Black Mirror

POSITIVE: voice acting / lovely graphics (but most of the time way too dark) / atmosphere very similar to the original one NEGATIVE: absolutely horrible avatar navigation, you can't make him walk straight or where you want him to go - no matter how hard you try / screens load forever and there is a lot of loading in this game / finding hotspots depends on navigating the avatar and I already mentioned how difficult that is / graphics although lovely are way too dark most of the time. adjusting 'gamma' to as far as it can go, so you can actually see something, results in a fog like film over the whole screen, which in return makes graphics less sharp / the worst of all: finding hot spots when you are on a time puzzle - it is next to impossible. then you get 'killed' so many times that you want to throw your computer through the window OVERALL: I am glad I bought the game when it was on a huge discount (paid only €7.49 for it) because to my opinion. it is not worth €29.99. So, I suggest to wait until hugely discounted and then buy it.

Story and overall gameplay look promising, but controls are absolutely terrible. I just don't understand,. why I cannot interact with object simply hovering mouse pointer over them and I have to adjust focus to 'catch' the spot. Uninstalled. I'll never ever play this again. The game is not optimized for keyboard and mouse and is almost unplayable even with a keypad. No go.

Having played just over 3 hours, I have to admit I am very pleased with the game. The voice acting; which has been commented before; is excellent. Great to hear a true Scottish accent. Other than the gruesome death scene at the beginning, which is not that bad - I just am not keen on them, I found the atmosphere captivating. I really felt like I was back at Castle Black Mirror once more. There are enough additions and changes to make this feel like a new game. There was one rather silly puzzle where you had to keep your curser in a circle (I wont go into details to avoid spoilers) but I felt that it was more a test of mobility rather than keeping in game and it did drag the emersion out of the game while I was left wondering "what that was all about" The controls are a bit awkward; having not used a game controller in years; but after a while it became second nature. I did find myself going in circles a few times but that was my own over correcting in the controller. I purchased this in a sale and am glad I did. So far I am loving this version of 'Black Mirror' and looking forward to playing it more. I read so many complaints, within the reviews, but I am neather disapointed or annoyed with what others are finding. It works for me.

So this game has problems, much of which are technical problems. But its just as atmospheric and intresting as the original series was. Despite all these flaws I enjoyed every bit of it from the really awesome spooky moments to the extremely cheesy parts. And oh boy can it get cheesy or awkward. If it weren't for the technical problems I would have given it a 4 star. The good: - Atmosphere , from the visuals to the sound and heck even the voice acting really helps you feel immersed in the world. For example when you first arrive at the mansion and are allowed to roam around, all you have to light your way is the candle you are holding , the old place is creaking from every corner while the candle light slowly unveils each time worn wall and painting. It's an adventure game so it's not like something can actually jump out and attack you but it instill that sense of dread; -Story, i feel like this is mostly a personal preference ... in a way the changes brought to the original story made it more like a B-movie plot than it was in the past. But I like that , it kinda brings some more flavor to it. Even so it managed to surprise me at times; -Characters, yes the main guy isn't the most likeable or intresting one out there .. but I really grew attached to the other people. There isn't much on character development true , but each person in the house is different and has their own reason for doing what they are doing or did in the past. It actually got me curious of their reasons or what happened to them; The Bad: - Visuals, I like them but they are outdated..I mean in comparison with every other recent game that got out now it really makes it look cheap. As much as I like the design the graphics I feel might be a let down in general to some. -Controls are just terrible... its an adventure game that cannot be played with a mouse and keyboard without making you feel like throwing your PC out the window. I played this with a controller which was OKish. Just OKish, if I wasn't such a fan of this sort of thing I would have not put up with it. The only way you can get past this huge issue which is also my biggest problem is if you really love the looks and the story. -Bad optimization, it has framerate issue after some transitions or in the most random of places. Also had two occasion where the game just froze. My pc is over recommended and I still had those problems so I dunno how this would be on something lesser than that. The MEH: -Puzzles were really simple to do... simple in a relaxing way but this continues until the end of the game. If you are looking for puzzles that make you think it's not here. Nothing too complicated or that required a rubber chicken and a pulley; -Animations are ehhhh... there were times where I was impressed , other times it was hilariously bad. It amused me. -Transitions , switching from room to room means you have to go through a black loading screen. It's not horrible but it kinda takes you out of the story and there is alot of walking around.

Now to be fair, I did not even play long before requesting a refund. Upon looking through the settings, I found that there are no settings for mouse and keyboard. I thought "ok, fine, mouse and keyboard appear to be working tho" I started the game and the first thing I didn't like: No control over the camera. That might change after the first few minutes but, I don't know. What really is enough reason for me to return games is: No support for pc peripheral controls. Not adding them in the game settings, fine. But, when none of the usual control buttons do what they should because the game is in fact waiting on controller input - thanks but no thanks.