It seems Myst really started something with conversions of classic graphic adventure games to the iPhone. While Flight of the Amazon Queen definitely has a cult following, it's still a surprising choice to follow in Myst's footsteps.
If point-and-click adventure were to have a name (and LucasArts didn't exist) it would be Flight of the Amazon Queen. The classic tale of 1940s pilot-for-hire Joe King is entertainingly steeped in antiquated notions of story and puzzle-solving that lend a nostalgic flair to this remake.
Like an uneducated Indiana Jones, Joe makes a living ferrying passengers around in his aeroplane, the Amazon Queen. You step into his shoes as he makes his way toward one of the biggest gigs of his career: flying the famous movie star Faye Russell to a glamorous photo shoot in the Amazon.
Things immediately start to go wrong for Joe. His arch-rival snakes the job out from under him and leaves him locked in Faye’s ramshackle hotel room. The adventure begins as you attempt to get back on schedule, but before long the dazzling movie star is in mortal danger (along with the tribe of Amazon women and, for that matter, the entire world) from a mad scientist and his evil, lederhosen-based scheme.
This amusing plotline is a terrific pastiche of 1940s pulp fiction, cheeseball B-movie flicks and overly macho action heroes and the dames that cling to their heels. It's packed with intrigue, action, hilarity and a bit with a dog.
Flight of the Amazon Queen takes an unusual approach to translating a point-and-click adventure to the touchscreen controls of the iPhone. You'd expect it to simply remain point-and-click only using your finger instead of a mouse, but surprisingly an on-screen pointer has been retained.
The touchscreen is used in the same manner in which you use a touchpad on a laptop. The on-screen pointer doesn't necessarily have to be directly under your finger, but follows the movements you make on any area of the screen.
It works fairly well, even if it would be better if you could directly touch items that you wanted to interact with, rather than having to go back and forth between the scenery and the action buttons.
Fans of the original will be pleased to hear that the voice acting found in the original DOS game (but not the Amiga version) has been fully retained. Penelope Keith and William Hootkins lend their vocal talents to the characters, and do a great job of helping to ham up the pulp fiction styling.
Graphically, we’re looking at a pretty much pixel perfect rendition of Flight of the Amazon Queen, which really doesn't tax the iPhone but does lend the game a retro visage that's still appealing. It's very much a quick, clean and clever port, rather than a spiffy new update of the popular classic.
Even so, overlooking the fact that the developer hasn't bothered to use the touchscreen properly is difficult. With a bit more contemporary dazzle to help Flight of the Amazon Queen match pace with the rest of the App Store it could easily have been an 8.
As it is the game still earns a itself very respectable Bronze Award, and comes highly recommended to retro gamers and fans of the adventure genre alike.
Flight of the Amazon Queen
More of a direct conversion than an adaptation, the quality of the original still shines through and makes this an easy game to enjoy
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.