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Encounter 2: The Study Group Reviews
Author: Christopher Cole
Date: 2002
ADRIFT 3.9
What does AIF stand for? Adult Interactive Fiction. If you likely to be offended by games with sexual content, you are advised not to open these files.
Reviewed by BBBen (Inside
Erin Volume 4 Number 9 - September 2008)
Basic Plot
The second of the Encounter series is, like the others, a small-scale, real
world fantasy situation. In this case a group of high school students - one guy
and three hot girls - get together to do a school project. Once finished they
have some drinks and start a game of truth or dare. A good old fashioned teenage
fantasy.
Overall thoughts
A while back I wrote a mini-review for this game on the old AIF Community
Portal, in which I gave it a 10/10. This should give you an idea of how highly I
regard it in my personal list of AIF favourites, but for a newsletter review I
should probably endeavour to be a little bit more objective.
This is a great example of one of those Chris Cole games that really has a
convincing "fantastic day in a real life" feel to it. Sure, it's not something
that's likely to happen, but I had enough promiscuous female friends in high
school to believe the game - particularly if the PC goes to the right type of
school and moves in the right social circles.
Puzzles/Gameplay
Enc2 does not have a whole lot of the standard, full-on, hardcore sex (it's
mostly foreplay and build-up, though there is some release to be had if you work
for it). Instead, the sex and puzzles are integrated together quite effectively
as you try to make sure the girls are drunk enough to lose their inhibitions (as
are you yourself), but not drunk enough to pass out. The game is actually a very
nice example of a game that does not have or need a traditional SSS (a sex scene
with all the usual rub/lick/fuck interactive commands).
For the sake of balance, however, I should mention that this gameplay mechanic
can be a little annoying. You discover how many drinks you need to give each
girl through trial and error and very carefully plying them with alcohol and
helping them get aroused each time they don't seem willing to do something. It
requires 'undoing' or saving and loading to feel your way through the whole game
(or restarting altogether, since it's a short game), and Cole adds, as is his
wont, a few red herrings. In this case there are a few sexual 'dares' that you
can try to convince the girls to do that they will not do no matter how much
booze they drink and no matter how horny they get, and this could be frustrating
for players that expect AIF games to be a bit more forthcoming with the sex
(though I personally found that the system simply increased the game's tension,
which was a positive in my book).
The other thing worth mentioning here is that the game, while not totally
linear, does have a reasonable amount of hand-holding in terms of getting the
right commands. This is forgivable because the gameplay challenge is more about
the balancing of alcohol and arousal, but I should point out that this game does
not contain traditional puzzles, secrets, etc.
Sex
This subject largely crosses over with the "puzzles/gameplay" heading, but I
will mention that Chris Cole knows how to write a sex scene, and this game is no
exception. The descriptions are detailed, the sexual tension is extremely hot,
and this is one of those games that doesn't need to get ultra-dirty to turn you
on.
Technical
The 1.3 release that is current (and most likely final) is technically clean,
and I found no bugs. The game is slightly ambitious for its size, in that it
attempts features that are not totally standard for ADRIFT.
Intangibles
This is a character-oriented game, and the characters are very enjoyable. Cara
is probably the one that stands out the most of all (though others may
disagree), and she returned by popular demand in Chris Cole's later
collaboration with A. Bomire: Pool Party. There are conversation options in
addition to the 'truth' challenges that help you get to know the characters
quite well for such a compact game (it's not a tiny game, but there is only one
room, after all).
Final thoughts
This is an innovative and hot game that is believable, original and yet classic
in its style all at the same time. It's one of my personal favourites, and one
of the reasons I got into writing AIF myself. If you haven't played Encounter 2
then download it and play it now. This is compulsory playing for AIF fans.
Rating: A
Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.
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