Rating: 
Summary: Ancient lands and adventure
Review: I should say that I have not finished this yet.I am a novice at computer games.I enjoyed the graphics-they were very well done.I especially enjoyed Ireland. The scenery looked real. The rocks looked like you could touch them.However, the sheep need to be made more lifelike! There were some action scenes that were impressive, such as riding the horse through the water.
I got stuck at one part, but my 12 year old nephew and his brother were able to play. However, we all needed walkthrough instructions. I would find it impossible to do without walkthroughs.
This is definitely not for young children. The E rating should be changed to teenager or adult. I appreciated the fact that there was not much violence. A couple of monsters were killed but that was quite lowkey. There was one brief reference to rape,and the mention of human sacrifice could be frightening to young children. There was some blood shown in a couple of scenes but little actual violence shown. Also, no profanity was spoken.
I was very frustrated at times but this certainly is a challenge. This is appropriate for kids over 12 and adults.
Rating:
Summary: Kewl game
Review: I started out playing this game the usual way, playing a bit, saving and walking away. Then somehow I couldn't leave my seat and finished the game in two days. The graphics are pretty good and I enjoyed traveling to vastly different areas, even your character changes as your scenery does. I had the most difficulty in the pyrmid trying to solve the ball puzzles and in China trying to walk around the room on the patterns correctly. In the China room you must listen to the old man very carefully and look at the machine before each step. Save your game before you go in that door because you might be trying to that solve a couple of times. One thing I really liked about this game is that you get a nice reward scene at the end, not all games provide you with that when you win and you walk away feeling like "all that for that ending". If you let your seven year old play this game, he may be asking you some rather interesting questions! I ran this game on Windows 98 without difficulty.
Rating:
Summary: Can I do this?
Review: I started the game about 3 weeks ago, and finished Ireland today! (I don't play every day, but for long periods when I do.) It's really quite a good game, and pleasant to use while waiting for Exile, which is why I bought it.I DID end up using a cheat site 6 times, but if I had turned up the brightness sooner, half of them would not have been necessary. I found the hints on the Dreamcatcher site to be spoilers, and didn't look twice. There is an excellent hint site for many games ... ... You can progress from the barest nudge to the answer in gradual steps, which is what I like in a hint site. I am in China, now, and hope not to use so many hints. I think there's a learning curve. I used a lot of hints in Myst, but only a couple in Riven, as I became used to the logic of the puzzles and the flow of the game. Some reviewers say it is shallow, but I find myself totally immersed, and losing track of time! I loved the monks, and thought they were very sympathetic characters! The other characters probably weren't supposed to be sympathetic. They were all sort of larger than life myth/saga characters, except for the birdman, Fintan. I liked him, and felt very sorry for him! (And Bres reminded me of a boss I used to have, especially when he got mad!) And I LOVED the Dali-esque world inside the Book - after I turned up the brightness! I will say that I do not find the game as intuitive as the Myst games, but that may just be my particular thought processes! And if it is not as well done graphically, well, it didn't... ... I'm having fun, and that's what it's all about.
Rating:
Summary: Great, absorbing game
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed Beyond Atlantis. It was one of those games that had me eager to get back to it, night after night. The puzzles were challenging and inventive, requiring you to use multiple levels of thought. I really liked how the nature of the puzzles changed with each area you visited. For example, many of the Mayan puzzles were math-based, where the Celtic puzzles were more intuitive. The scenery was beautiful. And the dialog was exceptional. This is the only game I've run across with a Celtic setting that has not completely mangled Gaelic words and names. I also liked that you were given the option to replay all the dialog, so that you could pick up on things you might have missed the first time around. This game used mythology especially well, particularly in the Mayan and Celtic settings. Being something of a student of Celtic myth, I was really excited to see how well some of the characters and concepts were integrated here. Beyond Atlantis ran very smoothly. I've had a problem with some of Dreamcatcher's other games crashing for no apparent reason, but that, I'm happy to say, was not an issue with this one. The character animations were not to the level I would have expected, however. Characters often looked like bad claymation, and range of movement was limited. Also, the music, though lovely, consisted of short tape-loops that got a little crazy-making with repetition, particularly when you had to visit certain areas over and over to solve the puzzles. Though most of the puzzles were of the thinking variety, there were a few that just required you to "muscle" through, either by pixel-hunting or by repeating an action or series of actions until you got it right. I found the "charging the crystal" puzzle particularly annoying, as well as confusing. It was hard even to know where to begin with that one without resorting to a hint page. Still, for humour, integrated story, beautiful settings, and puzzles that will really keep you working at them for days, Beyond Atlantis is hard to beat.
Rating: 
Summary: not too shabby
Review: I thought this game was OK. Being a big fan of Myst and Riven, I knew it probably wouldn't be as good. However, it was interesting and the puzzles were challenging. I wish it would of had better animation, the way it was presented was a bit cheesy.
Rating: 
Summary: Good work, Cryo
Review: I waited several months for this game to be published in US (it sells since November in Russia) and I am not disappointed. Puzzles are challenging, graphics is amazing, music is beautiful (especially in Ireland). Regarding drawbacks: manual is just tiny and changes in cursor's color are not described in it. Some dialogs are not repeatable.
Rating:
Summary: It's not Myst, but it's not bad...
