Kathy Rain is an old school point and click adventure, with okay old school graphics, good sound and music (with some pretty good voice acting in there) and a decent interface. The game offers a good story and throws in a few easy puzzles along the way. The problem with the game is that it doesn't seem very interested in working as a game. The story is a set in advance, all the events you will experience is lined up and so is the order you will go through them. You part is most left to direct Kathy to the next event, after the pervious one has finished. While searching for the next location where something will happen all other locations are "empty" and characters will offer nothing except small nudges for you to go where the story will pickup again. The story is mostly presented through dialogues with the games many characters (who mostly stand around and wait for Kathy to talk to them) and the dialogues offer very little choice. You click one subject after another, until you have clicked them all, and then the game opens up the next dialogue options - possibly in a different location in the game. The story is pretty good though, and most of the time it is very easy to figure out what to do next. This, together with the strong protagonist and a plot based strongly around her and her family, makes the gane feel very movie like. You not so much play a game, as you watch a story unfold.
A pretty good detective story, evoking a feel similar to some of british or scandinavian crime/mystery mini series (like The Killing or Prime Suspect). The special gimmick of the game is the main characters psychic abilities, that lets her dive into her own and others memories - including the "memories" of places, which is pretty usefull when investigating crime scenes and so on. For the most part, I enjoyed the game. The story is engaging, the puzzles balanced and for the most part they fit the special investegator theme, and the best parts (mostly involving reasearch on Erica's computer) really made me feel like I was doing *real* investigation. Unfortunately, the game isn't entirely free of "moon logic". Aparently Erica needs to steal from her colleages and random places around town, in order for her to do seemingly basic and everyday tasks like listening to an audio recording. Also, at another time Erica leaves in the middle of an interrogation to randomly drive around town and have a session with her phycic counselor, before returning to the interrogation room where suspect has apparently just been sitting for half a day... I like the art-style, especially the hand drawn "visual novel" style cutscenes. The characters are 3D rendered, and it takes a bit of getting used to the way they stand out from the beautiful backgrounds, but for the most part the visuals achieve what they are meant to. I like the voice acting and the music, and in total I liked the game. For me, the good parts outweigh the bad ones, and I am exited to play the remaining episodes. The game
Tormentum: Dark Sorrow was a good experience. The games art style is amazing and the dark moody atmosphere really connected with me. The graphics are very impressive and every screen looks like it could be put in a frame and displayed at and art exhibition. The game itself is sort of an old-school adventure point-and-click adventure game, at little like Myst, but the with difference that the puzzles require very little lateral thinking. Most of the time it is very obvious which objects goes where and which order the different tasks should be approached. Occasionally mini puzzle games (like jigsaws, sliding 15-puzzles, a match pairs memory game, etc.) and while they are enjoyable they are also fast to solve. This isn't a challenging game, more of an experience to enjoy in a single sitting or two. The story is intriguing and revealed both through text, images and a series of moral dilemmas, and it leads to multiple endings, and I was hooked enough to replay the game to see what would happen if I had made different choices. A good game, especially for the amazing art style and atmosphere
