Gemini Rue

This adventure game fell short of my expectations quite a bit -- I forced myself to finish it, hoping it would get better, but the ending was as bland as the rest. Writing: Very stilted and hacky, and the plot suffers because of it. Voice acting: Absolutely BAD. The voice of Sayuri is the best voice in the game, but even her performance seemed extremely constrained by the lame lines and tone-deaf dialogue. The Director's voice actor somehow managed to always have the exact wrong inflection for the delivery of his lines, and Azriel's voice actor delivered every line practically the same. Kane's voice actor sounded more like a first read-through of the script by an assistant or something -- actually, just about all the other voice actors were about that level too. Puzzles: Not clever. In fact, it's more of a collect-all-the-things-and-use-them-50-times game. The game dialogue is either uninformative or downright misleading at times as to the next steps to take. Combat: Shooting mechanic was both tedious and boring. Controls: Maddening! Never had to put so much effort into switching between look/touch/talk/item/etc. Awful basic mechanic that irked me as soon as the game started. All in all, I have played worse games, and I give them credit for making an old-school adventure game, and the bones of the plot were solid -- however, the severely flawed execution of every other critical part of the game means I definitely could not recommend it.

First the good - the story was interesting enough to propel me through the game. The atmosphere of the world is perfect - rather bleak though. I found the control scheme a bit annoying though - right click on the object to interact with and then choose the interaction from a pop-up. I also found it difficult to identify items on the screen, turning it into bit of a pixel hunt at times. I also thought the ending was a bit weak. I'd recommend their previous games ahead of this, or even the Daedalic ones.

The backgrounds are very sketchy and you often cannot tell what any particular thing is, especially in the more futuristic-looking rooms. The characters will get anti-aliased at weird times, as opposed to just when they're far away, making them look very blurry. Overall the whole thing looks kind of ugly but also has a bit of a gritty sci-fi aesthetic. It does have a very engaging and interesting story, though, even if there isn't a ton going on in the puzzle department

As someone already mentioned, had this not been made by an indie-developer, it would not have gotten nearly as much praise. The game starts of well enough with the beautiful rainy scene and atmospheric music and sounds, and the pixel art is really engaging to me, personally, and I felt quite drawn in. But here´s where I felt I was being lead on: you just keep returning to the same 3 backgrounds in the rainy streets. Obviously with the indie-constraints they weren't going to make a new across-the-globe-romp, like 'Fate of Atlantis', but I was hoping to see at least a couple of interesting spots on the planet. It just feels like the artists drew the space-station and the city backdrops and then went "alright, that´s yer lot, everything has to play out in these two settings", and that´s what they did. I was a bit disappointed because I thought there would be more to explore. It also doesn't help that the game is so linear (okay, maybe a snobbish complaint for a point-and-click adventure game).

Ugly, clunky, poorly animated game with terrible action sequences and gunfights and plenty of instant death situations where the poor controls undermine any attempt to react quickly. After the wonderful Blackwell series (all 5 parts) and the equally wonderful Unavowed, this game actually made me angry! I played for a few hours and the amazing story others talk about hadn't kicked in enough for me to continue to wrestle with everything else. I found the dialogue flat and unengaging and I didn't care about the lifeless characters and their lifeless, albeit somewhat atmospheric, world (and I like dystopian stuff, loved Beneath The Steel Sky). Nice atmospheric audio though. The game is also buggy, many years after release. After death, I often reloaded to see half the screen completely black with only the rain effect being rendered, sometimes with a purple bar at the top. And why do you have to right click on an item in the environment to get to your inventory? You shouldn't have to right click on a phone box/ladder/poster to examine your gun/lockpick/whatever! Why make your starting location right by a gate you can't open? It's the first thing anyone would try. I found the graphical style too crude to be able to identify objects, and resorted to sweeping my mouse in areas I thought were important. I wish I could have played the game other reviewers did, but the one I played completely alienated me; it was unpleasant to play. I won't speculate on why we have plenty of 5 star ratings (ie. one of the best games you've ever played, of supreme quality, that'll take a lot to top), but I understand the passion behind this genre and its continued pulse. I too love it that these games still get made, but perhaps we are a little generous in our support. As a side note, this is the second time I have attempted to get into this game. The first being a few years ago. I disliked it even more this time!