Around the World in 80 Days is a fantastic adventure novel by Jules Verne, 80 Days is a cheap bastardized attempted at a clone/sequel to that incredible adventure.
You play as Oliver, an adventurous young lad looking for a way to escape a marriage arranged by his father that is to occur in 80 days. Luckily for Oliver, his uncle Matthew has just made a foolish bet with a bunch of snobbish aristocrats that a man can circumnavigate the globe in 80 days, just like Phileas Fogg did 27 years prior.
The entire bet seems absurd, as the trip has already been proven possible, and serves as further proof that the tie-in is nothing more then a cheap attempt to cash in on Jules’ success.
You’re also required to find the patents for several inventions Matthew created, otherwise no one will believe he invented them and will lose his title, fortune, pension, etc. To put it bluntly, the story is loosely strung together from illogical plot point, to illogical plot point.
80 Days plays like a third person adventure game in the same vein as Tomb Raider, if only Tomb Raider’s controls were stricken with rigor mortis. While a normal game using a third person, over the shoulder, style game would use the mouse for camera controls and keyboard for moving and turning, in 80 Days the mouse is used for turning and your keyboard strafes.
This can make controlling Oliver very difficult, and that aside, there’s no reason to strafe anyways. After all you don’t actually have a weapon or any kind of attacks, you just run around clicking on hotspots. That is if you can find them.
Hotspots, areas where you can make an action, are highlighted green when you roll over them. However many aren’t obvious and some can be a pain in the ass to actually highlight and select. Even some of the first puzzles can be a real pain to solve because the hotspots aren’t obvious.
Most puzzles are of a reasonable difficulty without being overly challenging, though some may prove to be more of a challenge because of the poorly placed hotspots. For a true adventure gamer, many puzzles will simply bore you, but for a new comer, they may be at just the right skill level.
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