Marco Polo is a trade/adventure game putting the player in 13th century Asia. Deceptively, the player does not play Marco Polo, but is let loose to follow his footsteps as one of four other traders. The player goes all over the Eastern world seeking bargains in various commodities such as silk, different types of spices, weapons and more. The player will also be presented with opportunities to take on missions for Kublai Khan, the Pope, and various other characters that may be met along the way.
The gameplay of Marco Polo is not much different than most other trading games. There are various trading locations scattered around and you travel from one to the other, buying something here and selling it there. To make it interesting there are missions thrown in along the way which require you have to travel somewhere and accomplish a task, which usually means making more money. When you trade in a commodity, you and the trader you're dealing with have to come to a price through bargaining. The buy/sell price is displayed, and you make your initial offer. After two or three rounds of this you can usually reach an agreement. Sometimes the other trader will become insulted with your offer, become angry and close off any further negotiations, at which point you're forced to either take it or leave it. While all of this is going on you hear the digitized voice of the other trader commenting on the bargaining. He'll tell you that he can make a better offer or that you're running him out of business. This is fun at first, but after a while the voice starts saying the same things over and over and it gets redundant, not to mention boring.
Along with trading, you must take care of your caravan. You must make sure that you have enough food for your journeys, you have enough protection, and that you can carry everything you've bought. Food is as easy as just buying enough before you set out. In fact, the game will not let you go anywhere that you don't have enough food to make it to. As you make more money and buy more stuff, you can hire more people and camels to carry your stuff, which will require more food. Protection comes from knights, archers and lancers that you can hire to travel with you. You can arrange them in whatever positions around the caravan that you want to protect yourself while traveling through dangerous areas.
The thing that sets Marco Polo apart is the graphic and audio quality throughout the game. When you travel from city to city you see a quick little video showing you the land you're going into or the people you meet along the way. Actual movie clips are used so it doesn't have that canned, done-in-the-boss's-office video look. Along with the video clips are a plethora of snapshots and a very nice narration explaining your situation. All of the art is very well done, especially the map, which has that "Jungle Book" look to it. Different art was used for the different towns so, unlike the bargaining voice, the look doesn't get old right off the bat. There's a complete soundtrack of authentic-sounding Middle Eastern music that really helps add to the feel of the game. It helps that it's CD quality music and not something done through MIDI on the sound card.
If this product had a target audience I'd say it would have to be kids. Although it would definitely be entertaining for adults, I don't see it holding an adult's attention like it would a younger person's. There's even a documentary on the life of Marco Polo which is very enjoyable. I'm not one to watch the education stuff in games, but I found myself going through the whole documentary, which is broken down into different parts which can be viewed independently of each other. The way that the game gives little historical bits through the game while teaching money management makes this perfect for a kid old enough to learn the concepts of money and trading. Not too young, however, as I had a little difficulty getting going without running out of money very quickly. Then again, that happens to me all the time in reality, so it might be more me than the game.
One of the better titles in its genre, Marco Polo is a very nice looking product with great music and easy gameplay. It's ideally suited for kids and some adults would find it fun as well. There are other products available which are more involved with more depth that adults would probably like better but Marco Polo is a sharp game. I have to admit that I did learn more about Marco Polo in the first 20 minutes that I had in on my CD-ROM drive than I had ever learned about him before in my life. It's a fun game and an enjoyable learning experience.
