Atlantis 3 – The New World

Genre: Adventure

Release Year: 2001

Developer: Cryo Interactive

Publisher: DreamCatcher Interactive

Age Rating: 3+

Playability Status: Perfect

Tested On: Windows 8 x64

Availability: Copyright retained - Still sold

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Mysterious Egyptian tombs, magical relics, power hungry bad guys and hammy acting. Atlantis 3 – The New World (known as Beyond Atlantis 2 in the USA) has all the elements of a classic sci-fi channel B-movie and therefore all the right elements to make a classic PC adventure game too. Playing as a beautiful young Egyptologist, you will quickly find yourself swept up in a dramatic adventure that carries you across the world and even through time. Since Atlantis 3 is an adventure, rather than action game, it is able to use pre-rendered photo realistic graphics, which have stood the test of time well. Gamers looking for a more cerebral challenge will find plenty to enjoy on this particular puzzle solving adventure.

Installation

Atlantis 3 should install without any issues on a modern PC. Simply insert the first CD-ROM into your computer and follow the on-screen prompts. Towards the end of the installation process you will be asked if you want to install the SCOL Voyager software, you should choose to skip this part of the installation process. The SCOL Voyager on the CD is obsolete and none of the online components it depends upon are still functioning. If you are interested in SCOL you can find out about it here.

Once you have installed the game, you should download the latest patch. You can get that from the Patches Scrolls website here. The patch is downloaded as a zip file. Copy the executable file from the zip file once it has downloaded and place it anywhere on your computer, then run it. The patch simply replaces the main Atlantis 3 game file, so make sure you choose the right directory when installing it.

Running the game

Atlantis 3 must be run as administrator in order for it to start successfully. We recommend doing this via the compatibility mode options. Unfortunately, this means if you are running the game on a user account that doesn’t have administrator rights, you will have to enter an administrator password each time you play.

If you have two or more monitors, you should disable all but your primary monitor before you launch the game, otherwise the game may crash back to the desktop.

Once you start the game, you can press the Escape key to access the games menu. There aren’t many options to configure, but you should set the screen resolution to the highest possible setting and change the colour depth to 32-bit. Remember that Atlantis 3 is a 4:3 (non-widescreen) game, if you have a widescreen display the game should run with borders at the side of the image, otherwise the graphics will appear stretched out of proportion.

Troubleshooting

Missing mouse pointer – A common problem when running Atlantis 3 on modern computers is that the games cursor may be invisible when you start the game. Unfortunately to cure this problem you have to change the screen colour depth. You’ll need to do this by simply guessing where the pointer is located. This isn’t as hard as it sounds since elements of the UI will light up when the invisible pointer is over them. Start the game then press escape, that will take you directly to the options menu. Fumble around until you find the option to change the screen depth to 32 bit. Move your invisible mouse to the very bottom right corner, then up again a little bit until you manage to mouse over the back button. Click on this and your cursor should appear and you will be back in the main menu.

Despite the game saving these settings in a config file, we still found we had to set them each time in order for the mouse pointer to appear.