Ariane, a photojournalist, is on assignment to Iceland. Her helicopter pilot sets down on a volcano and she disembarks. Suddenly, a rock slide damages the helicopter, and the pilot mysteriously disappears. While looking for him, she finds an opening in the side of the volcano, and goes inside, only to fall down, down, down.....

Thus begins the adventure of Journey to the Center of the Earth, which is very loosely based on the novel by Jules Verne.

Ariane has been knocked unconscious by the fall, and awakens in a strange place she's never seen before. Apparently it's beneath the earth inside the volcano, but there's a beach with an ocean, and a bright sun in the sky, with clouds wafting by. This I found frankly unbelievable, but just had to decide to suspend my unbelief for the duration of the game.

This is a "point-n-click" type adventure, complete with plenty of inventory gathering, dialogue puzzles and wandering around interesting localities. The story is intriguing and allows for all sorts of fantastical happenings and ideas to be included. However, some of it is far-fetched, and often doesn't make any sense, as in the early scene beneath the earth where there are two graves, complete with markers, right smack dab in the middle of an abandoned campsite on the beach. One, who would bury the bodies in the middle of their camp, and two, the campsite is littered with debris that appears to be about 140 years old, but is still remarkably well-preserved. Also, the pilot manages to somehow disappear right in front of Ariane, who is beside the helicopter the entire time in the opening scene. Still, if players can put aside these occasional odd story elements which go unexplained, the plot taken in its entirety is interesting and compelling.

For those who like to collect lots and lots of things to place in their inventory, this game offers tons of inventory items. The puzzles for the most part are inventory-based, and are fairly logical in execution. Some items can be combined. There is one annoying and strange aspect to some of these puzzles; apparently, one of Ariane's hands is very fragile, as she cannot seem to accomplish some of the physical tasks without first putting on one glove. There is no hint given that she needs to do this, either. I discovered it wholly by accident, when I was able to solve an easy puzzle in one game, but not in another re-started game. I finally figured out that I had "used" the glove the first time around. Ariane has to do this several times, and what is really weird, is that the glove automatically pops off her hand and goes back into the inventory when the job is finished. And why only one glove from the pair?

There are a few head-scratching puzzles, but with perseverance, they can be figured out. Unlike some adventure games, these puzzles fit in well with the context of the overall plot and don't feel like they were just tossed in. Most everyone will enjoy working them out, even the old "Towers of Hanoi" standby.

The game is somewhat linear, but does let Ariane wander around some and explore, part of the fun of adventuring. However, (I keep saying that, don't I?) because of this linear nature, there are some instances where new actions pop up where previously nothing could be done. I hate it when designers do that.

The interface is easy and intuitive, with a good inventory menu with descriptions and displays of items. Moving Ariane is simple, and the actions are basic. The hot-spots for some items are a little small, and sometimes the directional cursor isn't as obvious as it could be, but this isn't very often.

An interesting addition to the game is the two game endings that have been included, one of which means that the mystery is solved, but still unresolved for the people of the underground community, the other leads to a resolving of the issue.