We were able to get an advanced preview copy of Jazz and Faust, a new adventure game being developed by the Russian company, Saturn Plus.  The game still needs a little work before release, since all of the dialog is still in Russian and the English subtitles feature some pretty rough translations.  However, it is definitely playable in its current form and gave us a good glimpse of what to expect from this game.

On the surface, Jazz and Faust is a return to the glory days of adventure gaming.  It is not like the action/adventure hybrids of today, but pure adventure gaming in the classic mold.  The game is heavily story driven, and its protagonists move from one stylized location to the next, speaking with the people and interacting with the various objects found there.  A player can also collect various items and store them in his/her inventory for later use.  These later uses include combining them with other objects and exchanging them with the game's characters to gain information or new items.

So far this seems like standard adventure fare, but Jazz and Faust adds a unique twist to the genre.  When the game begins, players choose to play as one of the game's two main characters named, you guessed it, Jazz and Faust.  Selecting one or the other will start the game and place the player under very different circumstances.  Jazz begins the game in jail, imprisoned for smuggling but allowed to go free for three days on parole in order to come up with the money needed to buy his freedom.  Faust is the captain of a ship and is waiting for a passenger who has booked passage out of town.  When the passenger fails to show up, Faust goes off in search of him.  Both stories begin in the same city and take place during the same period of time, and Jazz and Faust soon find themselves investigating a strange set of murders which seem to lie at the surface of a much deeper conspiracy.  While the two characters act independently of one another, their storylines cross paths at several points during the game.  Jazz and Faust is essentially two games in one, and players will enjoy playing through the game again as the other character.  The storylines are different and it is interesting to see which events lead up to the characters meeting, but from the other's perspective.

The game's characters are modeled in 3D and make their way through prerendered locations.  These locations are imaginative and varied, if not somewhat static, and there are nearly 90 different locations in the game.  As the story progresses, some of these locations change a bit with the time of day and with new items or characters appearing.  The game's interface should be familiar to veteran adventure gamers, with the mouse clicks used to direct the character's movements and to interact with various hotspots on the screen.  A right-click brings up the player's inventory, allowing players to use any of their items with any of the characters or items appearing in a scene.

Don't look for Jazz and Faust to revitalize the comatose adventure genre.  Instead it will most likely be an enjoyable play for adventure gaming fans and more casual computer gamers, providing them a nice long game with an interesting story and good replay value.  We'll take a closer look at Jazz and Faust when it is released in the US this Spring.