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Monday 14 January, 2008
GAMEPLAY
So, I have played some more of the game and discovered that not much has changed. The story has started to pick up a bit and my interest has slightly increased. The dialogue is as bad as ever. Characters just seem to not make any sense. Not even the character I control seems to make sense when he rambles to himself. So far the puzzles don't seem very well constructed. You usually just run into a dead end, and then you retrace your steps and talk to everyone again until you come across some new, seemingly random, development, which helps you proceed. For example: When I had to pick leaves from the side of some steep cliff, I spent a good amount of time looking for some rope. There actually was some rope in a room, but I couldn't pick it up, it was jus there for the background. Then when I randomly talked to some lady, my character inexplicably asked her for her stockings.
The game is full of "puzzles" like this. There really is no rhyme or reason to it. You just keep talking and re-talking to people until you progress. I will probably finish the game purely for the story, because I still find myself intrigued by the premise, but with characters like this, I will not enjoy it.
DESIGN
So, you can probably tell where I'm going with this review. The design is obviously flawed. The whole game feels rushed and unfinished. It definitely needs some major patching. I might literally be stuck due to a glitch. I am currently stuck in some nightmare world. After ages of walking back and forth between the three areas of this dream, I finally gave in and looked at a walkthrough. Apparently I am supposed to pick up something which my game is not letting me pick up. I am obviously quite confused and hope I can figure this out soon. The puzzles are not challenging in the usual sense. they are just tedious due to the constant moving back and forth (which is very slow, due to the characters robot-like movement). The dialogue is laughable, and the voice-acting makes me cringe.
However, technical flaws aside, the game is still lacking. There is virtually no reward structure that I can see so far. Really nothing is keeping me going besides the fact that I spent thirty dollars on this thing. The standard formula for point and click adventures is here (if not fully functional), and nothing is innovative. The story might be better if the game were able to spice it up with some drama, but the NPCs are so lifeless that it just can't keep up any sort of dramatic environment. I wasn't expecting much out of this game besides maybe an OK story, but it couldn't even deliver on that.
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