5 Days a Stranger is a great reminder of the old-school games of 2.5 dimensional gaming. You may not be old enough to remember games like King’s Quest, Space Quest, or other titles from Sierra, but 5 Days a Stranger has the same type of game play. That is, you are a character who can move within a semi 3-D lanscape, interact with items and people, and eventually work your way toward a game goal. 

In the case of 5 Days, you play a cat burglar named Trilby.  The name is more of an alias, really, and you make your living going to places and ripping off valuable goods. This time, you are at the estate of Clearance DaFoe, a rich man who was recently found hung. His wife was also killed as well. Triby’s only goal is to get the goods from the place and go. 

Unfortunately, there is a complication. Once you get in the house, you are locked inside.  It doesn’t look like you’re alone. There are four others trapped inside with you. The question is, can they be trusted? Probably not. I’m not too far in the game as yet, but something tells me they got their secrets. In a way, this game is like being on the show Lost, but it’s all indoors. 

These games always have a way of sucking me in, and the only solution is to just walk around and try things you haven’t before. Eventually, a new passageway will open up, a new tool will be found, and it usually creates more puzzles than it solves. 5 Days a Stranger is certainly no exception to this rule of 2.5 D adventure games. 

Controls are pretty easy and there are no complex keyboard commands. You only need the mouse to move, grab, or look at something. Right-clicking will take you to a new menu where you can select and object, Save, Restore, or Quit. 

All in all, I’m going to be making time to solve 5 Days a Stranger. If you want to start a habit, just click here. 

This entry was posted on Monday, October 30th, 2006 at 5:34 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.