & Caves (Part 2)
The God Of War Puzzle - [Rating: 4/10] - The second half of the Mayan Temple is BY FAR the most by the numbers portion of Buried in Time. Once you make your way back to the caves, which requires you to repeat the same process I reviewed in Part 1, you will notice doors to four rooms with differing Maya wood carvings. Each entryway signifies a different god, and the puzzle inside the subsequent room coincides with the god you are attempting to "beat." You can complete these rooms in any order except for the final one, which you can only finish if you have done the previous three. I started with the "God of War" room that you can only enter if you have the bloody arrow from the French castle. Quick note, you can cause an interesting "fail state" if you use the bloody arrow and exit this chamber as the arrow is a one-time use item, and after you use it, the door to the temple closes after leaving. The issue is that the game detects the arrow used for its intended purpose and will not respawn a new one.
While in this room, you need to use skulls from various skeletons in the mouths of serpent statues to make nearby mechanical wall-spear traps stop. You have a limited number of skulls at your disposal and cannot turn all the mechanical traps off in the room. As such, you need to do some mental calculus to figure out how to successfully reach the other side of the room to pick up an obsidian block. Even after you pick up the block, you need to calculate how to use the two skulls at your disposal to get to the exit without dying. This puzzle stumped me for a bit but in a good way. This puzzle is a weird Tower of Hanoi clone, but I found it entertaining. It's a logic puzzle with some attractive window-dressing, and that's sometimes all you can hope for in games like these.
The God Of Rain Puzzle - [Rating: 7/10] - To enter the Rain Temple, you use your recently acquired water flask. However, unlike the bloody arrow, you can use it multiple times in case you accidentally exit the temple temporarily. You will eventually run up against a rope bridge when you continue moving forward from the entrance. However, this bridge is "magical." To reveal its "final form," you must cross it, turn around, walk over the bridge again, and turn around once more. The bridge is now a set of swinging platforms, and you will need to time your button presses to cross the bridge to pick up a limestone block. The timing with the swinging blocks is tricky. You must click the Forward input seconds before a platform reaches you, but not before it passes you. Likewise, you do this twice as the swinging bridge does not stop after you get the limestone brick. For whatever reason, I had a harder time with the return journey than the initial trip, but your experience might be different. Hopefully, you have a save right before you start this sequence because this puzzle is about as "trial and error" as it gets in Buried in Time.
The God Of Wealth Puzzle - [Rating: 5/10] - To enter this room, you use the gold coins you picked up from the treasure chest in the French castle. After the door opens, you move forward until you see a rope bridge like the Water Temple, but you must avoid entering the gold-filled room in front of you. If you enter it, the door behind you will close, and the only way to exit is by warping back to Gage's apartment and trying again. Yes, this part fucks you over, but I think it's in the spirit of this particular puzzle. As long as you remember the lesson of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, you will not fall for the fake gold room, and even if you do, needing to warp back to Gage's apartment is only a temporary setback. To solve the puzzle, you need to notice the entrance to a bright room during the walk back from the bridge. You use a rope hook holding the bridge together to scramble to the glowing door. To accomplish this, you need to recall the coil of rope you found at Leonardo da Vinci's Studio and use it on the anchor. As long as you notice the bright room, you will eventually find a way to progress the story. The part with the hook is a toughie, no doubt, but even then, using the coil of rope is the only logical item combination here.
The Final Mayan God Trial - [Rating: 7/10] - To enter the final temple, combine all the stone pieces you picked up at the previous three temples and then insert the final product into a receptacle. At the entrance of this temple, there will be a piece of evidence for you to collect. When you enter the room, you discover a sacrificial altar and can observe a second and final piece of evidence. After collecting the evidence, you use the preserved human heart from da Vinci's workshop to summon a Maya puzzle box. Using the translation BioChip, you can decipher the various icons and symbols on the box and, with the help of Arthur, discover you need to input the shapes of what the mystery box contains. You can find the answer to this puzzle at the temple entrance, but if you do not write this down before summoning the mystery box, you are fucked! The box doesn't have a timer, but inputting even a single incorrect symbol results in a game over, which includes walking away from it.
This sentence might sound like PC adventure game apologism, but I did not hate this puzzle. Yes, having the answer be outside of the temple isn't great. However, each temple in the caves has something you can translate on their entryways that gives away how to open the door. By this point, it becomes an automatic reaction to queue up your Translate BioChip and make mental notes of what you read. I will admit that the decision to make the mystery box a game over if you mess up when you attempt to enter a complete combination is harsh. I will also concede that mystery box puzzles, in general, are a contrived crux for adventure games that have run out of ideas unless you are Fireproof Games. Finally, getting that preserved heart in the workshop sucks ass. However, the puzzle is still simple enough to solve once you have all the appropriate tools at your disposal and even forces you to explore your surroundings. That alone motivates me to avoid giving it a higher mark.
