Gothic Fiction: Dark Saga CE for Mac

With the introduction of the Mac App store several years ago, games have become as available on computers as they are on other Apple devices. Dark Saga CE for Mac's well-designed environments may appeal to some gamers, but the simple gameplay may not entertain many.

Gothic Fiction Dark Saga CE is available as a free trial edition with a 60-minute time limit; the full version of the game is available for $19.99. The game also requires an additional download of a Mac game store in order to play. After we accepted a lengthy user agreement, the store opened quickly and automatically began downloading and installing the game itself. This took some time due to the game's size of approximately 750MB, even on a high-speed connection. In terms of interface, the game environments were well designed and the animations worked well. Unfortunately, the gameplay itself did not measure up to the graphics. The user must click on different objects in the game to uncover clues. This simple, point-and-click operation seemed dated. Advanced gamers would not likely enjoy the obvious goals and basic scenes, although middle-school-age children may be entertained by the story line. Overall, the clean interface presents well, but the very basic play leaves much to be desired.

While well rendered and animated, Gothic Fiction Dark Saga CE for Mac is very simple and will not likely appeal to the average user. For puzzle fanatics out there this game might not be a bad choice, even though it's not the cheapest game.

Editors' note: This is a review of the trial version of Gothic Fiction: Dark Saga CE for Mac 1.0.