The sound in the game is adequate; not bad but not great. Because of the variety of locales that you end up visiting, environmental audio cues are used to keep you informed of where you are, and possibly what you are near. For example, you can be walking around a cave in Chichen Itza and hear tropical birds chirping in the distance. This may indicate you are near an exit to the outside. You may also hear water dripping to your right side, indicating a possible water source somewhere in the vicinity. A lot of work seems to have gone into the placement of the audio cues, but the quality of the sounds leaves something to be desired. A lot of the sounds can sound manufactured or fake, taking away from the immersion to a degree. Nevertheless, the audio cues seem to be so well placed that your awareness of your surroundings keeps you from getting lost in some of the more challenging maze-like tunnels, and the game experience as whole benefits. The voice acting is bearable, but still comes across as amateur. Your partner, who you interact with rarely, doesn't appear to be a professional actor but rather a family member or friend of one of the programmers. His lines are very cheesy, and sound like something out of an 80s cartoon ("You're the boss! Let's get this show on the road!") Thankfully, your partner is only present for perhaps one percent of the game. The rest of the voice acting is B (if not C) movie quality, but does not seem to detract much from the feel of the game.

Sunset on Easter Island.

The puzzles in The Omega Stone maintain a distinctive flavor for the locales they are situated in. For example, there is a hieroglyphics puzzle in Giza and a skull puzzle in the tombs of Chichen Itza. They all manage to be difficult enough without relying on obscure solutions that many of the more recent adventure games rely on (case in point: the blue duck raft puzzle in The Longest Journey, if you're familiar with that game). The puzzles primarily rely on knowledge gained from books from your base camp combined with clues picked up during your explorations. This makes it essential that you read and closely study each and every text, note, letter, etc that you come across. There is a handy camera function that allows you to take a picture of anything you are looking at for later reference, although you can quickly become overwhelmed with pictures if you get trigger happy. Along with your inventory, your pictures are listed on the bottom of the screen in a single row, forcing you to click left and right arrow buttons to scroll through everything in order to find the picture or item for which you are looking. This can become very tedious if you have taken a lot of pictures, or are far enough into the game to have collected a lot of items. An organizing feature of some kind would have been greatly appreciated to alleviate this problem. Even being able to categorize the pictures based on the site where they were taken would have been very helpful. Regardless, with the use of the camera and handwritten notes, combined with careful study of everything you come across, all the puzzles can be solved in a very straightforward manner. Some of the puzzles require some creative thinking, but none of the solutions would be considered bizarre or unrealistic. The payoffs for solving the puzzles are usually a nice-looking room with something that furthers your understanding of the main story. The puzzles are generally presented as being created by ancient cultures trying to guard their secrets, giving a realistic back story for their placement. While solving the puzzles, you feel as if you are unlocking the long lost secrets of these civilizations, something that I imagine a real archaeologist would feel.

Overall, The Omega Stone is an enjoyable game that presents reasonably difficult puzzles in some reasonably realistic situations. The overall story is a little shaky in parts but never enough to be completely unbelievable. People who like to rush through games will certainly not enjoy this one as it requires plenty of careful study and patience, but I suspect these kinds of people would not like most adventure games. People that like working for their gaming rewards will find great value in The Omega Stone, and can expect a good twenty-five hours of pensive gameplay before they reach the conclusion. The game is certainly not without its faults, its biggest one being its blurry graphics, but these faults are overshadowed by some imaginative and thought-provoking puzzles. I enjoyed playing The Omega Stone, but if you plan on buying it consider if this is the right type of game for you first.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 80%.  The Omega Stone presents a low budget yet impressive mix of puzzle solving and historical exploration. The blurry graphics and amateur acting detract from what is otherwise a very immersive gaming experience, but seasoned adventure gamers should still find a lot to explore and discover in this latest offering from The Adventure Company

System Requirements:  Pentium II 300; 64 MB RAM;  16 MB Video RAM; 12x CD-ROM; Mouse.

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