Right out of the way, I have to say that the hand drawn art style is a plus. While other studios in the late 90's had tried their hand at full motion video, not a lot of development studios had yet realised what a potential disaster choosing live action was. Very few games have managed to adequately use filmed segments in their games (e.g. The Wing Commander games, Tex Murphy) and too many smaller studios tried their hardest to keep up with this trend and failed miserably at it. The animations in Jack Orlando are all individually inked, making sure that the little things that irritate you are taken care of: feet and hands properly reaching rungs on a ladder, footfalls staying in the same place, etc. Most of the music is pretty good too, though a far flung style from the expected 1930's jazz/standards. All that said, the rest of this game was a massive disappointment. The character himself, Orlando, we are led to believe was a pillar of the community turned washed out drunk. We are never shown an example of WHY he's become a washed out drunk, and almost told to take it as fact because "that's the way P.I.'s are." This problem plagues every character in the game thereafter, not a one of them demonstrates any depth or interesting history (the introduction the game treats us to a short montage of Jack's exploits which include him rescuing a girl from presumably drowning in the ocean... not really a perfect example of great Private Detective skills) befitting them. The bad guys are just bad guys, the good guys are just good guys and traitors are just traitors. The 'puzzling' system is similarly flawed. An armada of useless, yet obtainable items litter the streets, drawers, nooks and crannies of this oddly designed city with very little indication of what separates them from the necessary. Once picked up, the only interaction you have with your inventory is to use them; no examination at all. I picked up a file at one point in the game which became a crucial part of the end, only to discover I was unable to *READ* the file, causing me to underestimate its use. The clues on how to solve puzzles (and indeed where the puzzles ARE) are just as indecipherable. Having walked past a chinese laundry, I learned later it was a puzzle to get the proprietor to stand out in front... the solution? Give a character a day old newspaper (who mentions nothing about wanting one), so he can tell you he's just read that a chinese laundry opened. Being a fan of the works of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet, I had high hopes for this title. Its pedestrian plot, lack of character development, and convoluted inventory/puzzle interaction disappoint. Rather than a complicated and gripping mystery with realistically conflicted characters in a user friendly interface we are treated to one dimensional simple story elements and makework difficulty to increase the playability of a game I found increasingly difficult to stomach as it dragged on. I did like most of the art and music though.
