Unavowed

Dave Gilbert's first game under the Wadjet Eye Games banner might have been 'The Shivah', but his claim to fame was definitely the renowned 'Blackwell' series. The 'Blackwell' games were so good that they had become part of the standard, against which modern point-and-click adventure games are measured. Needless to say, after the fantastic 'Blackwell' series ended, there are high expectations for Gilbert's follow-up game, 'Unavowed'. I purposefully did not follow Gilbert's development of 'Unavowed' because I fear I might develop unrealistic expectations for it. Gilbert had set himself such a high bar for his writing, and combining the supernatural into his mysteries, that I expected similar level of quality in 'Unavowed'. He did not disappoint at all, especially with the twist he dropped with aplomb during the game's climax! In 'Unavowed', players assume the role of a character of their creation: male or female, who had a career in acting, law enforcement, or bartending. This would affect how the story of 'Unavowed' begin, what the player character might say, as well as how some mid-game events unfold. The player character is silent, with supporting protagonists respond to the players' chosen dialogues. In that sense, 'Unavowed' is a point-and-click adventure game with some role-playing game elements. Players of the 'Blackwell' series had got to know Rosa Blackwell and her spirit guide, Joey Mallone, very well after five fantastic adventures. With 'Unavowed', Gilbert had the daunting task of making players care about the supporting protagonists in one game. He deftly did this by having these characters banter amongst themselves mid-mission, as we “eavesdrop” on their conversations. I particularly enjoyed hearing the backstories of Logan (a spirit medium, or Bestower of Eternity), Eli (a Fire Mage), and Mandana (a Jinn of mixed Jinn and human heritage). The backstory of Vicki (a former police officer) unfortunately fell just a bit short. The focus of 'Unavowed' is the conversations. Conversations with characters unearth new clues, which in turn open up new set of dialogue choices. That plus investigating items of interest would help you understand the nature of the demonic phenomena that had been plaguing New York City. Each case or mission would culminate with a moral conundrum. Your moral decision would have an impact on the outcome of the story, though not dramatically. It is these moral conundrums and facing the consequences of your decisions that make 'Unavowed' a gem, not necessarily the individual puzzles that preceded it. Given that, 'Unavowed' allows for replayability. Aside from your choice of your character's previous profession affecting the story's prologue, your choice of two of four supporting protagonists, who would join you on missions, would affect how puzzles could be solved. For example, Logan and his spirit guide could get clues from ghosts, but other team members could not. Your moral choices would also affect how you would solve the last few puzzles. I replayed 'Unavowed' twice to explore the impact of different team configurations and the moral decisions I make. At the time of this review, 'Unavowed' has some graphical glitches that are a bit distracting, but not game-breaking. The GOG version of the game does not have achievements, too. While this may annoy achievement seekers, I personally prefer it. I do not want the quest for achievements affect how I make in-game decisions and dictate how I should play the game, especially given the way it is designed. As a huge fan of Gilbert's 'Blackwell' games, I highly recommend 'Unavowed' even though it plays quite differently from them or other gems produced by Wadjet Eye Games. It is the differences in 'Unavowed' that make it a unique title in Wadjet Eye Games' catalogue.

Wadjet Eye is alway a good reference when it comes to point and click adventures. I liked the general story, the characters. The pixel hunting can be avoided by highlighting the hotspots. What I DIDN'T like was the missing voice acting for the main protagonist. Yes, I know, there are two genders and some unique lines which depend on the profession you chose. But the other characters also respond to that, so it can't cost THAT much. Later in the game you could say that it 'creative style' when it comes to possession. Still ... I like to hear my characters talk. After setting the graphics for the game I always experienced crashes. Every time after that I had to find the ini file (not the one in the game directory) and to reset some sound card parameters. But then again I didn't do that very often, it was just annoying. The amount of achievements is just ridiculous. Basically you need to play the game around 15 times to get them all. It would be 24 if it was not a basic requirement to always include one of the main protagonists.

This Point-and-Click Adventure isn't the kind that will keep you stumped for days, but that's not a bad thing in my book. Where it really shines is the writing; it starts off pretty intense with the player character having a demon exorcised from him/her, along with flashbacks to their origin story, which you can choose to some extent. From there, you choose your team for each paranormal case that you investigate within the city; each character has their own talents, and who you choose determines how some of the puzzles are solved. Some of the characters resonated with me more than others, but even the ones that didn't got into situations that REALLY knew how to twist that knife; the stories were compelling, rather than just killing off characters for cheap shock value, like a lot of "emotional" stories like to fall back on. Wadjet Eye nails it once again.

As many others have already written, the focus in this game is mostly on the story. Every level can be solved in a more or less the same fashion -- visit every location you can, experience a flashback, talk to everybody and exhaust all the dialog options, gain every bit of information you can, then try applying it everywhere. If you cannot progress, you probably haven't tried applying every bit of new knowledge you gained in the level. Puzzles aren't very complex -- there is no moon logic or annoying "try every object in your inventory on everything until it works" problem that older point-and-click games are known for. It is almost impossible (if not completely impossible) to screw up -- if you make a mistake, the game simply resets to give you another go at the task you failed. Sometimes you need to be in a specific place to use some object in your inventory, but that is mostly very logical. I think I struggled only once in the game, and that was very somewhere in the last third of the Chinatown level. To be fair, however, the game did try to point me in the direction of what I needed to do next -- I simply wasn't looking in the right place. The story was really intriguing in the beginning, then I somewhat lost focus of it. But then you are met with quite an interesting plot twist and some interesting moral dilemmas. I won't spoil anything, but the main idea of the story is that almost nothing in this game is as it seems :) The only thing I didn't like is probably the amount of false choices in the game. I understand that devs were trying to make it replayable, but I doubt I will want to repeat the game with a different origin story and/or different pair of henchmen. You kinda experience their personalities during the interludes, so I don't see the point in rushing through the game again just to get a bunch of achievements. Overall, it is a really nice game with quite a few easter eggs and references to Wadjet Eye's other titles. Definitely worth playing

solid and innovative adventure, enjoyed it a lot.