1954 Alcatraz

A great Daedelic point n click adventure. I don't know why this one only get's 3 stars and less by others here on gog, when other games here in the same adventure genre get 4 and 5 stars that are a lot more linear, have puzzles that make no sense what so ever, contain pixel hunting out the wazoo, and half of the inventory you have is contains useless crap that does nothing in the game. This is a great adventure, that has none of that nonsense. Unlike most other adventures, this one isn't short either, and it is rather challenging without having to google a walkthrough for half the game. You can find out where to click by pressing the space bar, but I only had to do that once during the whole game. This isn't one of those "let's just throw stuff you point and click here and call it an adventure game" like so many of the other adventure games are. The puzzles makes sense, the invetory makes sense, the story makes senses. You control two characters. You get to switch which one to play by clicking on the portrait of the one you want to play at the moment. Sometimes one character will get something in their inventory, but the other character is the one who needs it. You can't just switch item from one character's inventory to the other character's inventory. You have to find other characters in the game who will do that for you, so there is a bit of a challenge here too, but this makes it challenging. If you like adventure games, this is one you should get, and this coming from someone who doesn't really like adventure games all that much for the reasons stated above, but this one is one of the rare exceptions.

I enjoyed this game--good story, strong acting, logical gameplay. It took me a solid day (with breaks) to finish, and I found it fairly relaxing as it never bordered too far into frustration, and I never felt compelled to look up a cheat. My only complaint is that it seems somewhat shorter than other Daedelic offerings with maybe not quite enough challenge. At full price it seems not really good bang for the buck but on sale, it is a satisfying purchase.

The graphics, controls, and puzzle are nice. But the characters are just unrelatable, not very good people so you can never get behind their motivations. The ending is also weird and doesn't seem in harmony with the rest of the characters attitude throughout the game. This is a shorter review, but there wasn't much substance in this game to really review.

Look, I kinda liked it. I very nearly turned it off and uninstalled at the start, but I got into it, and ended up feeling a very resounding... "meh?" All aspects of this game feel budget. Dialogue construction and flow is poor, characters are underdeveloped and often feel like they are having their own conversations while speaking to each other, and there are weirdly adult bits which don't need to be in the game - perhaps they were part of larger ideas that never saw fruition in development. The occasional racist slur sticks out because despite being period appropriate, doesn't gel with the language/writing in the rest of the game. But, it's desinged with modern sensibilities. Object highlighting at the press of the button rocks - you don't need to feel you're missing things on each screen. Item/puzzle use is also very controlled and safe - I found only one instance where doing things in the wrong order caused an issue (probably a bug tbh) and even then I had another solution for the puzzle on hand I could have used. Puzzles are also pretty straightforward - I did fall back on a walkthrough a couple of times, but honestly this isn't a game I'd agonise over feeling like I have to "beat" it myself, and I'm not losing sleep over avoiding playing "rub everything on everything else" type approaches. Overall it's a mildly interesting story, presented in an inoffensive and supportive adventure game structure, to an okay soundtrack, with some questionable writing and dialogue composition. As I said, budget. Not terrible, not good. I got it on 90% off sale and that feels appropriate. One for if you've played every other adventure game and just need to stratch that itch, or perhaps if you love the era and want to play everything set there.

1954 Alcatraz is a solid point and click adventure game. It is challenging without falling into being as frustrating as others of the genre, avoiding falling into the pitfall of forcing the player to click around randomly in the hope of simply getting lucky. The cartoonish art style and animations are enjoyable for the most part, and the story is very good and holds the attention throughout. Unfortunately, the story takes a big left turn out of no where at the end and although you get a choice as to which direction things will take, it does break the character development which had been so good up to that point. The game is also short, taking only about a day to finish to completion. All in all though, great game.