Simon the Sorcerer 3D Reviews

Damn daniel ar ar ar ar ar ar ar

Podoba mi sie dupa co mowi na niego Jimmy

This extremly well made game, with good graphic, good music, good contros, good puzzle, and its just amazing game you need to play!

always crashes, lots of bugs / lost hours of playing several times

This is a tough one. I love the first two Simon games and I had fun playing 4 and 5 but I never got to part 3 until it got added to Steam. I immediately bought it, downloaded it and started to play. I got through the prologue (i.e. the temple) relatively quick but then the Nintendo 64-like open world appeared and I just got lost in a negative way. It just all looks the same and you have to find little landmarks to really know where you are. After four or five hours of walking around frustrated (You can run, but the game doesn't tell you anything) and not really knowing what I had to do, I gave up and followed a walkthrough. Believe me, it is the only way to play this game. I'd even go so far and say, just watch or read a story recap. The graphics are somehow worse than Monkey Island 4, Grim Fandango or Broken Sword 3, which all came out earlier than or shortly after Simon 3D. The controls are horrible, which is pretty normal for a 3D-era Adventure game, but the Legend of Zelda-style camera makes it even harder to control Simon effectively (There is a puzzle in a police station that almost broke me). At first, the Soundtrack is quite nice (doesn't use any pieces of the first two games though) but gets old VERY quickly, while you're wandering through the fields. There are a few familiar faces from the first two entries and a lot of new ones that are actually pretty memorable. The story continues the ending of Simon 2 and sets up Simon 4 and is overall okayish, but after all the endless running around, I couldn't even begin to really tell you what this game is about. Now, the last part of the game. You NEED to have a CD drive or at least a virtual CD drive or you can't finish the game, which was probably quite funny at the time, since every PC had a CD-drive. And don't even get me started on the last level, in which you have to remember your way through a sort of maze that looks the same or you won't find your way back IN TIME. I really wanted to give Simon 3 a fair chance, and I did, but believe me when I say, watch a replay, or read the story, but skip this one. It'll break you.

Glad it finally works now! Just wish this was a remastered version with controls that made sense, smooth gameplay, and graphics that were a bit more modern. But at least you can actually play it now, so that's cool. Edit: Switching my recommendation to not recommended because I just realized it still doesn't work. Grandulf did not spawn in in chapter 5 soooooo I'm stuck. I'll switch my review back if this game FINALLY GETS A REAL PATCH. There were a few other major bugs I found while playing too (including getting trapped inside the Inn emergency door).

Gameplay itself is fun, polish dubbing if fun, but the experience is painful on modern computers. - it often crashes when opening inventory in the city level (usually around the laundromat) - it freezes when trying to exit the game - if it crashes or freezes, you have to reboot your PC or it will not launch again - many issues with navigation (sometimes a doorframe will just not let you through, I assume there's some elevation difference the game interpretes as an obstacle). I wasn't able to finish the bridge near the end of the game because Simon would just not walk off it, like there was an invisible wall. - many visual issues, especially in chapter 6 where everything turns into a wireframe nightmare (can be mostly fixed by saving and reloading the game) - the final puzzle of the game is impossible to complete on most modern computers, as it requires specific hardware present which nowadays barely anyone has installed Overall I wouldn't recommend going through it unless those issues are fixed at some point. Shame that a nostalgic game gets this treatment. On the brighter side at least I got the funniest ending - I was streaming the game to a friend and couldn't finish it, so played a YouTube let'splay instead... Of a guy who also wasn't able to finish the game and also played a YouTube video on his stream.

Before picking it up, you first need to remember one thing: This game is old; like, over 20-years-old old. Therefore if you want to enjoy it you need to go in with the expectations of a low-budget small-team computer game from that era, not with the expectations of someone who's used to games today. Hell, one of the only reviews here compares its graphics to Half Life 2, a game so ahead of the curve that the games industry couldn't move past how great it was for another 10 years. Also you can't change the resolution but who really cares. God forbid you have to play this 20 year old game in 4:3 instead of glorious 4K resolution. How terrible. Its age also means it's from a time where mini-games ruled the land, and you were expected to play with a hint/strategy guide in your other hand (something you can get if you google it); if you don't, you might miss something and get stuck for quite a while. It's also true that the controls are janky as hell, but it really doesn't take away from the experience too much. What does take away from it however are the bugs, of which there are quite a few. If one mandatory NPC fails to spawn at the start of a chapter, you can't proceed and will have to load an earlier save, that kind of thing. Lots of doors which you get trapped on the wrong side of as well. If anything spoils the game, this is certainly what does it. As for the dialogue, its a little lowbrow but not all that bad. Heavy use of sarcasm and pretty much constant 4th wall breaking, as well as lots of referential humour, and, overwhelmingly, innuendo - it was originally intended for a U rating after all. Some of the references are pretty dated too (it was 20 years ago), but if you're old enough to have been alive when it was released, you'll probably get most of them anyway. Most important to know in advance though is that Simon is an unlikable protagonist. It's the whole point of the series, and the the game makes it very clear at every opportunity it gets. He's a teenage prick that got sucked in from another world and doesn't want to be there, so he goes around being an utter bastard to everyone he meets. He steals, (indirectly) kills, and is just generally unpleasant, such to the point that solving some of the puzzles will actually rely on you thinking how you could best screw over some of the NPCs. You're really not meant to take his side in anything. He's a twat. That has been the point of the series since its inception, so disliking the game because 'character mean' is about the same as saying you don't get what the game is about. Granted there are some bad jokes, and certainly things that didn't age well, but in most cases whatever is said is so utterly f***ing stupid that it's clearly poking fun at people who actually think like that. IN SUMMARY: The honest truth is that it's not perfect. It's old and it shows it, but on the whole it's relatively funny and a good game to throw away some time on. Its puzzles are satisfying to work out and tend to make sense in the end even if you do sometimes need a little help, so it passes as a decent game in that respect. The biggest negative is in the bugs. As I said, permanent soft-locks mean that a single missing NPC can ruin your play through if you don't save often enough, and if you want to experience the game without risk you may be better off just watching one of the long-plays online. I would still recommend giving it a look if you're bored though, even if it's just online.

