Unforeseen Incidents

I encountered some ugly input bugs (skipping cursor, unreachable areas, unresponsive to keyboard input, etc.) with the GOG overlay active, which meant having to restart the game now and then, but not being able to save before doing that. Pretty bad! But that all stopped when I deactivated the overlay in Galaxy settings. Other platforms offer achievements for this game, unfortunately not GOG. A few situations/sequences were really annoying, because they lacked instructions on what is expected of the player, and there's nothing I find to be more of a nuisance in an adventure game than being stuck in the same sequence over and over again, having to figure things out by dumb trial and error grunt work. There are also a few locations that were needlessly expansive, i.e. "bloated", meaning the player has to walk through screens and more screens (even with the map shortcut) just to reach a certain point; screens that only ever provide 1 item that could've just as well been put somewhere else. Those "hacking" sequences... phew... they sucked. Why not just make it sliding puzzles, eh? :) And I still want to punch someone for that inventory system... I mean, there are "folder" items that expand only on click, but actually using and applying things requires drag and drop, clicking the item just gets a silly response and hides the menu again. So frustrating. Sad! So it's definitely not a perfect game, it does have its flaws. But apart from that, this must be one of the best adventures I played in a long time! The artwork is unique, as well as brilliant and clean, even on a 4K 48" screen (cutscenes were a bit blurry though). The characters are all unique and believable, dialogs are sensible and well spoken. Riddles are mostly logical and straight forward, a bit on the easy side of things, although I did have to consult a walkthrough about 4-5 times. Thumbs up for the space key highlighting scene objects, wouldn't have found some things without it. Took me 5~6 hours to complete.

This is a fantastic and at times genuinely though-provoking game. I love point and click adventures and this one does not disappoint. Pros: - Totally engrossing story built around quirky but well articulated characters. - Beautiful visuals (the creepy way the sprites 'walk' notwithstanding) draw you in. - Outstanding voice acting that creates characters you become interested and invested in. - Good length of about 10 hours' gameplay. Cons: - This is quite a linear game. The puzzles are satisfying to solve, but not particularly tricky and there are no wrong turns. You work at it until you get it and you move one. Sure, there's a save game function, but the only times you can actually die the game takes you back and allows you to repeat whatever section you failed again and again until you get it. - The final section feels underwritten in comparision with the rest of the game. The pacing was just a bit off. So, in balance, a worthy game that drew me in and told a story with enough twists and turns to stay interesting. The writing also has a good seasoning of self-awareness, making the dialogue witty and fun.

As I did not want any of the second-grade spoiling, I played UI in its original language, German. While I reckon the game mechanics traditional, the way they should be with any point-and-click adventure, and even though the game sound seems really good, you are likely to run into a dead end sooner or later. This is due to the game-breaking logic used. Not only will the same "story-changer" dialogues appear more than once, but you will also not be provided necessary quest items such as a car key if you do not exactly stick to the chronological order of the "solution". If you do not follow the creators' order of events, if you walk into the wrong screens in the "right" succession, you will get stuck -- regardless of whether all your decisions correspond to those of the "best-practice solution". UI's humour is okay (it even had me laughing at one point, which is rare), even compared to classics in this genre, and voice-acting is good. Interactions are a bit limited, but that is fine. Puzzles range from easy to medium (which is totally sufficient, especially for essential puzzles to be solved in order to proceed). The graphics style does not meet my taste, but that is due to personal preference. Animation is extremely poor, cut scenes are mainly absent. UI has its upsides -- if by accident you proceed in the right order of meeting people and collecting items, and if you put up with the overall all-too-clear deficits in the graphics department. As far as the plot is concerned, UI is far less unforeseen than the name would suggest. Usually, I would have opted for three stars out of five: overall, the game would be good. Were it not for the fact that in Bochum and Heidelberg apparently they still cannot make a solid point-and-click adventure logic in the year of 2018! Those flaws would have been a shame to any 20-yr-old Lucas Arts game. It is only worth playing with a solution at hand. Otherwise you will get stuck without noticing it is the game's fault. Pathetic.

Overall: Very good example of a modern point-and-click game. High production values and amazing art direction. I enjoyed my time with it throughout. --- + Beautiful art direction and animation + Good logic - only one or two occasions that I reverted to inventory spamming + Good length - didn't feel shortchanged and it didn't overstay it's welcome. + Great sound design - the music was excellent and the voicework was superb throughout --- - Sound balancing - I could tell that in some scenes the actors had recorded their lines in different environments and it was a little jarring. This only accounted for a very small proportion of the game. - Fun but unoriginal story - I was engaged throughout, but once finished it was somewhat anti-climatic. - Very occasional bugs - only very minor bugs which never impacted the gameplay, but a few visual quirks.