The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time

Overview

This final installment uses a 360° pre-rendered 3D CGI interaction system, similar to QuickTime VR. It featured impressive production values common for the series. It was also one of the first games to also be released on DVD-ROM. It was re-released in 1999 with the Windows versions of The Journeyman Project—Turbo! and Buried in Time as part of a "Trilogy" box set.

Story

Despite Agent 5's success in the previous games, time travel technology is deemed unsafe and the TSA is forced to close down. However, Agent 3, the culprit from Buried in Time causes a temporal rip and Gage Blackwood must travel back in time to find her, and discovers that aliens had destroyed three ancient Earth civilizations. After finding Agent 3, he learns that a mysterious alien fleet has appeared in Symbiotry space and is heading towards Earth, looking for an ancient alien relic known as the Legacy of Time. Joining once again with his AI buddy Arthur, he must track down the pieces of the Legacy in the mythical cities of Atlantis, Shangri La, and El Dorado.

Publishing

Unlike the other games of the Journeyman Project franchise (which were previously published by Sanctuary Woods) Legacy of Time was published by Red Orb Entertainment in 1998.

Demo

In October 1997, the Legacy of Time Demo for Mac and Windows, was released with Riven, also published by Red Orb Entertainment. It featured the Potter and Olive Oil Vendor's shop in Atlantis, with the objective to create a Golden Medallion which will help the player enter an Atlantean temple in the full game. Once the objective is reached the demo ends. The trailer is also included and states the game would be released in December 1997, the game however was not released until February 1998.

Versions

In February 1998, Legacy of Time shipped on four CD-ROMs for both Mac and Windows, but later was released on one DVD-ROM which had separate Mac and Windows versions. The Macintosh DVD version released in May 1998, was bundled with Macintosh PowerBooks that had a DVD Drive (the disc could be seen during the introduction of the PowerBook G3 Wallstreet). The Mac version used the same graphics as the CD-ROM version due to the enhanced graphics intended for the DVD version being not ready in time. Later that year in September, the Windows DVD version was released and included the Enhanced Graphics and Movies, as well as MPEG-2 trailers of both Legacy of Time and Riven. Solutions exist to run this version on Mac OS. The Journeyman Project Trilogy Package included the original CD-ROM version. While only the Windows versions of the other two games are included, Legacy of Time included the Mac version.

CD-ROM Version Disc Layout

The DVD versions have all the data on one disc, eliminating disc swapping.

Mac OS X Anniversary DVD-ROM

A Mac OS X version was announced on The Journeyman Project Blog. The project began in secret in February 2008 and was headed by Michel Kripalani, Tommy Yune, and Roland Gustafsson of Presto Studios who were involved in the original development of the game. It was originally planned for release in January 2009, but delayed due to a bug in QuickTime 7.6 which caused cosmetic issues. The bug was fixed in QuickTime 7.6.2. On October 30, it was announced the Mac OS X version would begin shipping in the first week of November. The application is PowerPC only and thus works up to OS X 10.6.

Critical response

The game received mostly positive reviews. Praise was attributed to aspects where the game departed from the first two Journeyman Project games, which were considered improvements. Its view screen was considerably larger than previous entries, and did away with the biochip system, which had been criticized previously for being too cumbersome. Interacting with NPCs (possible thanks to a new system where Agent 5 assumed a holographic local identity), which was forbidden in previous games, was seen as adding some life to the game. However, the graphics were criticized for their low resolution (with the payoff of the larger view screen). The overarching story was also criticized as being somewhat forced in terms of writing and acting.