A New Beginning: Final Cut

*I'm currently halfway through this game and will update it upon completion* I went into this game with elevated expectations knowing what Daedalic has put out in the past, but I'm currently sitting at mid-game with feelings heavily skewed to the negative. First of all, this story is wild... and I don't think in a good way. Yes, it has to do with global warming and climate change which is fine with me, but man do they really pound this message home. Don't worry though, our heroes have a plan to get this message across to any non-believers - a truly asinine plan that I hope backfires just because of how silly it is. Bottom line: the writing is mediocre in its best parts, and horrific in its worst - especially the characterization. There is one character in particular that is a misogynistic pig that constantly berates our heroine every chance he can get. Of course, she doesn't do herself any favors when her one job is to set up radio communications after traveling to the past... but she skipped the mission training! Still, it would be nice to know the future we are trying to save isn't utter crap. The graphics and animations are great as can be expected. Every location you visit is interesting and has a unique atmosphere without being too wild. The audio accompanying it is decent at best. There are a lot of crackles during cutscenes when audio starts/stops. Sometimes audio will overlay each other. Most of the time, during conversations it sounds like a computer is piecing together words to form sentences which can get annoying. The gameplay is generally good, for the most part. There are some scenarios where I don't know what the game wants me to do after I've literally searched everywhere only to find I have to click on something a second time or combine items in a way that doesn't make sense. Overall, it's an interesting ride I hope improves but only time will tell.

I've enjoyed the game. Contrary to some reviews I saw, I found the puzzles to be quite "logic". I mean, they are more like "The Broken Sword" (one of my favourite point and click series) than "Runaway" (that I personally hated). Ok, the acting isn't great and sometimes the game looks "cheap", but if you can have it for a low price then don't hesitate, because it's not too short and quite enjoyable.

I was looking forward to play this game due to its highly revelent theme. The story starts out great with believable characters that all have their own motivations. I got the feeling that the story wirters did not really know themselves what they ultimately wanted to tell us with the story - towards the ending it becomes increasingly confusing and I think they didn't think through the entire time-travel implications (which is absolutely necessary in that genre). Puzzles were okay, I can't remember unfair ones but also none that stood out as impressively good.

That's kinda fresh if you ask me. I had this game installed for quite some time before I finally decided to play it through. Since I'm 60+ years old, I'm old enough to have noticed that winters in my part of the world have become increasingly warmer and wetter. Maybe that's why the game appealled to me. I love cartoons. I love cartoonish games. "A New Beginning" fulfilled most of my expectations in that respect. I liked the puzzles. I loved most of the caracters. The story was, with a couple of exceptions, believable. Graphics: One of the few things that really disturbed me was how the female protagonist walked and stood. I don't know if it was meant to be sexy but in my eyes it just looked ridicolous. Other than that the graphics reminded me very much of my teenage comic books. Yes, that's a good thing. Sound and music: Completely ok in my book. Story: The game was released in 2010, and I'm playing it 11 years later, but the topics it touches has become more and more of a reality. Some people might find it pushing the message about climate change down their throats but that doesn't stop the story from being good. To sum it up: I've played better games and a hell of a lot worse.

This is a good game, not great, but still a solid adventure title. Story is strong, characterisation is… okay, but the gameplay is particularly nice, with generally logical puzzling with some complex ones thrown in here and there (often skippable if you get really stuck). Unfortunately the game is let down by translation and performance issues; I noticed a number of dialogues that were badly translated, or even lacked english subtitles. The voice acting is also generally poor, lending very little weight to the subject matter, which was disappointing. Performance wise the game is normally fine, but I noticed a lot of audio distortion on cutscenes, and some areas had noticeable delays when moving from screen to screen (or even just moving up and down with the same screen), which got frustrating when back-tracking a lot. Overall a good game though, and worth playing. Oh, remember to inspect items in your inventory! I got stumped so many times when I forgot to!