Download Le Fetiche Maya

The story so far: The body of the famous archaeologist Edward Halifax was discovered yesterday morning in the jungle of Yucatan, not far from Chichen Itza. The causes of the death remain unexplained. The old scientist, missing for more than 3 years, had carried on him a Maya parchment mentioning the existence of a mysterious fetish. Professor Michael Fairbanks, his young pupil, traveled by the first plane for Mexico with the intention to continue research.

You guessed it, you’re playing Michael Fairbanks and it’s your duty, nay privilege, to unravel the mystery of the Mayas.

You find yourself in Merida a god forsaken horrid place with two drunken sleeping Mexicans sitting in front of a store. You need to go in and buy supplies, just be careful, because you only have $1000. I suggest you buy a pack of cigarettes (along with other more useful stuff); they’ll come in handy when you’ll try to bribe some locals into giving you stuff. Food can restore your health (meat better then fruit) and the car can run for some time without oil (besides, you have one spare can on board anyway). So choose wisely and get your money’s worth of stuff. You’re able to trade stuff in for the goods, but you must first obtain things to sell and then return to Merida.

Next you exit the store and already you’re attacked. You can fight or run (you’ll have to fight to win the game, so you might as well practice). Then get into the jeep and off you go (into a nicely made 3D driving sequence)!

Every time you’ll see a fork in the road you can choose to go left or the right path (actually the road goes ahead and you can go straight ahead or turn to either of the two sides). Sometimes you’ll see a grey statue facing in a certain direction. Go that way and you’ll find a temple. If you see a mark of a tribe (some mask with yellow leaves around it) then you’re nearing a village. Some paths turn out to be dead ends (ending either with a wall of fauna or a crevice). If you’re slow enough you can stop before damaging your jeep, otherwise… Well, let’s just say the game is realistic enough, not to let you dive down an abyss with a jeep and then tell you, you need to back it up.

For the first part of the game you need to find certain objects. There are some murals in the first temple to tell you what you need to do with them when you find them. But where to find them? Well, you need to go straight ahead and keep looking. Just remember, the enemies never sleep. The guy who wanted to rearrange your facial properties also has a jeep and is on the same mission. The natives don’t like it if you’re poking around their sacred places and dangerous animals (cobras and eagles) don’t really believe in the philosophy of live and let live!

So will you be able to survive the harsh jungle environment and unravel the mystery of the Mayas? Will you? Well, you better get the game and find out!

The graphics are nice VGA (although you can choose the EGA mode if you really want to, but I see no reason why) and there really isn’t any sound, except for a few sound effect noises, which are more irritating then anything else (like the humming of the car’s engine, the hissing of the snakes, the squawking of birds etc.). The controls are simple enough and there’s a Read Me included with the game archive that explains all the controls.

All in all a good challenging action adventure, that deserves nothing less then a 4 mark in my book!