Early impressions. I'm only a short ways in, but I really enjoyed Simon 1 & 2 (I actually made maps to get through Part 1), and never even knew Part 3 existed until today. Which is really cool, given the cliff-hanger at the end of Part 2. I do wish the navigation was mouse-driven, but I'm getting used to the controls, and (once again) am enjoying my experience. The graphics make me think of the Nintendo 64 and Everquest 1. No issue for me there -- I don't play point-and-click adventures for the graphics. I get absorbed in the mental aspect of these games, and don't even think about them. But seeing a Simon title in 3D is definitely a trip. And the voice acting really seems to be top-notch. So it's a thumbs up from this rabid point-and-click fan so far. I'll post a follow-up down the road, if I can remember. Edit: I had to find a copy of the game manual online to figure out what all the different key commands are. I downloaded it from a site called "lastmanuals." Why am I so helpful?

Do not buy Simon the Sorcerer 3D. Just don't. I've played through the full game, and it almost broke my brain on a fundamental level. (Steam says I have 0.1 hours but I've played the GOG version through fully.) There's just so much wrong with this that I can't fathom anyone actually liking it. It's difficult to put this concisely, but I'll try my best. GRAPHICS: I'm no snob when it comes to this kind of thing, but the game is pretty ugly, especially when you consider this hit shelves in 2002, 2 years prior to Half-Life 2. I'm aware the game was in a state of development hell for a number of years, but it hasn't aged well visually. Compare it to Grim Fandango or Escape from Monkey Island, for example, which used their art styles to elevate themselves beyond the limitations of earlier 3D graphics. GAMEPLAY: Simon 3D is an adventure game, like its point 'n' click predecessors. Unlike those two games though, this game uses tank controls to navigate Simon through its world. Often these controls are clunky, and with the occasional puzzle requiring movement accuracy it can be very frustrating to play. The puzzles themselves aren't anything to write home about. While you might find the occasional clever idea, such as escaping a room by dying to respawn at the checkpoint outside, most are unremarkable at best, and annoyingly obtuse at worst. The open world requires the player to run through barren, empty environments, padding out playtime unnecessarily. While teleport booths can alleviate this - they involve unskippable animations. Other segments include bizarre mini-games which are poorly explained and gimmicky, often being incredibly frustrating. WRITING: The writing in Simon 3D is perhaps its greatest offence. Much of it has aged incredibly poorly, and Simon has to be one of the most unlikeable protagonists I've ever had to play as. He's cruel, smarmy, and really sexist at time. On more than one occasion, when examining kitchen or laundry appliances, Simon remarks that he's 'not a woman' so he doesn't know about them. Most of the jokes are lazy, offensive, or just... plain unfunny. It's very much a time capsule of what some teenage boys may have found funny circa 2000. Now, it's painful. Simon was quite like this in Simon 2 as well, but he's certainly worse in this one - and it's not like he learns his lesson and becomes a better person like Gabriel Knight does. That would require a modicum of emotional intelligence. He remains a terrible person throughout, only regretting his decisions when it inconveniences him. Simon even gets people killed in this game with no remorse. How am I meant to root for this guy? THE ENDING: The last puzzle of Simon 3D requires the player to open their disc drive in a very meta-joke. It's almost kinda cute, but there's no way around this puzzle, and many machines nowadays actually LACK a optical drive. For many people, this may make the game impossible to complete without resorting to using ISOs to emulate a disc drive opening. As for the ending itself - it makes very little sense and doesn't offer much closure to the game's already thin plot. MOJOTOUCH'S STEAM RELEASE: This is the real kicker for me. MojoTouch have rereleased Simon 3D in 2021 of all years with very very little fanfare. I picked up this version out of curiosity, hoping to see some quality of life changes that might improve the game. But apparently, not even that was manageable. The resolution is locked at 4:3 and you need to be in full screen. Would it have been too much to ask to update the game to allow windowed mode or 16:9 resolutions? Even the god-awful 25th Anniversary releases of Simon 1 and 2 that MojoTouch released had *something* different about them. There's a little extra running behind the scenes, I will admit that, but it's very little. Even the GOG version comes prepackaged with an NGlide wrapper which plays much more nicely with modern PCs. CONCLUSION: This is genuinely one of the worst games I've ever played in my life. I've never experienced a game so painful, so cringeworthy, so unfunny and awful. It's almost impressive how bad Simon the Sorcerer 3D is. With a walkthrough, you're looking at a roughly 15 - 20 hour game, which is far too long for a game like this. Make better decisions than me, and don't play it. Every layer of Simon 3D is a new horror waiting to unfold. Even if for some unhinged reason you want this game, and think it's worth picking up, Steam is not the place to do it. Get the GOG version if you really must.