Review by: Jim Brumbaugh

Published: June 13, 1997

The hunt for treasure can be a maddening adventure full of frustration and disappointment. Many have searched for the lost treasure of King William, but these riches have never been found. Some say that there is a dark power which coexists with the loot, but no one really knows for sure. Now, it’s your turn. You are in the City by the Bay, historic San Francisco. Your search will provide you with historical visions of the city and show you the legends of San Francisco, as you attempt to solve this mystery which spans across the 19th and 20th centuries.

Golden Gate from Panasonic Interactive Media is best described as a virtual treasure hunt. As in titles of a similar nature, the player is expected to locate and collect the keys, documents and artifacts which will provide him with the clues necessary to lead him to the location of the lost treasure. The search for these items will weave the player into the tapestry of the famous (and infamous) locations that define San Francisco. Clues are scattered throughout the landscape of the city, so the player must remain vigilant in order that he notices all the tiny details which may seem insignificant at the time, but might aid him in later stages of play.

Golden Gate has been constructed in a non-linear fashion, which means that the player can explore virtually 90% of the game without having to solve a single puzzle, if he so desires. Exploration is achieved by using either the mouse or the keyboard, and an “intelligent” cursor lets the player know in which directions it is possible to turn. Once a player has visited an area of the city, bringing up the city map from his inventory and clicking on that area of the map will immediately return the player to that part of the city.

The game developers have tried to give the investigation portion of Golden Gate as realistic a feel as is possible. To that end, they have employed seamless, 360-degree pans of scenery whenever the player turns in place. The individual scenes themselves are a collection of over 2,000 hand-painted 16-bit watercolor images which can be displayed in 256 or 65,536 colors. Video animations and movies may be discovered during the course of the adventurer’s journey, and these are displayed utilizing DirectX, QuickTime and Video For Windows technology. A total of ten minutes of full-motion video can be found by searching through the nooks and crannies of Golden Gate.

The Inventory and Menu systems work in much the same manner as a “hidden” Windows 95 taskbar operates. If the cursor is placed at the top of the screen, the Menu bar appears; likewise, if the cursor is moved to the bottom of the screen, the Inventory bar appears. The Menu allows the player to start a new game, load or save a game, adjust the sound effects and music, and change the type and speed of zooming and turning transitions. The Menu also contains a selection which allows the player to put the game in “Jukebox” mode, which will display pictures from the various sites in the game while playing the associated musical track for that location. Over 70 minutes of film-like musical tracks are included with this title. The Inventory bar holds the items that the player discovers on his quest. Items can be “grabbed” by pressing the mouse button when the cursor is over an item, and they are deposited into the player’s Inventory by moving the cursor to the Inventory bar area and pressing the mouse button again.