Been looking forward to this for a while and happily it dropped through the letter box the week. This is actually the first Jane Jensen game I've played myself, but my girlfriend has played all the Gabriel Knights and read her books before so it was really her getting me interested in this one.
In short, this is a properly old-school point-and-click adventure game. And I mean old; It was originally unveiled in 2003's E3, put on hold in '04, resurrected two years later and then switched developers and delayed until now. To put it in context, when my girlfriend asked me if it would run on her laptop I pointed out to her than the minimum specs pretty much matched the specs of the PC I owned when we first met 7 years ago. Although the protracted development sounds a bit grim, the effects of it aren't too terrible; this is still quite a budget title and its main draw was never going to be blowout AAA visuals.
So it's a traditional point-and-click, presented with 3D rendered character models set on 2D drawn backgrounds which, to be brutally honest, do feel a bit two-thousand-and-late (yep, I went there) but it really isn't an impediment to playing the game at all. In terms of building the dark, moody settings of Oxford(!) it does get drawn together well. I noticed some reviews have had a pop at the basic 2D animated (in the loosest sense of the word) cutscenes but I quite prefer them to the in-game rendered graphics, even if the characters do look a bit different to their in-game models.
But back to the game, it centres around two protagonists: Prof. David Styles, a reclusive, slightly mad/creepy neurobiologist who grief-strickenly spends his days researching and experimenting on how to contact his dead wife, and Samantha Everett, a magician on the road without a penny to her name who stumbles across Styles' mansion when she is stranded by her broken-down bike and pretends to be a student at nearby Oxford Uni who is responding to Styles' request for a new assistant. She ends up living at the mansion and serving to recruit 6 students to participate in Style's latest experiment by using some of the sleight-of-hand trickery from her magic acts; meanwhile Sam also learns of the mysterious Daedalus magic club (bit of a magic circle / megaclub) and starts investigating how she can get involved with that too.
Much like in Gabriel Knight, control alternates between each of the two protagonists in each chapter and the magic theme does bring plenty to the gameplay proceedings, as Sam has a book of tricks that she can apply to more everyday situations for her own benefit (e.g. using a magic trick where she would burn a card and make it reappear by way of a decoy, but using it to steal an item from someone by making it look as if she's burning it). These tricks are performed by putting them together using the trick book like a sort of step-by-step cookery guide (e.g. take item in right hand, misdirect target, palm item to right sleeve, move decoy to right hand). Whilst hardly a gameplay revolution, it adds another way of interacting to the mix that changes up the usual point, click, find item, use item formula that is such a staple of the genre.
But the formula is still a main aspect of the game and the problems of the genre still remain as well. Although there is a labelling system that marks up everything on the screen that can be interacted with, saving players from the old pixel hunts of previous games, there is a strict adherence to things happening in a strict order, so even if you have worked out a puzzle solution, you can't solve it until you've found all the trigger points that make the in-game character realise the solution themselves, leading to a few frustrating sequences where you search for the last trigger point before you can move on to the next section.
That being said, there are couple of great head-scratching puzzles in there, in particular some riddles that are wonderfully satisfying to solve. There is a strong logic that ties all the puzzles together and whilst there is some scope to force through the puzzles with trial-and-error, the game provides some scope to let you solve them on your own as well.
I find myself disagreeing with Edge's view of the characters being unlikeable; I found a surprising amount of depth to them and the protagonists are particularly well constructed. They're both slightly unhinged in their own ways but you eventually see more of what's behind them and more of their character in their dialogue. Jensen has mentioned that she has written them in such a way that Gray Matter can launch into a series of further episodes, as Gabriel Knight did before it and I'd look forward to them if the do get greenlit.
Most of all, it just makes me happy that a game like this can still be made today. Looking at it, it really is a game from yesteryear, but it's a genre I enjoy and one I'm glad I can still get new titles from. Also another game that's not too long either (again, a good fit for the reduced price point as well) so me and The Lady have been able to blast through it in about 13-14 hours over this weekend. I'd happily queue up for more.
