I was somewhat enjoying the story and game, but couldn't get past the hacking mini-game. The game came to an end after 1 hour for me because I couldn't solve the hacking mini game. I tried to look for help on youtube but it still made no sense to me. The shooting mechanic was pretty bad too before that. I'm playing the Steam version, but you have to use a gamepad in order to solve the mini games on there. And that's a bad experience too. I really wanted to play and like this game. The story and premise had potential. If anyone can tell me a solution to the hacking mini-game whether replying to the review or shooting me a PM I'd really appreciate that, so I can give it another go.
This is 1 of the first FPS games I got into about 5 years ago. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I thought it had beautiful environments albeit with quite narrow corridors. So not a true open world, or a small 1 at best. It's sequel is better as it's more about sniping and more tactical than this game, but this original has a mixture of FPS elements with tactical elements. Some people pointed out the poor story, the terrible ending, the unpolished elements. And it's true but do you really care? These are 2 of the few FPS games I have completed. So they are engaging and fun and sometimes that's all you need. If you're coming from having played the Sniper Elite games I'd say those are much harder, more polished games. But that doesn't mean this isn't worth a play. It's a good but not great game. Plus it's 59 pence on sale, just grab it
You are Erica Reed a detective dealing with loss, a serial killer and who has 'powers' to see pieces of the past. The way this is added to tradtional point & click adventure format gives a clever little innovation in both it's puzzles and story telling. Up until Episode 4 I thought this was the best narative to an adventure story I've ever come across. The first episode is introducing you to the characters and several mystery plots that you will investigate to find the truth. Persist with the game after a good but not great first episode because it gets better. The second and third episodes really fleshes out the story with a plot full of twists and turns that completely immerse you. The peak being episode 3. The final episode is a let down partly down to '2 boss puzzles' that are overly tough for my liking but also because the story goes all over the place while not really progressing the plot. Honestly I can't play a game like this without a gameboomers walkthrough running in the background and I suggest for all but the most hardcore puzzlers to do the same if you actually want to enjoy it. It isn't for the squimish, some of the gore is maybe a tad unnecessary and unrealistic even for a serial killer. Another downside is excessive running/walking between scenes when you're solving a puzzle, ie there's no fast travel in some places. But these are small complaints. Still the depth of the characters, the story arch and the twists and turns are up there with the best I've come across in an adventure game and it's worth these
I enjoyed this game despite it's failing. For me I want an adventure to make me feel like I'm living through the interesting detailed story it's telling me and Moebius does this quite well. Now the plot itself is a tad bit laughable but I expect adventures to have B Movie plots. The plots of the much loved Gabriel Knight 1 and 2 were also laughable and somewhat offensive. IE in GB1 the fear of a large black murderous voodoo cult where every black person in the story is involved taps into racist fears that the American population have had and yet again portrays black people in a negative light. MILD SPOILER ALERTS: So the plot that reincarnated people of the past are 'chosen ones' and supior aristocratic blood lines wasn't one I warmed to but it worked in a B movie kind of way much like GB1 worked similarly. The way you investigate who is a re-incarnation of who is a kind of cool innovation to. The relationship was based on BBCs Sherlock as were the 'analyse' feature where Malachi like Sherlock analyses people at first glance. The relationship between the 2 men and Malachi being a savant is clearly based on this to. The bit were our genius rewires an electrical circuit without first turning the power off wasn't thought through. You can see it steals bits from Assassin's Creed in the way it deals with 'destiny'. There are strong themes of sexism and mysoginy in the way women are judged throughout the story. Yes I know the writer is a woman, but sometimes women judge other women more harshly. I was also a little uneasy with the middled aged men marrying teenage girls. The puzzles are generally logical and nowhere near as nigh on impossible as the puzzles in Gabriel Knight puzzles. I prefer this, some people prefer HARD puzzles though so if this is you maybe this isn't the game for you. Graphically I've seen negative comments. For me I think it's a beautiful looking game but I don't play the latest games so it probably is dated, that doesn't bother me but it may bother others.
I understand the criticism. Some people didn't like the ending but by the standards of game story telling it really isn't bad. It can be buggy, you may need to update your graphics drivers, even run it in win XP compatability mode. It can run slowly with slow load times. Although this was partly down to me running this on a system with Intel Graphics and I had to run a load of fixes after it kept crashing but you aren't supposed to run it on Intel Graphics. But I still love this game for the characture development of the main and none playing characters. I don't think many adventures have the layers of characterisation that Raven does. Each character has their background story and most are potential suspects. They all seem like real people. This is helped by the excellent voice acting. I love the fact it's a genuine whodunit mystery with plot twists a plenty. I love the way it captures a Poirotesque atmosphere. I love the 40s backdrops, the beautiful scenary that makes you feel 'there'. The music fits perfectly with the atmosphere and bugs aside it really is a well polished experience. So if you think you could overlook those faults it could be a genuine memorable 5 star game for you like it certainly was for me. Oh and I prefered chapters 2 and 3 to 1 personally, for me it got better as I thought it was initally quite dry. I thought Chapter 2 was brilliant.
