You can never go home. (Minor Spoilers)
The first Black Mirror game appeared to be a stretch in the right direction for a genre (investigation/horror/adventure/p&c) that was suffering from a polarizing series of either relentless shoot em up/rez evil horror, to things like the Alone in the Dark series which had it's ultimate but very frustrating end five years after the OG Black Mirror debuted. It felt like the early AitD series in it's long periods of running around clueless and trying to piece together your next step with some really horrendous controls, but overall satisfying because the storytelling is well paced and, albeit derivative, pretty compelling.
This 'Black Mirror' re-imagine's the original story, adds some volumetric lighting, some superb voice acting, and all of the nightmare that comes along with trying to control your character or the camera. Being unable to click on something whilst standing in front of it, instead having to step away and adjust your camera for at least half of a minute before the game recognizes you're trying to play it, pulls you IMMEDIATELY out of the potential set and story arch.
The story arch, from the start, is incomprehensible. Not in the way you want a proper mystery thriller to engage you, but in a way that literally makes absolutely no sense and is kind of a dumpster fire. Running from _nothing_ with no time frame to get anywhere. Randomly encountering ghosts who have nothing to offer but abrupt and very brief cinematic moments, the staff of the house doing little things that absolutely no one earth despite the time period would allow to happen to them without interfering or demanding something else...
All of these and plenty more are factors that take you out of the attempted immersion into the old school horror/adventure we used to know and love.
The inability to maneuver your character where you want him to go, and in my experience becoming 'caught' on things like stairs or even walking across the floor and being completely stuck seems like lazy post production.
The aiming at objects to interact, collision detection, abysmal camera and the fact that you can't walk through clearly open doors or spaces merely because the railroad plot won't allow you to go there yet, becomes another infuriating factor.
Give me a castle, and a mystery, let me walk about and check it out and properly die a bunch making bad decisions. But this is not Amnesia, or even the original Black Mirror series.
I experienced some fairly long loading times as well on a pretty heavy rig.
Graphic issues I can get past, always, if the story plays. As a Telltale production, which this almost emulated, this game would have been perfect. A consistent style and visual formula meets well paced storytelling and deeply engaging people.
Instead, you have a game trailer with over the top rendering, an actual intro that barely connects to that incoherent thing which has virtually nothing to do with the reason you're at the castle to begin with.
I don't mean to rag on the people who created this because it obviously took an enormous amount of effort and talent, and while I am there, I want to say it has some of the finest moody atmospheric music, and very excellent voice acting.
Sound design leaves something to be desired as much of the cinematic or cut scene moments have little to no sound effects and there are regular moments where they simply aren't. Ones footsteps, or a door opening, or even a candelabra being knocked over, should be important but nothing is heard.
All in all, this get's two stars from me because it is a noble effort, but it is by no means a finished game.
Recommend waiting to see if THQ decides to actually polish up the game and bug test and ACTUALLY finish it before releasing it for $27.00.
Don't buy this yet, try the original game first if you like an old school point n click with solid, elusive writing.
Or, just don't expect $27 worth of game if you do.
As so many companies are wan't to do, they released a game far before it was ready to be released and frankly we'd all rather wait.
Garbage, dressed up as a nice meal.
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