Review: I was never a computer gamer. Too much blood and guts, shooting and killing, and a need for quick reactions. Long ago, I played a Lucas game called Loom, and loved it. It was a big step, in its time, because it didn't have the language commands...you just pointed and clicked. It was also a game for everyone, with puzzles to solve, and almost no violence - not to mention no time limits. Just last year, I succumbed to curiosity and purchased Myst. Oh, my! Then RealMyst and Riven. I was hooked! So now, I am waiting for the release of Exile, and needed something to occupy my mynd, and keep in practice for Myst III. I have contemplated Atlantis for a while, and finally caved in. I know the reviews are scathing, but I wanted something non-violent, and with lots of puzzles. I haven't been playing Atlantis long, but so far have had no problems. (PIII, nVidia, 733MHZ, 128MB RAM, 44xCD - I'd BETTER not have problems!) The game runs smoothly and quickly. I love the music, and the graphics are good, though not of the quality of the Myst series. (After RealMyst, nothing will ever be the same as far as games!) The characters look a little like Gumbys, but what the heck?! (Not sure why they didn't use real people, like Cyan.) The story line reminds me of the story line of the David Eddings series of fantasy novels about Belgarion, the keeper of the orb of light...VERY similar, so perhaps I am more willing to see a story here than those who have not read that series. As to the puzzles...diabolical! Love 'em! (I hope the game lasts until Exile comes out.) Too hard? Well, NOTHING can be harder than the marble puzzle in Riven. (I had to cheat...I could NOT see what I was supposed to on those topo maps on Spike Island!) Besides, I consider that the longer I have to work at it, the more I'm getting my money's worth. To those who put down adventure games because they are not shoot-em-ups: Give us a break! There are a lot of us out here who love these gentler, more mental games, and have a hard time finding them! (If there weren't a lot of us, would the Myst series have been so popular???) There are LOADS of games filled with violence...so play them, already, and leave us Myst-ies to our own devices!
Rating:
Summary: I think I liked it more than most
Review: I'm not a hard-core gamer. I don't spend hours each day in front of my computer. And I get frustrated easily. So Beyond Atlantis was perfect for me. It was a challenge without being too hard (I did use some cheats though) and it took me several weeks to finish. The graphics were beautiful, and the voice acting was no worse than a lot of other games I've played.
My favorite feature of the game was the five, completely different levels. In one, you're in a Buddhist temple. In another, you're an Irish monk. In yet another, you travel to the world of the dead. The differences really helped keep my interest.
Also, it wasn't violent. There's no shooting or other stressful 'action.' You win the game by solving puzzles and finding and using items in your inventory.
The game might not be groundbreaking, but you get a lot of entertainment for $20.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible games from Dreamcatcher!
Review: I've introduced my wife to computer gaming. She used to hate all the shoot and kill. I gave her a copy of Riven, and Myst, and her life changed forever. We had so much fun playing those. Now, we try a few games I thought we could like, and Beyond Atlantis is definitely one of those we loved. We've played Crystal Key and Lotus Spring, and Beyond Atlantis combines the best of both. The graphics are stunning, Cryo's 3D engine (found in all the dreamcatcher games I've seen so far) is very good. One little regret: you can bypass the animation by clicking in the middle of it, but you cannot bypass the loading time with the cdrom. That prevents fast moving through sequences. All the worlds in Atlantis are beautifully crafted, and the underlying story line (you have to perform good actions to tilt the balance between good and evil in the world) is very well rendered. You won't regret it, just for the story! And unlike Crystal Key which had such a disappointing ending (a screen of ``Congratulations''), the reward in Atlantis is high. Some ideas are so creative, you will be Alice in Wonderland. And the final sequence blew us away! Welcome to Paradise! The puzzles are very challenging. Interestingly, we managed to pull through the Maya world without hints. But we did need a walkthrough in China, for the disc/bridge puzzle. Anybody who can explain the solution, please email! You should expect to be able to solve the whole game in a week or two. We got stuck on the rainbow bridge because we didn't know about rotating the tiles. It's not in the manual. So don't hesitate to try clicking everywhere. You will never die or be penalized. Everything can be reversed and replayed. All the sequences. On the negative side, the manual is very skinny, and it's hard to know what we're doing wrong. The punchline in this kind of games is TALK TO EVERYONE ALWAYS. They sometimes find new things to talk about, after something happens (and you don't always notice, so you might assume you've already gotten all the juice out of them). Another subtle thing is that the game always tries to make some kind of connection so things don't turn random. But it's hard to notice, and sometimes the connections are very tenuous. When something goes wrong, you have to go back and try to make sense of everything. Little things like ``I could have helped you but..'' in a dialogue are supposed to let you know you did something not right a couple of steps before. Try and find out what! The game always allow for the brute-force solution (try all combinations) but it's always skilfully at the edge of impractical (granted, you could try 400 combinations, but it's faster to think!). Lastly, you can get some hints by the color of the cursor, but as another reviewer regrets, the manual doesn't tell you what the colors means. Simply be alerted by a change in the color of the cursor. I am looking forward to probe into the Sacred Amulet, the latest Dreamcatcher. If you don't want to wait, Atlantis is yours! You must try it!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent game, some technical issues in XP.
Review: In regard of the storyline and reasoning behind the puzzles, I would like to refer to the gamespot review under editorial reviews.
Overall, I would recommend this game,due to the beautiful graphics and the very efficient game control.
However, I did encounter some problems playing the game in XP (the game is pre-XP). In XP the game would skip the beautiful films that are thrown into the story. When running it in 95/98 compatibility mode (via properties) it would sometimes freeze up, due to lack of memory according to the message. Switching back to XP would then solve that problem. Anyway, the game was worth switching between XP and 95/98 compatibility mode ocassionaly (for the newbies: this is much easier than it may sound!).
Another problem I encountered was that the game did not want to start up with player 1. But chosing player 2 solved that problem.
Excellent game, but definitely surpassed by Atlantis 3 (Beyond Atlantis 2).
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