Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual (**** out of four) is a mystery-adventure game that takes you on a quest to unravel a dark mystery. The storyline finds a young French archeologist, Sylvie Leroux, asked by a beloved archeologist uncle to help him at an archeologic site where he has unearthed an amazing clue to a secret organization and a conspiracy thousands of years old, perhaps involving the Knights of Malta. Sylvie travels to her uncle’s home on the Island of Malta, only to find that her uncle has disappeared. What did he find, and where has he gone?

Sylvie searches for clues to her uncle’s disappearance in the ruins of an ancient church in Malta. The mystery deepens, and to find her uncle Sylvie will need to travel to Istanbul, Rome and the Vatican. Your job is to direct Sylvie’s actions in finding her uncle and unraveling the mystery.

As you guide Sylvie in this classic adventure style game, you’ll need to examine everything for clues, pick up anything you can because you may need it later, and speak to everyone because they may have information or items you’ll need. You may have to use an item to bribe people for information. In addition, there are puzzles to solve to continue the game. For instance, to get at an old book locked in a secret compartment in uncle’s study, you need to go into another room to turn parts of a vase to align a pattern to unlock the compartment and then go back to the study to jimmy open the door to the now unlocked compartment using your motor scooter key, which you bend in the process. You retrieve the book but have to get your key repaired at the hardware store down the street so you can use your scooter to get to another location. Phew! And so goes your mystery adventure.

The 3D graphics are outstanding, with extensively detailed depictions of the many old-world sites. Graphic touches such as flags or laundry waving in the breeze or smoke raising from chimneys add to the fun and pleasure of exploring your surroundings. Character animation is good, and the sound effects and music enhance the tone of the game. The game plays easily, though you’ll need to be patient and take notes, if needed. A hint option highlights the various objects or areas containing important information or clues.

A well-crafted adventure game with an interesting plot and pleasing graphics that we think you’ll enjoy.

Everlight of Magic & Power (****) is a light-hearted fun, fantasy adventure PC game with an attitude. Its hero, Melvin, is taken on a romp through the mythical and magic land of Everlight.

The storyline finds Melvin, a lonely and somewhat nerdy teenager who encounters a magician and is magically transported to this mystical land. Here he must conquer his fears, save the town of Tallen and work his way up to becoming a magician. Melvin is assigned a spiritual guide, an elf who looks more like a Tinker Bell-type fairy. She flits about, full of helpful tips but all the while taunting Melvin with wisecracks--but in a nice way, since she’s already decided he’s too dense to survive his quest anyway.

The curse befallen Tallen is one that reverses the townsfolks’ personalities each night, causing havoc, confusion and even injury. For instance, the town’s richest man, turns into a beggar at night. Melvin must find the cause of this curse and remove it. Along the way he confronts his fears of failure, loneliness, disappointment and death.

You must wisely conduct Melvin on his journey. The game plays easily in typical adventure game fashion: click on the location to move Melvin there; click on a door and he’ll enter. Melvin must examine or pick up anything in sight because he’ll probably need it later, and he must also interview people he meets to gain further clues and solve puzzles to move along in the game. A hint option highlights objects, and a quick transport map takes you from one area to another. In Everlight, many of the items Melvin picks up seem to have a more immediate use, such as picking up a stick to strike a tree to free your spiritual guide from her cage, or stealing rat poison from the library to poison a carrot tree (got you interested?).

The graphics are good, quite whimsical, and have a marvelous fairytale quality about them, complete with pointy roofs and slightly crooked walls. The characters are varied, quirky and a little stylized but fun to see and interview. The music and sound effects are appropriate for the general gestalt of the game. The script merits special attention since there is a lot of it. You can just listen to it or switch on the subtitles. It reads like a youngster’s fairy tale: simple, cute, a bit irreverent and sarcastic at times but very appropriate to the general tone of the game.

Despite its occasional goofy fun, Everlight of Magic & Power is an adventure game that teens and older will enjoy.