In 1996, Cyberflix published a PC adventure game called Titanic: Adventure Out of Time. It’s one of those games that’s always stuck with me, even though I’ve never actually finished it, and I’ll tell you why.
It’s a story about a man named Frank Carlson, who finds himself sent back in time during a London Blitz air raid in 1942.
This is a weird kind of time travel, though: he’s transported back into a previous version of himself, a secret agent aboard the RMS Titanic during its fateful voyage in 1912. For whatever reason, he’s been given an opportunity to change history, but he must act quickly; the one constant is that the Titanic will always sink.
Titanic: Adventure Out of Time is, above all else, a game with a lot of atmosphere. And though it may be dated now, that almost adds to the mystery. And the music. The music.
I could go on from there, but honestly, the best resource for information on this game is probably the Titanic: Adventure Out of Time fanblog. It’s worth a look. It’s got pictures, music, and some pretty good info on the history of the game and Cyberflix, itself.
That’s where I found out about a new website, created by Daniel Hobi, that’s currently hosting a Java version of the game, including its expansion pack, The Lost Mission. It lets you play through the adventure right in your browser.
Unfortunately, you will need Java installed for your browser, and you may have to adjust a security setting (check out the site’s help page for more info on that). It also takes a while to download, so if it becomes unresponsive, just let it go.
Despite all that, since this game only works properly on Windows XP and earlier operating systems, options are limited, so it’s pretty awesome one way or another.
Although, there’s apparently a new patch out there if you still have an old CD-ROM copy…
…which I do!
Update: Titanic: Adventure Out of Time is now available over at Gog, and works perfectly on new PCs without any extra patches.
