Cognition: Game of the Year Edition

I can tell you that this game is amazing The studio really launched something great for their first commercial title The story really draws you in and gets better and better it if you enjoy solid thrilling story this is a must buy ! for any adventure or mystery fan as for the lack of a bag when picking up evidence

A detective adventure point n click game, full of annoying bugs (specially first two chapters), but with a great atmosphere (ok, cartoonish graphics with ok voice acting, superb plot), not so tough puzzles with the interesting twist of a psy-detective with a complicated past. Sometimes cheesy but story really caught me up, I kept coming for more. +16 hours of gameplay. As with almost every game in this genre, really low replayability.

Pros: - female hard-boiled cop as the protagonist - a story about a serial killer, told in chunks of four episode - captivating melange of family drama, brutal murders and an fbi investigation - lots of diffrent, believable characters with intriguing background storys that unfold step by step - fast-paced: you're in the thick of it right from the start and the story unfolds naturally and with only a few breathers until you reach episode three, which brings about a nice change of pace as it takes on a rather pensive mood - the artwork fits the dark and gloomy story - music and sounds emphasize and underline the adventure very well - lots of nuts to crack - every episode introduces a new game-mechanic Cons: - episode one is very memorable, episode two is over in a blur, episode three takes the whole game to another level, but episode four is a bit too short - the so-called psi-powers you can employ to solve the cases are fun, but leave an odd aftertaste to an otherwise very well crafted game whose concept would have worked without this somewhat occult touch - animations/movements of the characters are sometimes off or odd Unsure: - the story is so overwhelming - which might be a good thing - that in the end, some murder-cases you barely remember having read about in episode one have you guessing whether you really remember them or whether they just came up out of nowhere - some cut-scenes take a while to digest and fail at making clear what exactly the game tries to tell you, leaving you at odds with the story and unsure about what to do next - which, again, might be a good thing and rather fitting - while there are some funny lines, moments and even characters, the game lacks the humor you would expect from a point-and-click adventure. Summary: A very immersive game which is unrivalled in almost every respect and shows just how fast-paced point-and-clicks can be. If you're not afraid an occaisional action-sequence and some gory crime-scenes, it is a must-have!

The story is great, as well as the characters (apart from the main bad guy). Episode 4 kept freezing on my Win7, but apart from that the gameplay was ok (not great, but ok). The whole game was refreshingly long, according to my steam, I spent 8h playing it. And I didn't even get stuck very often.

Point and click games don't get nearly enough love, sometimes even from their own developers. If you're in the market for a mature mystery/adventure, then you may enjoy this one. The writing is a bit pulpy and the story takes some pretty predictable turns, but Erica Reed is a strong and likable main character, even if everyone else can be forgettable. From a gameplay standpoint, if you're not into point and click games then don't bother here. Using Reed's cognition powers is a slow and sometimes frustration process, as you have to do a lot of clicking just to move the story forward even a small amount. The UI is a bit clunky and the inventory system is a bit of a pain; selecting items from your inventory still doesn't count as "using" it and you have to do a lot of unnecessary clicking. But my main gripe with this game is the bugs and glitches. It freezes A LOT, so if you're going to play this one, make sure you safe as often as possible, because the game will crash on you in every play session, which ruined the experience for me. I never ran into any graphical problems, but the game will run for about 15 minutes before locking up or crashing. This is actually the second game I've played from Phoenix Online Studios that's terribly unstable and I just don't think they test their games very well. Be warned.