Resonance

========================= All’s well that ends well ========================= It’s hard to discuss the plot of Resonance without heavy spoilers. The game starts with a news report on worldwide terrorist attacks, then the narrative time is rewound 60 hours, and the world is as we know it (well, except the electron has a substructure detectable by a conventionally-sized collider). The game’s description which a player has probably read, states that a scientist died (or was murdered). After the rewind, he’s still alive – but you know you’re powerless to save him. It’s heartbreaking to see the characters’ (and yours) ingenuity and flashes of inspiration knowing they will necessarily have to fail to stop the impending doom, whatever combination of puzzle solutions and conversation options you will choose. Resonance forfeits the cozy and convenient linearity of traditional adventure game plots, while being very blunt where other games try to be coy, elevating a genre limitation to a philosophical statement. ...Well, it’s not *all* doom and gloom. There are two endings, and you can choose one (it's not so simple as picking an option on the dialogue wheel, though; for starters, there are no dialogue wheels). While for me one is clearly right and the other is clearly wrong, I suspect the decision will be difficult or different for other players. Both are sure thought- and discussion-provoking. ========================= Everything serves a purpose ========================= For an adventure game, Resonance has HUGE replay value. Alternative puzzle solutions. Alternative dialog choices. Inter-party banter. Most importantly, there are a lot of details that you might disregard or misinterpret on your first playthrough. Knowing the real meaning behind them makes for a wildly different experience. The metagame is very self-contained. Long-term memories recap important events and, in addition to their in-game use, are helpful in case you missed a crucial detail. Short-term memories serve both as hints and as a puzzle interface. Fans of achievements will be happy, and even if you don’t generally care about such things, have a look at the list for interesting things to try. If you get stuck, you can ask another character for help – and yes, there’s an achievement for not using hints in a given playthrough. Seriously, sometimes I wish the game would’ve been more sticky so that I’d have more time with the characters. In addition to the genre-staple inventory +dialogue and the innovative STM, there are “unique interface” puzzles that simulate specific actions with more immersion than a “use this on that” player-to-avatar command. Code locks, fuse panels, mechanisms, computer terminals – there are four such puzzles in the demo alone, and many more in the full game. Music enhances the action, even when - especially when - it intentionally *doesn’t* match the mood of the scene. For example, near the end of the game, you visit one of the starting locations, and the tune there is as cheerful as it’s been – because for the non-player characters, this is just another workday: they don’t know that doom is coming. Voice acting is simply superb, and no textual description would do it justice. My favorite scene/puzzle in the game is *two people talking on the phone*, purely because of the voice acting. Oh, and there are insightful and funny developer commentaries - consider listening to them on your second playthrough. ========================= Science ethics: 100% antimatter-free! ========================= Resonance neatly avoids the bad science problem that many works set in the modern day are plagued with. The fictional particles are realistic-sounding (not corny like magnetic monopoles) and at the same time won’t contribute to the proliferation of bad science (see just about any mention of antimatter in popular fiction). Even better, there’s no hero worship or science phobia: the scientists are *not* magical luminaries, whether superheroes or supervillains. Physics exists independently of the people, and it’s not possible to suppress discoveries. ========================= Specs ========================= Graphics: 640x480 resolution, runs windowed, stretched (looks nice even on widescreen anyway), scaled with black bars (looks even nicer than stretched). Unlike adventure games that are actually old, Resonance is in true color, so pixel hunting is practically nonexistent. Operating systems: Windows XP, Vista, 7. Linux compatibility: Resonance is reported to work in Wine. There’s a demo up at the publisher’s website (wadjeteyegames.com) – if you’re a Wine user, try it.