Flight of the Amazon Queen / 2014-11-14 16:20:00

Flight of the Amazon Queen, or FOTAQ for friends, is a point-and-click adventure game designed for Amiga and MS-DOS developed by Interactive Binary Illusions and released in 1995 by Warner Interactive and MojoTouch. It recalls somehow Indiana Jones' adventure, without the evil Nazis but with a megalomaniac villain, dinosaurs, amazons, and lederhosen! (Not necessary in that order or combination...)

Story

The story is about Joe King, a bush pilot-for-hire that must fly a prima dona, Faye Russel, to the Amazon for a photo shoot. Joe King is a kind of Indiana Jones, without the lasso and the hat, but with the same sense of humour and coolness. However, flying Faye won't be a cup of tea! First, Joe will have to fight against Anderson, a dutchman rival to Joe. Second, Joe' Amazon Queen plane will crash in the Amazon forest. Third, to escape from the forest, Joe will have to fight against the evil Dr. Ironstein who wants to conquer the world using his dino ray, a ray that changes people into dinosaurs! While saving the world, Joe will receive help from and have to fight against quite various characters, among others:

• Good guys and girls:
  
  • Sparky: Joe's mechanic with a teenager's heart and mind, who loves Commander Rocket Comics;
  • Faye Russel: a famous actress that Joe loves and must transport to the Amazon. She is kind of snobby and also independent and she will help Joe;
  • Gorilla: a not-so-real gorilla with a metaphysical background, which make him always disappear;
  • Trader Bob: the owner of the trading post, who is in love with Naomi. Joe will help him in pursue his romance in exchange of various stuff, including a vacuum cleaner!
  • Bud and Skip: two scouts exploring the Amazonian jungle, one with a rash, the other with a love for Commander Rocket;
  • Jimi and Mary-Lou: two preachers preaching to the monkeys (well, aren't they all?) a bit bored;
  • Princess Azura: the leader of the Amazons who has been kidnapped by the evil Dr. Ironstein;
  • Crystal Robot: a robot made of crystal from the past that protects the valley and the Amazonian and help you defeat Dr. Ironstein;
• Bad guys:
  
  • Anderson: Joe's arch-rival who runs the Flying Dutchman Airlines. He will try to still Faye from Joe and will even ally with Dr. Ironstein but at the end...
  • Dr. Ironstein: a megalomaniac villain who is developing a dino-ray gun, to transform Amazons into dinosaurs and rul the world!!!

   

  

   

  • Private John: a solider of Dr. Ironstein waiting for a letter from his lover;
  • Klunk: another solder of Dr. Ironstein, who is quite a tough guy, all muscule and no brain...

There are also a few other characters that will help Joe during his adventure for specific problems, like Lola, the Floda Fat Lady, some Pygmees, Charon (!), a holo-girl, some zombie-girls...

Realisation

Graphic Design

FOTAQ is a third-person point-and-click adventure game. As other such game, the action is based on screens: each screen describes a scene and Joe pursues his adventures going from one scene to the next through various paths. Sometimes, between scenes, there are cut-scenes with animations to explain what's going on elsewhere... Although not an AGA game, the graphisms are beautiful and the level of details really nice. Scenes often contain inside jokes.

Musics and Sounds

Music and sounds are okay but rather poor: they are just providing some background sounds nothing much more.

Animations

Animations are great, in particular the animations of the characters: Joe really looks and walks cool... his gesture are often very expressive, like pulling out his hands when he doesn't know something or putting his hand on his hips... The animations of the cut-scenes are also of very high quality.
 

Gameplay

Point-and-Click, Conversations

The game-play is simple and straightforward. Joe can be asked to perform various actions using the following icons: open, close, lift, give, look, take, ask, and use.

I haven't found any case where performing a certain actions prevented to complete the game. Also, during conversations, choosing random lines did not block the game as far as I tried... So, really, the game-play is great and the story-line is really the most important factor.

Joe can access different places through a central place called the pinnacle, that he climbs regularly and effortlessly all through the game!

Quality

The story is very intersting, combining a mix of 1950's adventure, dinosaurs, romance, mystery, Amazons, past high-tech robots... It is just fun to follow and you'll get quickly drawn into it. I don't know if it is possible to solve the game in a reasonable time without the solution, but aren't all such games the same? The following screen-shots really summarise the story: the evil Dr. Ironstein invented a dino-ray gun to transform people into dinosaurs but Joe stops him from rulling the world with the help of a crystal robot and, in the process, rescued Faye ad the Amazon princess, Azura. Anderson will turn out being a good guy and, of course, Joe will win over Azura's heart. However, it looks like Dr. Ironstein is not done doing evil things!

Misc

I did not encounter any crash or problems. I played in AmigaForever and saved images as game saves.

Solution

The solution to FOTAQ is available in various places on-line, for example on Balmoral software's Web site. I reproduce here the solution for the sake of completeness . More in details:

Buenos Aires

Amazon Jungle

Sloth Island

Floda

Valley of the Mists

Conclusion

All-in-all, the forte of the game are its story-line, graphics, and game-play. In addition, the witty dialogues add quite a lot to the game! It is fun to play, interesting to follow the story line, and exciting to finish! In conclusion, a must play on any Amiga Classic computers!

Marks

• Music: neutral;
• Sounds: neutral;
• Graphics: excellent;
• Playability: excellent;
• Lastability: some weeks.

Summary

• Name: Flight of the Amazon Queen;
• Publisher: Warner Interactive and MojoTouch;
• Type: point-and-click Indiana Jones-like adventure;
• Date: 1996;
• Hardware: Amiga OCS/ECS, 512Kb;
• License: commercial and now public (?);
• Final mark: 9/10

Further Reading

• Balmoral Software;
• Selmiak's Web site.