Cheap Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Circle (Video Games) (Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows 2000) Price

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Customer Reviews of Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Circle

Decent adventure game with notable detractions
"Barrow Hill" is a decent point-and-click adventure game that has great atmosphere and sound effects but a lousy storyline and less-than-stellar moral message. The game is relatively short but has some good creep-out moments and fairly challenging puzzles. Despite the lackluster graphics (at least compared to titles like "Myst Revelation"), the game creates a truly chinning sense of atmosphere. This is a significant accomplishment considering the interface is not panoramic but point-and-click. The sound effects and music do a lot to aid the tension, and the settings themselves are truly magnificent. You can tell that they were well thought out. For example, the phone booth in the middle of the woods, casting yellow light on the dark branches, is truly a nice touch, as is the row of electric lights leading up the hill to the barrow. There are numerous moments when you are genuinely creeped out. <
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>Another good aspects of "Barrow Hill" is that, unlike "Scratches" and many of the "Myst" games, the puzzles are not designed for game players with a genius-level IQ. In other words, they tend to make logical sense and don't force you to consider ridiculous solutions (like "Scratches" routinely does). The inventory system helps a lot with this. Whenever you need to use an object in a given area, an icon appears indicating so. There are some puzzles where you have to use your imagination, and I found myself resorting to a walkthrough several times, but overall the puzzles are medium difficult. They're challenging enough to keep you interested, but not so challenging that you pitch your computer out the window. <
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>Now to the negative, and unfortunately there is quite a bit. The story starts out well but soon starts a nose dive. Basically, you end up getting an earful of New Age mysticism mixed with a good dose of environmentalism paranoia. At first I thought this would only be a passing mention, but it persisted and grew quite annoying. The whole notion of having to "appease" the land with offerings due to man's neglect of nature is fru-fru at best. I encourage games that have a moral message to them, but this moral message is steeped in New Age and rather ambiguous to boot. (Here's a novel idea: create a game with the golden rule being the moral message. Imagine that!). Without giving too much plot details away, the central premise of the story is almost laughable. When you actually realize what that sinister thing stalking you through the woods is, the chill factor diminishes. Also, there is some swearing present (not mentioned by ESRB), but the programmers avoided including any needless blood or violence, which is commendable. <
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>Is the game worth a look? Sure, if you enjoy adventure games. Expect good atmosphere, music, and sound effects, but not much beyond that.

Something wicked this way comes...
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>A barrow is an ancient burial ground, often in the form of mounds of earth or with standing stones such as Stonehenge. England is dotted with these ancient sites, labeled as "tumuli" on maps. In 18th century England, digging up barrows was a favorite hobby of the educated, resulting in damage of the sites. <
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>Cornwall, the southwestern tip of England, has a rich history of barrows. In Barrow Hill, a team of archaeologists is proceeding on a dig of the local barrow that features seven mysterious stones. The barrow has been left undisturbed except for the building of a service station and motel nearby, but once the team begins excavating, an ancient evil is unleashed on the land. The barrow in the game is based on Looe, Cornwall, and features parallel structures such as an ancient pagan well, barrow, swamp and service station. <
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>Creator Matt Clark has put a phenomenal amount of time and energy into doing justice to the barrows and Cornish legends, and as a bonus there is a link to a webpage talking about the history of Cornwall, barrows, and the making of the game (I was expecting something more polished from the blurb on the back of the box). Clark was aided on Barrow Hill by horror master Jonathan Boakes, creator of [[ASIN:B0000A341P Dark Fall: The Journal]] and [[ASIN:B0002BID5Q Dark Fall: Lights Out]]. <
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>I had difficulties installing this on my Windows XP laptop; I had to try four or five times, as each time I would begin to install, the installer would launch another copy and freeze completely. My perseverance finally paid off, though, and once I'd launched the game, I didn't encounter any bugs, crashes, or freezes. <
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>The game begins with a grainy black-and-white film of you driving along the Cornish country roads as night begins to fall. There is a sense of dread as local radio personality Emma Harry talks about the onset of the Autumn Equinox, and dark clouds race ominously across the sky. Suddenly, your car goes dead, and you're stranded in the middle of a dark forest. But are you alone? There are strange rustles and cries from the bushes, and you're certain that something's watching... <
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>Barrow Hill is a first-person slideshow similar to Myst in format. You advance one screen at a time (no 360-degree panning here), which can be terrifying when you're crashing through the undergrowth with only a weak battery flashlight to light the darkness. The photorealistic graphics are based on thousands of pictures of the Cornish countryside. The architecture of the few featured buildings shines, from the ruins of an ancient chapel to the worn-down service station. Little touches make each screen come to life, and there are innumerable close-ups of objects just for exploration's sake (which can be confusing at first trying to determine if it's a hotspot or not). Also like Myst, you'll soon discover that Barrow Hill is devoid of people other than yourself and one or two secondary characters that you interact with only briefly. Where has everyone gone? What happened to the archaeological team? Why are there idling cars with no occupants? <
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>The sound deserves special mention, as thousands of ambient sounds were recorded in Cornwall to add to the authenticity, including the chirp of the Cornish cricket. The soundtrack is sparse but effective, underscoring moments of danger or discovery. Voice acting is satisfactory, if a bit melodramatic at times. <
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>On your quest, you're aided by several high-tech gadgets, including a cell phone, PDA, GPS, and a metal detector. All of these tools play a part in your quest to restore balance to the barrow. There are plenty of well-scattered clues to the nature of your task, informative background reading in the form of pamphlets, diaries, and mock websites, and many locations to explore. <
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>The puzzles are inventory-based and generally intuitive. You pick up only what you need to aid you on your quest, and once you've used it, it disappears from inventory. The journals and gadgets left behind by the team give you plenty of fodder to consider your next move. You can die, and if you do, you're placed one step before your fatal mishap. <
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>The biggest achievement after the outstanding sound and graphics is the immersive atmosphere of utter dread...although not gory, you constantly feel hunted by the sense that something evil is looking over your shoulder, from creepy voices on disconnected telephones to ominous smoldering piles of ash next to idled vehicles, or the crash of something following you in the pitch-black woods. My only disappointment was in the super-brief ending that didn't seem to resolve much of the detailed storyline that had unfolded throughout the game, but in Barrow Hill it's the journey, not the destination, that counts. <
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