Puzz3D CD: Notre Dame Cathedral

Become a master builder and construct the Notre Dame piece by piece, inside and out. Puzz3-D Notre Dame Cathedral surrounds you with historical fact and fantasy as you erect this famous cathedral, from the most minute details of the rose windows to the more obvious external walls. Once finished, enter with your own personal key--your reward for a job well done--and discover the hidden secrets of Notre Dame. Four difficulty levels in this program provide progressively higher rewards for completion of the puzzle. The Easy level offers a 138-piece puzzle and a bronze key providing access to the first floor of the cathedral; the Super Challenging level presents 919 pieces and a platinum reward--the key to the most deeply hidden secrets of Notre Dame. At each level, after completing certain portions of the puzzle, you can view educational text and videos. Learn about many historical and architectural details of building the grand cathedral, such as constructing the flying buttresses, the challenge of incorporating so much glass into the design, and other trials of architect Maurice de Sully. Once you solve the 3-D puzzle, you take a similar tour of the inside of Notre Dame--with a twist. Within the historical explanation are not-so-hidden clues to a fictitious mystery involving the "spirits" of Notre Dame. The greatest enjoyment of the Puzz3-D Notre Dame Cathedral is the puzzle itself. Less successful is the attempt to creatively reveal the architectural and constructive history of the cathedral. The quality of the videos and sound clips is poor (even with a high-quality sound card, the ends of the last sentences in the sound bites are cut off, so that much of the historical information is lost). The reward of exploring the cathedral when you've completed the puzzle is inadequate, with inferior graphics and awkward directional controls. Stick to the puzzle challenge and you won't be disappointed. --Madeleine Miller