GOLD & GLORY: THE ROAD TO EL DORADO

Find the Road to El Dorado in this captivating and funny adventure game based on DreamWorks' animated movie and discover a whole new adventure!

• A new story recounted by Miquel and Tulio!
• Play the two heroes and use their skills to overcome all obstacles.
• Solve the numerous puzzles and foil the various traps to finally reach the City of Gold!
• 8 fascinating worlds including Spain, The Ship, The Jungle and El Dorado.
• Movie-like graphics: real time 3D characters and pre-rendered backgrounds.

~ from the back of the box

After Antz battled it out with A Bug's Life, a lot of people forget that Jeffrey Katzenberg's other revenge project over his former employers at Disney was The Road to El Dorado. When he left to co-found DreamWorks SKG, Disney were deep in development hell with Kingdom of the Sun. Set during the Incan Empire, the film would eventually become The Emperor's New Groove and The Road to El Dorado would similarly feature an ancient South American society. All in the year 2000! Evidently, a game would be made and that got a confusing addition to its moniker; Gold and Glory.

Surprisingly, Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado is not an action game, but an adventure. Made by the folks who gave us Broken Sword no less. In style and mechanical design, it is closer to the LucasArts adventures of around that time such as Grim Fandango or Escape from Monkey Island. It has bright pre-rendered backgrounds with real-time polygonal characters controlled directly in relation to the character - tank controls. While I do prefer pointing and clicking in my adventures, the simultaneous PlayStation release probably was a deciding factor against it. It works well enough.

With the younger audience in mind, the controls are pretty simple. You can move with the arrow keys, run by holding Z or crawl by holding X. Sidestepping with Left Shift is useful to position yourself if you can't quite get the right angle to enter a door, but I don't think I ever used it in a practical sense. The only inputs that aren't about movement are the action and inventory buttons, mapped to Left Ctrl and Enter by default. When you approach something in the game world that can be interacted with, it will flash vividly. You can tap the action key to perform the basic action assigned to it, such as look, talk or take. By tapping the Inventory key, you can select an item to use with it. Other than a couple of mini-games, this is how all of the puzzles play out; either by direct interaction, or by using an item.

Keep gambling to win the treasure map - no matter how long it takes (left).
Sneak past inattentive guards in stealth mode, a.k.a. a pickle barrel (right).

For a game aimed at a younger crowd, this is the perfect introduction to adventure games. Even long-term fans of the genre may get something out of it if they can put aside the lack of difficulty. It's a fun time no matter your age. If you've seen the movie, you'll know that a huge part of its charm is the banter between the two leads; Miguel and Tulio. Unfortunately, Kenneth Branagh and Kevin Kline do not return to voice their characters but David Gasman and Eddy Crew do a perfect approximation of them. The script isn't as tight as the movie, but the winning banter is still there and it's often very chucklesome.

As for the story, it does a fairly good job retelling the movie. We even get the full jungle trek instead of a montage as the two locate animal-shaped points of interest in their search for the fabled City of Gold. Unfortunately, the closer we get to the end, the more rushed the game feels. Traditional adventure elements such as exploration, conversation and inventory puzzles take a back seat in favour of single-environment puzzles - most of them involving levers. More damaging is that an entire chunk seems to be missing. I was quite looking forward to exploring El Dorado itself, perhaps puzzling our way to gain favour with its residents and leaders but it is missing. As soon as we find the place, the final act begins and we're chased by a giant stone jaguar. We never get to see Chel, the movie's third lead, at all outside of awkwardly edited video clips. I suspect sections were cut to meet the deadline of Christmas 2000 (it came out less than a week before the big day in Europe - 19th December).

Convincing a monkey to steal coloured keys for you (left).
Your inventory will appear on the bottom left-hand side (right).

Some items even pop in and out of your inventory to suit whatever puzzle you're currently solving. For example, Miguel picks up a sword when they arrive on a beach. It's used for a number of things, including cutting down vines, leveraging rocks or as a makeshift lever. A utilitarian tool if ever there was one. We later come across a puzzle where we have to give up specific items as offerings. The sword is nowhere to be seen, and won't re-appear until we need use it as a lever again. Perhaps its presence caused a bug that they didn't have time to fix, or they couldn't get the actors back to record context-specific lines. Either way, a less hurried team would've have figured out a more elegant solution.

Regardless of the rushed end-game, for the most part it has a decent level of polish. The backgrounds are vibrant and inviting, evoking the kind of adventure you'd want with a treasure map in hand. The blocky character models have aged poorly in close up, but from the distance most of the game is played at, they look pretty good, representing the movie's art style quite nicely. Everything works as it's supposed to.

Miguel and Tulio will often become separated. Mostly unwillingly (left).
Control each of them individually to solve puzzles (right).

Only four of the main characters from the movie make an appearance outside of movie cutscenes; Miguel, Tulio, Altivo the horse and Bibo the armadillo. You'll even get to play as three of them at specific moments. When the game dictates, both Miguel and Tulio will go their separate paths navigating certain sections with slight differences. When they're together, you can talk to the other for a hint in the rare instance you'll get stuck. Later puzzles demand you switch between the two to solve them. In one fun moment, you'll even take control of a gleefully bouncy Bibo when confronted with a hole too small for humans to fit through.

Gold and Glory is a pretty decent adventure. It won't test your grey matter at all, and with it taking me just over two hours to complete, it won't take up much of your time either. There is room to expand both the game's narrative and its mechanics - something I suspect that was the case in its original design document - but what's here does just enough to entertain adults, and more than enough for kids graduating from those edutainment Activity Centres that almost every kids movie got at the time. Revolution Software's forgotten adventure is all right.
 

To download the PC game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses dgVoodoo and IMG Drive Portable to run on modern systems. Manual included. IMG Drive drivers (included) required. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 515 Mb.  Install Size: 621 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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Gold & Glory: The Road to El Dorado is © DreamWorks & Revolution Software
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me

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