I'm still early in the first episode, and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. The style is what grabbed me while playing the demo. The art is amazing and the music is quite good in spots, too. I knew the voice "acting" was horrible, but that's not a game breaker for me ("Hope this is not CHRIS'S blood!").

But, once in the actual game, I realize the script is awful, and it's obvious that the devs didn't do a bit of research regarding police work or crime scene investigation. And, yet, the setting and style keep me playing. Hopefully the realism gets better as it progresses but, so far, I'm wondering how the game is so highly regarded simply from all the immersion breaking moments.

Any thoughts on your experience so far?

I agree that FBI scenes miss a realism sometimes. I cringe every time Erica's yelling at someone as a part of her investigation, she decides to go alone in the dark alley (in the figurative meaning) or someone leaves computer unlocked while being away. I think of these moments as something typical for the series. Let's say like Scully doing her sceptic face in The X Files. :)

Developers improved a lot in episode 2, in my opinion. Everything is more polished.

I appreciate it for being distinctive, willing to experiment instead of applying proven adventure formulas, having a compelling plot, being able to make fun of itself and using nice visuals & music.
Maybe the point is that people enjoying it doesn't consider these parts too important. I mean Gabriel Knight had the scene in police station where Gabriel was able to move around and Pathologic obviously lacked solid budget for translation but both are still charming.

Good points. I get that it's a game, and I'm certainly not expecting Oscar-worthy (in script or performances). It's the obvious things that stand out to me that make it difficult. For example, how long are they going to leave an ear lying on the floor of the police station? I'd like to pick it up at least, but that's not an option. lol

For me, Erica is an interesting character to play. She reminds me of Dexter Morgan's sister, Debra, and she's fun to play (although I agree that her best voiceovers are when she's just talking, and not yelling).

Part of me wishes we'd had the option to buy these separately, so that the reviews would reflect each chapter (which seems more fair to me). But then, part of me is glad we can't because I never would have bought another one and, as you say, the general consensus is that they get better.

You nailed it. I have been thinking who she reminded me of. :) I think the reason for one page is episodes' length and how tight they are connected. Blackwell is same. Personally, if I discover any series late, I value reviews covering the series as whole.

I've played through the first episode and, honestly, I'm unimpressed - and that's saying something, as I'm a hardcore adventure fan, and will play pretty much anything in the genre and do my best to find positives even in bad games.

This one, though? I can't think of much good to say about it so far, other than that I like the detective/investigative genre very much. The script and voice-acting are just DIRE. Really, really bad. While I like the idea of the visual style, the backgrounds look unfinished, and the character portraits and animation look downright weird. I absolutely loathe the character of Erica. I want to reach into my screen and slap her when she does that eye-rolling thing, like she's a sulky teenager rather than an FBI agent.

I also got an annoying freeze on the map screen once, and had to go back to a (much) earlier save. Painful. Serious glitches in adventure games are not acceptable.

I honestly don't know if I can be bothered with episode two. Except I read a review which mentions an appalling animation Erica repeatedly does in later chapters, which involves her shaking her fist, which sounds pretty hilarious. So I might check that out, just for the lulz.

Seriously, I wouldn't recommend this one even for hardcore fans of the genre.

Well for my thoughts. Mind you i'm using a Humble Bundle version i recently got so stability might be better with the GoG version... I also have only partially played through the first episode, so my experiences are limited to that.


Facial animations - they suck. Half the time looking at Erica she looks like an evil mastermind trying to down-look everyone into submission. She bites her lip that distorts her face, etc. Maybe it's better in the later games, i'll never know.

Body/face animations - in general when talking to someone doesn't match well with what's going on. Why would rose look to the left when nothing is in her antique shop that she isn't already aware of? Aren't there other idle animations they could add in?

Art style - I like it. It looks comicbook/stylized, although if you don't have it on high resolution with AA on, it looks like crap around the edges.

Voice acting - Okay i guess...

Hint system - aka texting dad. Yeah i know adding a hint system is a good thing and her dad being part of the force at one point makes sense, but it felt like i required the hint system to move forward. More specifically when trying to guess the password for a computer dad basically spelled out trying Aunt Peggy or Rosco (the dog) which you had no clue to get that information from before that point.

Maybe the clues would have been elsewhere, but click on everything and ask everyone everything gets annoying.

Stability - Crap. Keep in mind I'm using the Humble Bundle version, maybe i don't have enough memory, or the textures are too large, or maybe i don't have a beefy enough video card (i doubt all these). Considering the executable was last made in December 2012, i doubt there's an update that i don't already have. Maybe there's something simple i'm missing, but it's too annoying to forcibly kill the game so i can restart it all the time. I have doubts the GoG version is a big improvement for my system, but that's a wild guess.

Evolved Cognition - Why do i have to select 3 things? There's 2 obviously connected items and then you end up trying over and over again trying to find the third until it works or you give up. Quite annoying. How are the pipes glowing not related to eachother? Why can't i click on the spray paint, the wall, and have those two related items show me something? Why aren't there alternatives that are closely related enough to give me the same result as the dev's original ones?

OGV video - A poor choice. Unless it's due to licensing issues they should be using mp4, mostly because a lot of video cards have accelerated decoding and on resolution files it won't suck and eat away at the CPU. I'd feel better if there was a recoding option after installing which converts them to Mpeg2 which is really fast and simple as well.


I didn't get too far, if the game wasn't crashing every 5-10 minutes i'd probably still be playing it. It can't be that demanding of a game, so what's up?

I finished this series and the last part is a big disappointment compared to the rest. It's short despite being padded with digressions from the main story and puzzles designed around time-consuming trial-and-error, the story goes in a nonsensical direction, and the very last thing that happens seems to be the result of the writer forgetting how the fantasy element of this series works.

If you can barely stand the earlier parts the conclusion is sure to be hateful.