This game, albeit short, is masterfully crafted. Music, sound effects, artwork, UI elements and scene transitions: everything in it reinforces the beautifully designed story. This is especially true for the interactive elements, which dont' require much skill on the player's end, but work so well to convey the current state of mind of the protagonist, and they do so in simple and clever ways. It may have taken me only half the time it would have taken me to watch 'Amélie' again to finish this game (and it put me in a similar mood), but it was the most fun I've had with a game in a long time. This is a peace of art.
If you've already played System Shock 2, I don't have to tell you anything and you're probably just looking for the "buy now" button. It's on the right hand side on the top of the page. If you're unfamiliar with SS2, you're in for a treat: It features an extremely dense atmosphere, driven mainly by the grizzly setting, the very elaborate but still unobtrusive storytelling, the scarcity of resources (you never have enough ammo, you've got limited access to healing and so on) and solid sound design. From a gameplay perspective, it is the perfect blend of RPG (your choices in skill development severely affect your playstyle and your inventory is very limited - think Deus Ex here), Horror-Adventure and Shooter (every bullet counts!). It is possible to play SS2 cooperatively with a little patching, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing that for the first playthrough; take your time, explore the environment, enjoy the story. Since you can only focus on a subset of skills in your character development, the replay value is pretty high. (Also, the player model, which you don't see in single player, is so ugly it makes you cry.) Anyway, in closing, let me stress this one more time: This is a game so close to perfect as it can possibly get. Do yourself a favor and play it.
