Salammbô is a new adventure game by the same team that made Atlantis III. Inspired by the historical novel of Gustave Flaubert, the game tells the story of the war against Carthage, three centuries B.C. You take the role of Spendius, an escaped slave who slowly works his way up to soldier and eventually becomes a general.

The story promises to be symbolic and theatrical. The titular character Salammbô is the daughter of the Carthaginian army commander. She's fallen in love with a rebel leader named Mathô, and in exchange for sending a message through to him, Salammbô offers to free Spendius from his slave prison.

Even though the story is based on real events, Salammbô is by no means a historically accurate game. The novel has been visually reinterpreted through an abundance of colored light, creating a grim and almost dream-like atmosphere. The mood of Salammbô reminds me a little of the sci-fi flick Pitch Black; imagine being situated in a desert landscape surrounded by haunting, coloured skies. The visual style has been derived in part from a comic version of the Salammbô novel, under the art direction of Philippe Druillet. The Atlantis team certainly deserves praise for trying something a bit different. I am not entirely convinced whether this has been a conscious artistic decision, or just a cost-effective way to add some glitz to the graphics (like Pitch Black), but perhaps that doesn't even matter.

Having seen various parts of the game, the puzzles seem to have been well integrated into the story. It's nice to see how a large historical battle is told through the puzzles. For example, one puzzle involves aiming and firing a catapult at the enemy camp. Another puzzle is represented through a turn-based strategy minigame, where you have to deploy four types of units to the right positions. (No need to worry if you don't like strategy games—this part of the game essentially plays out as an inventory puzzle.)

The major weakness of the game will be the node-based panoramic engine it uses. I know there are a lot of fans of this style—it worked nicely in Post Mortem—but it really seems that it's time to retire this dated piece of technology. The hard cuts between the nodes really draw away from the immersion into the game, characters are static, and examining a scene is like looking through a fish-eye lens. I would recommend that game designers do not use this type of engine again, unless the protagonist is a frog.

Overall, my feelings about Salammbô are cautiously optimistic. It's quite hard for me to determin what kind of game Salammbô is going to be. Whether it will be a must-have title depends a lot on how well the different elements are wrapped together by the story. There is definately potential for something that really captures the imagination, but only our review can tell you for sure.

Salammbô: Peril in Carthage will be released in April 2003, and we'll have a review shortly thereafter.