THE PLOT:
The Doctor and Jo find themselves in an English village in 1942... but the bombs that fall as they arrive are not German. The Doctor recovers one and is startled to find it is organic - chitinous, like an insect shell.
Lily, a teenage girl, begs them for help and takes them to an injured priest. The Doctor is unable to save the man's life - but as he dies, the priest asks them to save "the orphans." Lily takes them to a derelict mansion, where the Doctor discovers a time portal that leads to 1842. There, an old enemy lurks in a nearby mine, plotting to use the Doctor's timeship to rule over time and space...
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| The Doctor and Jo help Lily, a young orphan. |
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: Portrayed at a remove, with his dialogue either paraphrased by Jo's narration or delivered in unvoiced comic book-style bubbles. The result is a fairly bland characterization of the 3rd Doctor, with none of the intemperance or flair Pertwee always brought to the role. Save for a brief but excellent moment in which he marvels at an alien being, the rest of the story reduces him to a simple problem-solver and little else.
Jo Grant: With the narrative presented much like a Big Finish Companion Chronicle, as a tale being related by Jo many years after the fact, it's more her story than the Doctor's. Katy Manning does her usual splendid job with the narration, bringing to life Jo's fundamental bravery and decency - alongside her tendency to rush into danger without thinking first.
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| Enemies are bizarrely vulnerable to the Doctor successfully matching gems... |
GAMEPLAY:
Doctor Who Infinity was the follow-up to Tiny Rebel Games' enormously successful Doctor Who Legacy. Like their earlier title, gameplay takes the form of a series of puzzles in which the player matches colored gems. Unlike the earlier title, there is far more emphasis on telling a coherent story. Story sections can run for several minutes before the next puzzle, and the puzzles themselves vary in style and goal in order to tie in with and advance the narrative.
I love this idea... in theory. In practice, the results are mixed. Different puzzles have very different sets of rules, which makes it difficult to pick up on an overall pattern. Some puzzles are basic matching ones. Others involve fighting enemies. Still others require you to arrange gems in a certain pattern within a single turn. Because the rules and objectives keep changing, you're given little chance to "get good" at one type of game before you're playing something completely different.
That said, most of the puzzle types recur throughout the story. The constantly switching puzzles are aggravating for the first two episodes, with a lot of trial-and-error involved in figuring out exactly how to play each type. By the final two parts, however, most players will have a decent grasp on the basics, and these last two installments are far more enjoyable as a result.
Oh, and one tip, unless you enjoy aggravation: Go directly into settings and disable the timer. Unless you have ninja-like reflexes, a few of those one-turn puzzles border on the impossible if you don't do that first.
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| Illustrations are in the style of a comic book. |
THOUGHTS:
I suspect most of my gameplay thoughts, both positive and negative, will recur for each of the Doctor Who Infinity stories. Still, I've decided to review each story individually. With scripts by different writers, performed by different actors, I feel certain my reactions to the individual stories will differ, even if my thoughts on the gameplay end up remaining the same.
Writer Gary Russell has indicated that The Orphans of the Polyoptera will be his last work of Doctor Who fiction. Russell is most notable for overseeing what I consider the golden age for Big Finish productions' range of audio stories. At a time when Who was off-air, he made sure that the audios offered a variety of story types, with a sense that each story was important in itself, making each month's release an event despite the occasional misfire.
While I will always respect his stewardship of Big Finish's first several years, I'm afraid
I've never been as fond of his actual writing. His Doctor Who stories as a writer are regularly competent in pacing and structure, but in my opinion have rarely been standouts.
This is true of Orphans as well. Russell's fannish tendencies are on full display: It's not only a sequel to a famous (if subpar) television story, but also to a story from an old Doctor Who annual. Continuity references are made to both The Three Doctors and The Curse of Peladon. Meanwhile, Who clichés are worked in at the end, complete with a ranting villain and the Heroic Self-Sacrifice (TM) of a guest character we barely know and therefore feel nothing for.
That said, Russell's strengths are also in evidence. The story is well-structured. The first episode layers in clues to the identity of the returning monster, so that the revelation falls neatly into place instead of coming out of nowhere. Pacing is fast but controlled, and the tale visualized through attractive illustrations drawn very much in the style of a comic book, complete with multi-panel presentations for action/suspense scenes. The episodic structure also works well, with effective cliffhangers that would have fit entirely with the Third Doctor's television era.
OVERALL:
The Orphans of the Polyoptera is a decent story, but it's far more successful on that level than as a game. Despite too many continuity references and some unfortunate clichés, it's an entertaining tale that's wonderfully performed by Katy Manning. The gameplay is uneven, however. Several puzzles are fun, particularly as it goes along, but too many others are just plain aggravating. It's never good when the worst part of a video game is the "game" part, which proves to mostly be the case here.
I did largely enjoy it, particularly the latter episodes; and I expect I'll enjoy the remaining installments as works of fiction if nothing else. But given how much fun the same creators' Doctor Who Legacy was, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed that the gameplay isn't more enjoyable.
Overall Rating: 5/10.
Preceded by: The Three Doctors (not yet reviewed)
Followed by: The Carnival of Monsters (not yet reviewed)
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