The Dame Was Loaded

I had had "The Dame Was Loaded" on my wish list for a longer time and then bought it than it was offered for 99 cents. The game environment in 40's America has its charm and is for players who like the noir genre. Sadly, the gameplay is very time limited, which means you have to rush through the days. If you "unnecessarily" visit several places, time may run out and you may have to start over again. It's especially bad if you didn't pick up one of the numerous items and after the time limit you don't know exactly where the mistake was. Without a walkthrough the game is hardly to be finished. Unfortunately one can also hardly build up a relation to the characters. On the one hand too many people are brought in too fast and on the other hand one is annoyed if one must repeat parts of the game constantly. Buy the game when it is on sale. I could spend about 6 hours with it. But most of the buyers on GOG only play it for 2 hours. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

This game might be really good, or b-movie bad. I haven't gotten far enough into it to know. What I do know is I'm one of THOSE gamers that likes detective film noir style games done in FMV with point & click gameplay (can you say "Tex", anyone?), and this certainly fits that bill. A must have in my library, just to find out how good or bad it will be! The three star rating given here isn't based on completed gameplay, but the fact that this download does NOT include the game manual, so be aware of that before you buy. The UI isn't exactly intuitive, and that makes the game a little rough at the start until you get the hang of the controls. It took some random keyboard bashing to stumble across the command for opening a dialog box explaining them...try F1 why don'tcha? Good luck, detective!

The creators took the gameplay seriously, took the acting and filming seriously, and took the story and dialogue seriously, and created something better than competent in all three areas. I can't name another FMV game that feels this professional. These Australians go hard in making a noir game, and their effort shows. The characters are clear noir tropes very competently acted (the little bits of Oz accent that leak in are more fun than distracting), the plot is basic but with some excellent turns (which really helps for a video game), and the gameplay is clear and logical, with few adventure game moon logic issues. The creators turned Melbourne into an extremely believable 1940's era SF/LA, and the sets, costumes, and dialogue all drip with real research and love for the noir genre. Yes, you can die (or fail to pay rent) and lose the game, forcing you to start over. But that's a GOOD thing, because 1) there are multiple paths and multiple solutions to puzzles, meaning you can take different paths and make other choices to explore the game more, and 2) it lets you find the same evidence from different sources, meaning you will be constantly thinking about and re-examining your hypotheses. Basically: The well-executed setting and the redundancy of gameplay make you FEEL like a noir detective pondering a tough case. Honestly, the tightness of scope and quality of presentation probably makes this the best retro FMV game. Certainly, it's cleaner and punchier than the Tex Murphy's, it's more concise and better paced than the Phantasmagorias, it's not just a rambling story attached to super hard (and fun!) puzzles like The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour, and the gameplay actually exists unlike the wonderful Dracula Unleashed (and the acting is less camp). It's not perfect (see the niggling issues others speak about here), but it's a smart game made well. I don't have any nostalgia for it because I never played it till the 2020's, but I know I'll remember it forever.

First played 1996, original CD Rom. Lost count how many times didn't get passed day 3. Sadly second disk was corrupted, got nothing after escape from the warehouse. Found it here 7 years ago, finqally finished yesterday. Ending a bit disapointing but overall an interesting game. Well produced for it's time

Unfortunately, this game on my system - Win 10 - has a problem where as soon as you try and leave the office in the first scene, you get trapped in a sequence where you need to pay the landlord but can't do anything like move or access an inventory. I read the keyboard doesn't work sometimes but it did allow me to skip the cutscene. Avoid wasting your time and money on this one until they patch it. I'll update if I get it working somehow.