Flight of the Amazon Queen

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Set in 1949, Joe is scheduled to fly movie star Faye Russel to an Amazon jungle location for the shooting of her latest film, JUNGLE PASSION. Arriving at a hotel in Rio to pick her up he is tricked by his rival, an unscrupulous Dutch flyboy called Anderson, and locked in one of the hotel rooms. Anderson plans to fly Faye to the jungle himself in an effort to run Joe out of business.
It's your job to take control of Joe, help him escape from the hotel and foil the plans of the flying Dutchman. Once done, you'll fly Faye into the Amazon jungle where you'll encounter a dangerous temple, fearsome Amazonian warriors, and a power mad scientist intent on taking over the world!
The puzzles are always logical and every single object, which is important for solving the game, is clearly recognizable and can hardly be missed. A lot of plot relies on dialogues, and in what has become a familiar style back in the days with the adventure games, you are given a choice of several possible replies at each point. Obviously, at least half, if not all, of these are wisecracks. Joe should look at everything he can, and pick up everything that can be picked up. If someone tries to stop him from picking up something or going somewhere, chances are it's important! The game is not only funny, but well sequenced. It has a movie feel to it, helped along by the cutaway shots. These are non intyeractive elements which advance the plot. Shortly after you land in the jungle for instance, you will be treated to a sequence showing you the evil scientist in his lab, perfecting his evil dinosaur ray on the natives. He only needs an...Amazon Queen as a speciment for his work!
Overall, the game is compulsive, addictive and above all, funny! A great adventure nicely paying respect to classics of the genre.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The game offers great visuals and a mignificent character animation (the animation of the several characters is beyond any doubt), with around 10 locations to visit and explore and 40 othjer characters to interact with. Playing from floppy drive can be a bit of a pain for sure, so you better install it in a hard drive.
The several background tunes fit almost perfect to the respective locations, but on the other hand, there are just a few sound effects during gameplay. Unfortunately, the Amiga version does not benefit from the excellent range of voices playing the parts of the various characters on the PC CD-ROM version, although it was originally planned for the CD32 to do so.