Gage Blackwood's House (Part 2)
Using The Environ Cartridge In The Projector - [Rating: 1/10] - When you open the Mayan mystery box, you find a cartridge you know you can play back in Gage's apartment. The cartridge appears in your inventory as an "Environ Cartridge," and Arthur chimes in that it might have clues as to who might be responsible for framing Gage. After going to Gage's projection system, you learn more about who is behind the grand conspiracy at play. As you watch a series of cutscenes, the culprit reveals themself and then knocks out Gage, which transitions the game to its penultimate level. There's not much here to discuss other than the FMV cutscenes in Buried in Time are QUITE EXCELLENT and are prime FMV Vinny material.
The Missile Silo
Using Arthur To Break Free - [Rating: 5/10] - When Gage wakes up, he is completely immobilized and strapped to a chair. While the "surprise" perpetrator of the conspiracy against Gage lectures about what their master plan is, Arthur reawakens and devises a way to break free. Arthur finds a way to hack into the culprit's computer terminal and discovers a way to sabotage their warp suit. However, Arthur needs the log-in codes to do this, and there's only a limited amount of time to prevent the culprit from killing Gage. Arthur directs you to use the Files BioChip and try to find essential information about the culprit to see if you can figure out their password. As you look at their dossier, you need to take note of their hobbies and input that as their password. There are a handful of other possible inputs to try, but you only have enough time to do two to three. If you are not using a guide, this sequence can become tiring as you'll have to rewatch several unskippable cutscenes. Nevertheless, there are not that many options to try before reaching the correct answer, and once you know the answer to this puzzle, it is impossible to mess up again.
Powering Up The Generator - [Rating: 4/10] - After another series of cutscenes play out, you are free to move around and explore the culprit's lair. To progress the game, you need to locate a generator core in the right corner of the room, pick it up, and find the console of the room's power generator. Using the console, you need to eject a spent core, turn to the emptied generator, insert the new core, and remember to pick up the used one. For whatever reason, Buried in Time has a glitch where you must look away from the generator after using the console to insert the new core into the machine. It is also worth noting that Arthur is no longer with you and the last two levels need to be completed without the game's hint system. Nonetheless, for this puzzle, it is visibly apparent the room you are in is not powered, and the generator is impossible to miss. Fixing the generator takes just a handful of clicks, and it is among the most straightforward tasks in the culprit's room.
Getting The Warp Codes To The Alien Spaceship - [Rating: 4/10] - With the lair online and operating, you need to explore the heaps of notes and video recordings in the room. The culprit's suggestions that an alien race is attempting to ruin humanity's attempts to achieve intergalactic recognition are accurate. To discover which aliens are behind this conspiracy, you first need to find the "Gravis Plasma Tools." When you touch this device, a control panel will emerge with two large triangular buttons. After pressing the two buttons, the words "Run Program" will pop up on the control panel. You need to cycle through several commands using the triangle buttons until the words "Transport Code" appear and then push the "Run Program" button. The warp codes to an alien spacecraft will appear but will dematerialize quickly. Likely, you will need to run the program two to three times before you note the entire warp code.
However, we are not yet prepared to jump into the alien spaceship as there is more than one ship using that exact code. To discover which ship is the correct one, you need to explore more notes in the room that reveal the sensory perception of the aliens in question. Next, you need to turn on a television and read a series of news articles about several members of the "Symbiotry" until you find one with a matching sensory perception listed at the end of their report. When you find a match, you need to jot down their "Transport Prefix." Only with the correct transport code and prefix will you be able to warp into their ship without dying. While involved, this puzzle did a better job of making me feel like a detective than when the game stops you in your tracks and forces you to find clues. Once again, Buried in Time finds a clever way to opt you into learning more about its story while you are solving puzzles. I admit reading text written in the format of a CNN article is not to everyone's taste, but if that is the case, you can skip to the ends of the articles to get what you are trying to find. If you fail to note the transport prefix, the transportation machine will ask for one, and you can power down the device to get it. Overall, I enjoyed this sequence more than I thought I would.
The Alien Spaceship
Activating The Alien Transport System - [Rating: 5/10] (But It Depends) - Remember when I made a big deal about picking up the lens filter in Leonardo da Vinci's workshop? Yeah, well, this part of the game is where that becomes a big deal. If you only observe the lens but fail to pick it up, you will not be able to see anything inside the alien spaceship and will automatically fail the game. If you lack a prior save where you can warp back and pick up the lens, then you will need to restart the entire game. I suspect this problem was an oversight by the developer, but it sure sucks nonetheless. However, turning on the alien transportation system is relatively straightforward if you have the lens. After turning on the lens, you observe some approaching guards and need to use the cloaking BioChip. After they pass, you need to touch a muscly bar at the bottom of your screen to turn on the alien transportation system and move forward to the next room. A recurring theme on the alien spaceship is that your reaction speeds need to be quick. Otherwise, the game will murder you. Other than that, the "It Depends" factor of whether or not you have the lens is what determines if this puzzle makes or breaks for you.
