Stranded: Mysteries of Time

Stranded: Mysteries of Time from Glu Mobile caught my interest over the weekend because of the lack of adventure/role playing titles in the market and because of its low rating coupled with only 3 reviews and no comments to date. The screenshots looked decent and the theme sounded ok. Could the game really be that bad? Should it be renamed 'Stranded: In The Android Market'?

In the game you are Dr. Alex Howells and you start in the midst of a jungle. As he starts to tell you his story he hears a noise. It's a T-Rex on his way. Think Jurassic Park as Dr. Howells begins to run for his life. You must escape the sharp teeth of the T-Rex that wants you for dinner. Run, run run... [Spoiler Alert... skip the rest of this if you want to avoid any hints] After running for a minute or so I felt frustrated. I wasn't getting anywhere. Naturally it was time to feed the dinosaur. And that was the answer... I woke up from my bad dream and the game continued. The low rating makes me wonder if some people never "got it". Much like a piece of paper that has "Idiot Test on other side" written on both sides you could run from the dino for a long time. Maybe there's a time out when it forces you to be eaten, but I never made it to that point. Frustration and then relief set in, but so did the feeling of accomplishment of having solved the problem at hand albeit by accident.

So then you wake up in your lab and you are given your first mission. You hear commotion outside and have to find out what it's about. So you go outside... and that's the game. A story that involves giving you missions to accomplish as you unravel what's going on in a Lost (as in the television series) style world.

The game is controlled entirely by touch and that includes an on screen 8 directional D-Pad which works fine for this game given that it's not a twitch arcade style title. You also have a backpack which is where you go to check your inventory, see what your missions are ... etc. The graphics are adequate and do the job, but are not anything to brag about. The audio is good and seems to support the game well.

So what's my verdict? This is a good adventure game with a decent storyline. Given that beggars can't be choosers I recommend this one if the genre sounds interesting (i.e. being stranded on an island with an element of time travel trying to figure out what's going on) and you want an adventure game. Furthermore, the game, at just $.99, offers exceptional value for all that it is, and is a solid entry in a category that is seriously lacking for us Android owners.