Promiscuous and flirtatious Mata Hari captivated the European audiences with her exotic dancing. It was the dawn of the 20th century, a new era, and her carefree, provocative act garnered wide acclaim at a time when the world was preparing to go to war. Her stage show allowed her to mingle with high society, politicians and high ranking military officers in many countries and speculation arose that she was in fact a spy or double agent.
The legend that was Mata Hari has inspired many books, movies and documentaries and now the legendary spy is the material for a new point and click adventure Mata Hari: Betrayal is only a Kiss Away.
Story
Mata Hari: Betrayal is only a Kiss Away is based on the real life of Margaretha Zelle during the early 1900’s. As a young woman determined to forge a career in showbusiness in the years preceding World War I, the Belle Époque, your first mission is to get Mata a job in Paris. However, her associations soon lead her into a shadowy life of spying and stealing secrets from her high ranking lovers.
For the most part Mata Hari: Betrayal is only a Kiss Away uses what little knowledge we have about Mata’s life. Real life characters such as Ladoux are present in the game and her entanglement and role in Germany’s, Britain’s and France’s World War I agendas. Since her true involvement is vague it has given the writers plenty of artistic freedom and you will enter a world populated with both real and fictional characters. These include some notable figures such as Marie Curie and Anthony Fokker, the famous airplane manufacturer.
I really don’t want to give to much of the storyline away as undoubtedly this is the game’s strong point however, I will say that whatever actions you choose will affect the game’s outcome.
Gameplay
Mata Hari: Betrayal is only a Kiss Away is essentially a classic point and click adventure game. Movement is controlled by clicking on where you want Mata to go and mouse overs on action hotspots changes your cursor from a hand to a speech bubble,magnifying glass etc. however most of the games progression is dictated by conversations so you’re more likely to pick up discussion topics which will drop into the inventory bar along the bottom . As Mata speaks with characters only the relevant topics become available and the majority of speech is automated (hallelujah ! I hate huge conversation trees) .
Another interesting mechanic was the seduction tool. There are four different ways to flirt to extract information from men – in fact the whole inventory system was extremely easy to use and you weren’t carrying around loads of useless items and for the most part everything you needed was in the same location (I can only think of one instance when it wasn’t – I had to go to a broken phone in Berlin for an earpiece to use in Madrid). There is however an issue with the cursor in that the hotspots can maybe be too small or exact. For instance there were several screens I couldn’t find my way out of for a while – on the first occasion I thought there was a fault in the game however, it’s a matter of carefully rolling the curser around the bottom of the screen until the exit is located.
The mini games start off well. At the beginning you have to travel between cities on a train avoiding other agents. This is done on a map as a point-to-point puzzle which was fun and gets progressively harder with more enemy agents being added as the game continues. Then there’s a dancing game where you have to ‘catch’ notes in circles and the closer to the center of the circle the higher the score (this will also earn you cash). Also for the dancing game you have to seek inspiration for new dances through other characters movements eg. An organ grinder. Like I said the mini games are nice to begin with but I would’ve liked more to have seen more creativity after a while they just didn’t hold much interest.
Unfortunately this sort of repetition was also evident in puzzle design too. While the majority of the puzzles were inventory based and enjoyable the environmental minigames such as decoding and electrical circuits were repeated three times each . Perhaps if there had been more variety in the mini games this wouldn’t have been an issue for me but when I seen the same style of puzzle appear for the third time in a row ( or even if they had decent intervals during the game) my heart sank.
Any flaws aside Mata Hari has several different endings which will be decided by taking advantage of circumstances during gameplay to increase her abilities. You can earn rewards in three different categories : spycraft, money and skill . To boost your spycraft look everywhere for hidden bits of information .You can earn 150 points by sourcing 3 pieces of information for a submission. Once completed a newspaper article will be seen on the screen. Money – when in Paris visit the theatre and earn cash dancing . Successful completion of the minigames increases her skill.
At the end of the game, the points obtained from spycraft, money and skill will be tallied and influence how Mata Hari lives out the rest of her life. Which gives the game a certain amount of replayability.
Sound and vision.
First of all the backgrounds are beautifully done. There is a lot of detail in every scene, the first to catch my eye was the wallpaper in the hotel room! You will be transported from the stylish Parisian streets to the harder face of Berlin. From the seaside sounds of Monaco, and street performer in Madrid all the cities have been given their own distinct atmosphere and are wonderfully presented. The costumes too are meticulous detailed and indicative of that era with wonderful accessories – some of which will give you inspiration for your dancing . Now for the bad news – character movements can be dreadful. Their actions are stiff and a ‘jerky’ which is a shame considering the work gone into other areas such as the backgrounds.
All in all I found the audio to be rather good. The different nationalities had perfect accents and inflections, the musical score in each location set the mood befitting the scenery and setting very well and even ambient sounds were balanced
Marks out of 10
Sound:8 – good well balanced and good acting voiceovers
Graphics:8 – mixed bag really. Some excellent but let down by character movement
Gameplay: 8 – nice inventory mechanics however more variety in minigames/ puzzles needed
Lifespan: 7 – Maybe revisit to improve score
Top Star goes to excellent writing of storyline. Watch Mata grow from naïve girl to wanting some action for herself and finally her disenchantment
