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| 12 OCT 2006 at 11:15pm |
WimliGuild Master
Posts : 3259
Joined: 14 MAR 2003
Status : Offline | I thought this game was pretty average. I'd give it a 6.
Pros:
- Good (though clichéd) story
- decent graphics
- it's a long game, value for money
- fun final puzzle
- a few very nice cut scenes
Cons:
- The most HORRIBLE character movement and path finding I've ever encountered in an adventure game! Click right and your character moves left, each room is divided in badly chosen camera perspectives and getting from one to another often drives into a clicking frenzy trying to make the character move in the direction you want him to go, the character occasionally gets stuck, crossing from one side to another can take annoyingly long (even running is still slow there), especially because the character often choses the long way around, etcetera.
- no real puzzles: 75% of the game consists of clicking through dialog options, the other 25% is the standard take-object-use-somewhere else inventory puzzles, causing you to run around a lot, emphasising the game's weak character movement. None of them are very inventive or original. The only exception comes at the end where the game finally delivers a fun puzzle.
- During conversations, the game employs zero cinematography. Most of them you follow from a great distance, making it visually extremely boring. The fact that most of the screens are very static don't exactly help matters here (this is supposed to be New York, one of the busiest cities in the world, yet every living being stands perfectly still, there's no life whatsoever). How about bringing the view a bit closer to the conversation? Too bad really, because the spare cut scenes are very cinematic and show how much that can help to tell a story in an interesting way. Luckily most of the actors do a decent job so you don't nod off during the long conversations.
All in all, an average game that I still did somewhat enjoy, mostly due to the story.
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| 13 OCT 2006 at 11:50am |
HelenGuild Master
Posts : 3436
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | Pretty average in my opinion also, I almost gave up at the beginning of the game but after I finally got thru the.... caves, sewers? (If I remember correctly) I started to enjoy it a bit more so was able to finish I gave it an overall 6. But if I were able I would give the beginning a 6 and the 2nd part which I enjoyed more a 7, I did really enjoy a few of the puzzles but the dialog
started getting old.
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| 15 OCT 2006 at 4:55pm |
WimliGuild Master
Posts : 3259
Joined: 14 MAR 2003
Status : Offline | Glad to find someone who agrees with me on this game, Helen! You're right, the game does pick up after a (long, long) while. For me, it started to get more interesting once you Spoiler Alertend up in the high security prison.
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| 15 OCT 2006 at 9:45pm |
ShanyGuild Master
Posts : 3313
Joined: 19 JUN 2003
Status : Online | I gave it a 7. It has some good points, but it had too many flaws to get a higher score from me.
Likes:
- Atmosphere - This game had great atmosphere, some places made me feel like I was there, like the space station and that place in the middle of the ocean.
Lengh - This game was descenetly long and rewarding, there were alot of interesting locations and quite a few plot twists (even if most of them were predictable).
- Cutscenes - This game has quite a lot of cutscens, and they are pretty good, and are rewarding of your game progress.
Dislikes:
- Pathfinding - This is the game's greatest flaw, your character just didn't go where you wanted to. This made it nearly impossible to progress in the game because you just couldn't get to some locations, or people you needed to talk to.
This was made even worse in some places where, to make the game longer, you had to walk through some empty screens to get to where you wanted.
- Cliches and stereotypes - The main character lost his son and wife and turned to drinking (it's good that he's not an ex-cop or I'd scream), the 3 people you find in the poor side of town are all streotypes, etc. There are some exceptions to this, but it mostly seems like lazy writing, and makes a lot of characrs seem one-dimentional.
- Voice acting - mostly seems to fit the cliched characters, making them even worse, but the main problem I had with the voice acting was that the little kid in the game has two parents who have an american accent, but he has a british accent!
Another thing that bugged me was that sometimes it would've seemed an optional conversation opened up with a certain character, but when you went to talk to them you couldn't talk about anything new. Like the crazy guy in the park, you can meet him quite late in the game when some of his rantings make sense, but you can't talk to him again!
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| 4 NOV 2006 at 11:03pm |
GhostSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 273
Joined: 31 JUL 2004
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Helen (13 OCT 2006 11:49am)
Pretty average in my opinion also, I almost gave up at the beginning of the game but after I finally got thru the.... caves, sewers? (If I remember correctly) I started to enjoy it a bit more so was able to finish I gave it an overall 6. But if I were able I would give the beginning a 6 and the 2nd part which I enjoyed more a 7, I did really enjoy a few of the puzzles but the dialog
started getting old.
I'm in total agreement, Helen, I gave this a "6" - not too impressive, but not bad...
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| 18 SEP 2007 at 2:06pm |
JehaneSpace Cadet
Posts : 128
Joined: 15 MAY 2007
Status : Online | I've just finished the game and must say that after a very tedious start I really enjoyed it - from the moment I entered the old guy's antique store, it had me glued to the screen for hours and hours. I gave it an 8, mainly because the story was, though cliched, well told; most characters felt very alive (even though, as some of you already mentioned, they were cliches also); the German version of the game which I played featured the German voice of Bruce Willis which made it extremely cool to play.
Pros:
- excellent graphics, good atmosphere; sometimes I was reminded of the far darker "Blade Runner" - no idea why
- well-told story, two different endings
- game lasts for hours - you really get something for your money
- nice cutscenes
- some characters are absolutely loveable - I adored the old guy in the antique shop
Cons:
- character movement and path finding were, as was already mentioned, awful. Just plain awful. In some screens I *knew* there had to be more to it than I saw but finding the right hotspot was a pain.. I'm just grateful there weren't any timed sequences in which you had to find the proper spot within seconds - it wouldn't have worked with this kind of path finding and movement.
- some dialogues are too long and tedious even though you get information on other people, yourself, etc. Some dialogues just weren't necessary
- long ways, a lot of running around; this changed during the second half of the game - I enjoyed the part after escaping from prison a lot more because the tedious running around and finding your way about in the satcar was removed, Peter got everywhere by himself.
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