In short, this is a properly old-school point-and-click adventure game. And I mean old; It was originally unveiled in 2003's E3, put on hold in '04, resurrected two years later and then switched developers and delayed until now. To put it in context, when my girlfriend asked me if it would run on her laptop I pointed out to her than the minimum specs pretty much matched the specs of the PC I owned when we first met 7 years ago. Although the protracted development sounds a bit grim, the effects of it aren't too terrible; this is still quite a budget title and its main draw was never going to be blowout AAA visuals.
So it's a traditional point-and-click, presented with 3D rendered character models set on 2D drawn backgrounds which, to be brutally honest, do feel a bit two-thousand-and-late (yep, I went there) but it really isn't an impediment to playing the game at all. In terms of building the dark, moody settings of Oxford(!) it does get drawn together well. I noticed some reviews have had a pop at the basic 2D animated (in the loosest sense of the word) cutscenes but I quite prefer them to the in-game rendered graphics, even if the characters do look a bit different to their in-game models.
But back to the game, it centres around two protagonists: Prof. David Styles, a reclusive, slightly mad/creepy neurobiologist who grief-strickenly spends his days researching and experimenting on how to contact his dead wife, and Samantha Everett, a magician on the road without a penny to her name who stumbles across Styles' mansion when she is stranded by her broken-down bike and pretends to be a student at nearby Oxford Uni who is responding to Styles' request for a new assistant. She ends up living at the mansion and serving to recruit 6 students to participate in Style's latest experiment by using some of the sleight-of-hand trickery from her magic acts; meanwhile Sam also learns of the mysterious Daedalus magic club (bit of a magic circle / megaclub) and starts investigating how she can get involved with that too.
Much like in Gabriel Knight, control alternates between each of the two protagonists in each chapter and the magic theme does bring plenty to the gameplay proceedings, as Sam has a book of tricks that she can apply to more everyday situations for her own benefit (e.g. using a magic trick where she would burn a card and make it reappear by way of a decoy, but using it to steal an item from someone by making it look as if she's burning it). These tricks are performed by putting them together using the trick book like a sort of step-by-step cookery guide (e.g. take item in right hand, misdirect target, palm item to right sleeve, move decoy to right hand). Whilst hardly a gameplay revolution, it adds another way of interacting to the mix that changes up the usual point, click, find item, use item formula that is such a staple of the genre.
But the formula is still a main aspect of the game and the problems of the genre still remain as well. Although there is a labelling system that marks up everything on the screen that can be interacted with, saving players from the old pixel hunts of previous games, there is a strict adherence to things happening in a strict order, so even if you have worked out a puzzle solution, you can't solve it until you've found all the trigger points that make the in-game character realise the solution themselves, leading to a few frustrating sequences where you search for the last trigger point before you can move on to the next section.
That being said, there are couple of great head-scratching puzzles in there, in particular some riddles that are wonderfully satisfying to solve. There is a strong logic that ties all the puzzles together and whilst there is some scope to force through the puzzles with trial-and-error, the game provides some scope to let you solve them on your own as well.
I find myself disagreeing with Edge's view of the characters being unlikeable; I found a surprising amount of depth to them and the protagonists are particularly well constructed. They're both slightly unhinged in their own ways but you eventually see more of what's behind them and more of their character in their dialogue. Jensen has mentioned that she has written them in such a way that Gray Matter can launch into a series of further episodes, as Gabriel Knight did before it and I'd look forward to them if the do get greenlit.
Most of all, it just makes me happy that a game like this can still be made today. Looking at it, it really is a game from yesteryear, but it's a genre I enjoy and one I'm glad I can still get new titles from. Also another game that's not too long either (again, a good fit for the reduced price point as well) so me and The Lady have been able to blast through it in about 13-14 hours over this weekend. I'd happily queue up for more.
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