Moebius: Empire Rising

Surely one of the worst adventure games I've ever played. Very little plot to speak of, and what little there is makes no sense. The mechanics are clunky, the "puzzles" are for the most part so easy and obvious they might as well not be there. There's some attempt at mildly unusual mechanics, but really none of it matters. The protagonist is somewhat unusual, but mostly because he's such a relentless a-hole. In fact most of the writing is extremely unlikable, Oh, and for the feminists out there, pretty much every female character in the game exists to be a potential partner or a sex object for a male character, except maybe for the protagonists secretary. The important ones exist to be potential young wives to much, much older men. The whole game is really misanthropic actually, to the point of being somewhat bizarre.

$30 dollars is way too much for this game. Did the other people here play the same game? The graphics are terrible and the game itself is pretty boring. Jane Jensen has done better work.

I enjoyed this game despite it's failing. For me I want an adventure to make me feel like I'm living through the interesting detailed story it's telling me and Moebius does this quite well. Now the plot itself is a tad bit laughable but I expect adventures to have B Movie plots. The plots of the much loved Gabriel Knight 1 and 2 were also laughable and somewhat offensive. IE in GB1 the fear of a large black murderous voodoo cult where every black person in the story is involved taps into racist fears that the American population have had and yet again portrays black people in a negative light. MILD SPOILER ALERTS: So the plot that reincarnated people of the past are 'chosen ones' and supior aristocratic blood lines wasn't one I warmed to but it worked in a B movie kind of way much like GB1 worked similarly. The way you investigate who is a re-incarnation of who is a kind of cool innovation to. The relationship was based on BBCs Sherlock as were the 'analyse' feature where Malachi like Sherlock analyses people at first glance. The relationship between the 2 men and Malachi being a savant is clearly based on this to. The bit were our genius rewires an electrical circuit without first turning the power off wasn't thought through. You can see it steals bits from Assassin's Creed in the way it deals with 'destiny'. There are strong themes of sexism and mysoginy in the way women are judged throughout the story. Yes I know the writer is a woman, but sometimes women judge other women more harshly. I was also a little uneasy with the middled aged men marrying teenage girls. The puzzles are generally logical and nowhere near as nigh on impossible as the puzzles in Gabriel Knight puzzles. I prefer this, some people prefer HARD puzzles though so if this is you maybe this isn't the game for you. Graphically I've seen negative comments. For me I think it's a beautiful looking game but I don't play the latest games so it probably is dated, that doesn't bother me but it may bother others.

I don't know how backers of the game felt about the final product, but I'm really amazed that Jane Jensen could write something so out of touch with modern sensibility. Every man in the game is calculated and cold, every woman is frivolous and only interested in money and jewels. The main character is an unsufferable unstable bore that the game insists instead is a "hunk". Too bad that no matter how many times the game tells me, I still belive he is a jerk and not dreamy at all. How did she go from Gabriel Knight - a likable jerk - to Malachi Rector (yep) - unlikeable and disagreaable? The puzzles in the game are also out of a 90s playbook and the plot is stupid beyond belief. Just go play Gabriel Knight instead, trust me on this.

Nobody knows how to polish a turd quite like Pinkerton Road. Highly offensive drivel for your mind, body and soul. 5 stars and B-Grade Adventure GOTY!