Unavowed

I love adventure games and Wadjet Eye has been one of my favourite developers and publishers in the genre for nearly 7 years, but Unavowed just feels off. The setting and premise are interesting enough, the pixel art is nice - though with some rough animations, voice acting and music are also perfectly fine. What really hurts my enjoyment though is the silent protagonist, the writing and the puzzles. The protagonist is a complete blank, similar to your typical CRPG. You choose a name and one of three backstories and that's that. The protagonist feels completely detached from the game and that feeling is only reinforced through the dialogue system. Dialogue sections are also similar to CRPGs but most of the time, aside from exposition, there's only a binary choice between good and evil. This leads to my character being super nice and holier-than-thou in some situations and a bloodthirsty sociopath in others. The tone is so inconsistent that it's hard to care about what's happening. The companions also feel very superficial and some are flatout unlikable. Another reviewer mentioned that a former Bioware writer worked on this game and I can certainly believe that... The puzzles and exploration are very streamlined compared to previous games but not as bad as in Daedalic's 'Silence' for example. Kinda like a middleground between classic point & click and Telltale without the benefits that either system provide (the joy of overcoming a tricky puzzle vs quick pacing to keep the story going). You can also die in this game, but you'll just get reset to the point before you last clicked, so why even include something like that if it's without consequences? I thought we were over this when Sierra games stopped doing that? Overall, Unavowed has the production values I've come to expect from Wadjet Eye. A clearer focus on either classic 'point & click' or 'narrative driven choice & consequence' type of gameplay coupled with better writing could have improved the game a lot.

The game is OK for a Wadjet Eye adventure. Sadly, just OK. Why? Many of the riddles were just extremely nonsensical and there were some moments that were pretty DEUS EX entirely. Altogether it felt pretty stupid at times in terms of riddles. The story was extremely good, as you can expect from Wadjet Eye Games, but in total the game suffered from bad design in many aspects. I would still recommend it for the story if it is on sale, I just haven't felt it really being worth the full price. There are other Wadjet games that are a lot better and clearly 5/5s, Primordia and Shardlight, just to name two.

Good point and click adventure, and maybe not as memorable as Blackwell, but still great. I doubt there's much replayability in it, but "character generation" is a fun idea, that in this particular game worked out well.

I love adventure games and Wadjet Eye has been one of my favourite developers and publishers in the genre for nearly 7 years, and Unavowed just feels great ))) Now seriously, I beat almost every Wadjet Eye(Dave Gilbert) game and Unavowed is one of the best. I don't understad the rant in the comments below, but to build up one's disappointment on the silent protagonist if you actually beat the game is unfair (not to say dumb), cuz its clearly serve an artistic purpose. Overall Unavowed is a typical Dave Gilbert's adventure: great characters with the great voiceovers and dialogs, separate stories that merge into one solid plot, attention to the tiny details, beautiful pixel art and wonderfull ost... So if you like Blackwell series there is a big chance that you will like Unavowed. There are a much broader mythological motifs and you can take 2 partners on the "mission" and progress the story using their abilities and listening to their comments, so the game has some replayability, which is rare to the adventure genre. It took me 12 hours on my first playthrough and I loved it, so I will definitely start the second round with another protagonist/another backstory and the devs comments mode on.

Being a fan of Wadjet Eye Studios, I had high expectations for this game, and I am happy to say they were all (with one exception) met. Wadjet Eye Studios as exemplified by Dave Gilbert believes in the power of the adventure game, with its emphasis on exploration and character development above fancy mechanics. And this certainly shines in Unavowed. The exploration is amazing- though as a person who has lived in, and loved living in, many of the NYC locales in the game, it's hard to say how much someone would love the exploration outside that context. But I thought it was amazing. The characters and the ways they are developed are uniformly excellent, to the extent that the game is eminently replayable just to hear the different combinations of party members in their different missions, which is a rare replayability factor in an adventure game. Atmosphere- incredible. Music, dialogue, moral choices, art direction- all of it adds up to a particular experience of which I loved every second. FYI, I am a big fan of the darker varieties of urban fantasy. Gabriel Knight, the early Hellblazer comics, Charles de Lint - that's my bag. If you like this type of influence you will likely love Unavowed. The only flaw is the simplicity of puzzles. But there are many reasons to play an adventure game. Quest for Glory didn't have terribly complicated puzzles, IMHO - it was the depth of atmosphere and the character development which lured me to that realm. Gabriel Knight, too. I am sure there are more sophisticated games in terms of puzzles, challenges etc. but if you are seeking a purely immersive story, download this.