Jack Keane is a good looking adventurer trying to further his riches by finding a treasure that he is being led to by an amulet. He is witty, has a good sense of humor, and always ends up in bizarre situations. Luckily the game Jack Keane 2: The Fire Within shares these same traits, leading to a charming point-and-click adventure game.
Jack Keane 2 begins with his beautiful companion Amanda heading to Shanghai to break Jack out of a heavily guarded prison. After Jack finds his way out of Shanghai, the game takes you around the world as Jack finds pieces of an amulet that will lead him to one of the most valuable treasures in the world. You’ll have to solve puzzle after puzzle as you get closer to your prize.
Jack moves freely around the 3D environments, which is a nice departure from other point-and-click games. This allows you to move around quickly to find items that you will need to solve puzzles. Like any point-and-click adventure game, there is one solution for every puzzle. This leads to hours clicking on everything in an environment with all the items in your inventory. Compared to some other point-and-click adventure games that have been released in the past few months, I felt like the solutions to the puzzles in Jack Keane 2 were easier to figure out.
In addition to the puzzle solving mechanics, there are some hand-to-hand combat sequences in the game. When in combat, the enemy will attack Jack first. He must use the correct defense against his attack to block, and once a successful block has been landed, he will have the opportunity to attack back. You will be able to learn new moves throughout the game to defeat your enemies, and most of the time there will be one specific move that you have to learn to win the fight. While it adds something different to the game other than clicking around on the screen, it is a pretty mediocre system. It is not a game changing mechanic, although some parts of the story rely on combat sequences.
It should be mentioned that at first I had a few problems running this game. Each time I would boot into the game, my frame rate would decrease, and got into the low teens at one point. But a reboot of my PC fixed those issues, and the game ran beautifully. After playing the game for a few hours with a low frame rate, playing at 60 frames per second was a huge difference. At first I did not like the game because of the low frame rate, but once this issue was resolved I started to enjoy it more.
There are a few other performance issues in the game that can be annoying. There are times that the audio will drop when characters are talking. Unless subtitles are on, you would miss these pieces of dialogue. Also when clicking on some objects to interact with, Jack will just stand there unresponsive for up to a minute. It happens enough in the game to be mentioned in the review.
The game features bright colors, good character models, detailed environments, and overall has a great look to it. I would compare the looks of the game to a modern Sid Meier’s Pirates! The environments are very unique, and it never feels like you never feel like you’re walking through the same area twice, with one exception.
Throughout the game Jack will enter into an unconscious state, and will have to “find himself” to get out of these dream worlds. This plays into its moniker of The Fire Within. These dream sequences are very well done, and can be very pleasing in the visual sense.
One gripe that I had with the game was the voice acting. The voice actor behind Jack and Amanda do a fine job, but the supporting characters are pretty weak. Early in the game you meet Eve, and for the rest of the game there is this bickering that happens between Eve and Amanda as they both fight for your affection. At times it feels like a weird dynamic to add to the game. While it is trying to bring more life into these characters, it feels forced and unnatural.
Although I am not the biggest fan of point-and-click adventure games, I had fun with Jack Keane 2. Compared to recent games in the genre, the solutions to puzzles actually made sense, and are a little easier to figure out. That doesn’t mean it is an easy game; it will challenge your patience at times.
Overall Jack Keane 2: The Fire Within is an enjoyable experience. I found myself laughing and having a good time trying to solve puzzles the game presents to you. Other than a few performance problems, a mediocre combat system, and a weird love interest mechanic in the game, there is very little to fault Jack Keane 2 over. The story is funny, has a few twists for the player, and there is actually one point in the game where you can end the story if you choose the wrong option. Fans of point-and-click adventure games will really enjoy Jack Keane 2: The Fire Within.
Score: 8/10
Jack Keane 2: The Fire Within was developed by Deck 13 and published by Nordic Games for the PC on June 28th. A copy of the game was provided to us by Nordic Games for reviewing purposes.
