The game was perhaps (read: at most) 4 stars up until close to the ending. Lots of the puzzles revolves around noticing and searching terms using the in-game web browser. This is implemented just fine and you are allowed to discover some things before you are meant to (a huge plus). I have no problems with this. Since you so rarely need to left click objects I found the mouse button layout to be a weird choice (you often just want to look at things; which you do by pressing the right mouse button). The clue system in the game could also have been updated more as you discovered things in the game world. It's always jarring to hear your character talk as if you hadn't just discovered something huge. Otherwise the clue system functioned just fine. The end sequence was just horrible. I see the point, but the "logic" is too subjective. It also doesn't help that you don't get to save in-between the later sequences and are thus forced to skip a ton of dialog and chose the exact same dialog options repeatedly. This is just not a fun experience. It felt like I spent most of my time with the otherwise fine game playing the last sequence and it ruined my overall enjoyment and experience with the game. Luckily, I've played other games from this same developer (including Primordia) so I know they are competent developers, otherwise, judging by this game alone I would've been reluctant to dive into their catalog (i.e., you shouldn't judge their other games based on this one); which again was just fine at the beginning and middle).
Well made from start to finish. Has an intersting and engaging story with some lovely characters. The locations are aesthetic and the game does more than a decent job of making you feel you are part of a larger world (perhaps the news could be updated more - this isn't to harsh a critque, as there are still many news stories to listent to). If you like sci-fi and you enjoyed or - as me - love games such as Dreamfall then you will probably really like this one. Contrary to popular opinion I am not of the belief that games such as this one "should just be a movie". I don't know about you, but I don't watch movies where people walk slowly around to look, and read things - occasioanlly for extended periods of time - but I do very much enjoy being the one doing the walking and looknig around, occationally interacting with objects (this game has some interesting object interactions at times).
I like that it is possible to do some things out of order (or at least that the game makes it feel like it is), but I also heavily dislike how, as events happen and the story unfold, the dialogue is nearly never updated. This was really inimical to my enjoyment of an otherwise good story and is my main reason for not giving this game at least one more star. If you like point and click games in general then there really is little (objective) reason why you shouldn't also like this one. A couple of annoyances experienced during my playthrough (with nano spoilers about something you will need to during the game - gameplay related): At two times duing my playthrough I had to look up a walkthrough only to discover that I hadn't clicked exactly the right pixels to hide or, in the second case, hid in the wrong spot. It also had annoyances like text saying something akin to "I don't need to do this with that" at points where you really could do that, only you had to click on the thing first and then do the other thing :) That being said, overall, I liked many of the puzzles.