Collecting Items From An Alien Organ - [Rating: 2/10] - The transportation system sucks you through a series of bio-organic alien rooms until you end up next to a mass of flesh with items jutting out of it. You need to click on a fleshy container holding a medieval sword. To break the blade free, you need to use an explosive charge, which shockingly does NOT alert the alien guards you encountered earlier. Using the sword, you can cut open the remaining storage containers to locate an "interactive sculpture," The Codex Atlanticus, the Mayan puzzle box, and the Environ Chip. The game does not tell you what you do or do not need, and I felt compelled to give the flesh pile a second go, pecking away at every pixel before moving forward. That said, I'd struggle to call this puzzle "difficult." Getting all the items certainly boosts your in-game score, but only the sword is necessary to complete the game.
Dealing With The Alien Guards - [Rating: 8/10] - The next two bits are where my suggestions about needing quick reaction speeds kick into high gear. After picking up the sword, you must return to the transportation tube and backtrack to your initial starting position. However, the guards are back, but you cannot move this time. To avoid an untimely demise, you must use the sword on the fibrous bar that usually engages the transportation system to send the guards back. The issue here is that your window to complete this task is scant, and considering how fiddly the game's inventory system can be, it is easy to get a game over even if you know exactly what you must do. I timed it and would guess you have less than twenty seconds to locate the sword and use it on the bar before the game murders you, and for most, that's not enough time especially considering how cluttered your inventory can get.
Defeating The Evil Alien Ambassador - [Rating: 9/10] - After you defeat the guards and attempt to move forward, the ambassador of the evil aliens apprehends Gage and locks him into a prison cell. In prime villain form, the ambassador announces aloud that he plans to use his special laser beam to rip away Gage's space suit, which will cause him to suffocate in the alien environment. To prevent this, you need to use the spent energy core to cause the beams to reflect onto the ambassador. With the ambassador dealt with, you need to locate the console that pilots the ship, which triggers the game's ending. It is worth noting that if you took the time to read the label on the spent energy cube, there is a warning that says it can disrupt transportation beams. However, that's the only bone the game throws you. For most, this entire sequence boils down to using whatever shit you have in your pockets and seeing what works. With Arthur out of commission, you can't even ask for help if you get stuck. As a whole, not only does the game end with a haphazard "throw everything against the wall and see what sticks" puzzle, but the ending itself is a complete disappointment. It's a shitty puzzle and an even shittier ending to an otherwise fun and riveting game.
Should You Play The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (Verdict: Yes, But Only If You Enjoyed The First Game)
My recommendations for Buried in Time at the start of the first entry still stand. You should only play this game if you complete the remaster of the first game (i.e., Pegasus Prime) and still have an appetite to see more. The ambition of Buried in Time is undeniable. Presto Studios pushed the boundaries of the then industry standard for PC adventure games, especially those that used FMV. However, this game is crusty. It is an absolute bore to play at times and almost impossible to recommend to people who do not have a tolerance for Myst-like bullshit. If you lack the context of where most adventure games were in the late 1990s, its design will feel bizarre or mean-spirited. I have it in my heart to love this game, but I know I might be an outlier. I view the "FMV Era" of adventure games in a far more positive light than most. By hook or by crook, even the most cynical critic of FMV has to admit that they kept the adventure game torch alight during the genre's darkest hours.
It's a shame because I think The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time is an experience worth having. Legacy of Time is a game that reeks of an incomplete project, but it is BY FAR the most enjoyable game in the series. In a masterstroke of genius, Presto boiled out the previous two games' punishing difficulty and created an adventure with no death. The puzzles are also better, and the third game's excessive use of FMV is a proverbial cherry on top. Unfortunately, playing the second game is a necessary step to enjoying the third, and its incomplete status is incredibly disappointing. Legacy of Time has two fully realized levels and ends just as it starts to find its stride. With the entire series in stasis and with no hope of that changing, seeing this series out to the end feels like a logical conclusion on my part. There will likely never be a Kickstarter that reboots the series and allows the characters of The Journeyman Project to reach their logical conclusions like Tex Avery or Leisure Suit. I cannot help but lament that. But for Buried in Time, check it out if it looks attractive, and feel free to let out a yelp if you need help.
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