[Video Games] Still Life

[trooper6]

An Xbox review:

Still Life -- The Adventure Company

What the Game Is: This falls into the category: "Adventure Game." But do not confuse this with the genre: "Action-Adventure Game." Adventure games are basically puzzle games. There is usually no fighting...just wandering around and solving arcane puzzles...like figuring out how to make a gingerbread man using your grandma's metaphorical recipe. I sat for about two hours trying to figure out a lockpicking puzzle. Adventure games tend to be very pretty to look at as well. Think Myst. So this is an adventure title...set up? You play Victoria McPherson, FBI agent in modern day Chicago on the heels of a serial killer, and also her Grandfather, private detective in 1929 Prague...also chasing the same serial killer? Hm...

Plot/Level Design: The plot is very good--including some surprises, some twists, and some "get startled" moments. The cut scenes are great. The ending is...well, you will either like it or you won't. It is all a bunch of puzzles...which you will either like or you won't. I thought that the plot drew me through the puzzles and made me want to complete them...which I can't say the same thing of Myst III. I thought it was atmospheric and creepy/scary. There are also a number of nice little jokes strewn here and there. ichbinkelsey was especially pleased about a joke that dealt with furniture, she got the joke on a level that no one but fellow furniturephiles would.

Audio: Well...Let's start with the good. The music/score was really, really good. Hightly recommended! The person who did their sound effects was hit and miss. But the big problem for me came with the voice acting. The actors were generally good--Terrence Scammel displeased me with his exaggerated voices for the black characters, but generally everyone else was fine. Sven Erickson (Gustav) and Sarah Leger (Victoria) were great as the main characters and brought a nice sense of fun and attitude. Very likable. This is a budget title, and the director reused too many of the secondary voice actors for too many roles, and you could tell. Which was annoying. However, none of this was as annoying as the sound engineer's bad job. When he recorded the voices, he recorded them too close and left them too dry. He also didn't to a good job of mixing the voices with wild sound, and this results in voices that sound like they are coming from a sound booth rather than an abandoned building in Chicago. It bothered me throughout the entire game. Sometimes it was better than others and not so noticeable...but the bad recording techniques really hampered was was otherwise an amazingly wonderful atmosphere. It is always tough to program one person interrupting another when it is happening with discreet lines read and then triggered separately...but their Audio integrator didn't do a good job with that either...and there are some moments of "interruption" were there is a far too long of a gap between voices. Of course, the opening credits use "Dies Irae" from Mozart's Requiem...and later you get cool industrial music...so...that made up for a lot.

Graphics: The environments look great as you'd expect. The plot involves paintings, and they got an artist to do all of the actual paintings, which is very cool. There are some very evocative images, and the transitions between past/present Prague/Chicago are really well done. The figures themselves are so so. They look particularly computery while the backgrounds sometimes look like a beautiful painting.

Controls: Whoever transfered the game from PC to XBox...didn't do the best job on the controls. They aren't crap, but they never use the vibration function...and there are moments when they really, really should have and it seems weird for them not to have. Also the right analog stick is never used...not even for scrolling through text. Everything is done with the left analog stick, and that really could have been done differently.

Replay: I won't replay the game. However, I will encourage a pal who hasn't played it or seen it to play the game while I rewatch it. I also really, really hope the a sequel is made--I'd buy that right away.

Observations: The game is on the short side. 10-20 hours depending on how fast or slowly you solve the puzzles. I probably spent 17 hours playing. Don't use a walkthrough and cheat.

Grade: B

Recommended: Well. There are very few adventure games on consoles and the conventional wisdom is that twitch gamers don't want to sit for two hours trying to figure out how to solve the Logic Puzzle of Fate. If you don't have a lot of patience, then I can not recommend this game. You won't like it. If you like happy puppy games. Don't get this game. It is dark and graphic, and there are autopsies, and it deserves its mature rating. That said. I finished this game in two days, and it kept me up really late yesterday. I found it completely compelling and engrossing and engaging. I couldn't put down the controller--even though I new I had to wake up early the next day (or three hours later, as it ended up being). I laughed out loud a couple times and I really enjoyed the people I met in the game (even if their sound engineer wasn't very good). The game was cinematic and exciting. I know I'm only rating the game a B--I'd give it an A-, but for the audio/controller annoyances. For full disclosure, my undergrad degree in Electronic Music Composition included a bunch of classes on recording technique, and I did work doing audio for Leapfrog Toys the summer before I came to UCLA...and those annoyances really stand out to me. It may not stand out to anyone else as much as it did to me--but ooh was I distracted by it.

On the other hand, here's the thing though--The game cut some corners...BUT the game also only costs $20. For that price range, the game rocks on toast, and I'd like to encourage the production of more lower price games. For $20 this game is a A. If you are like noodling over puzzles and you like movies like Silence of the Lambs...I recommend the game highly!

What's next?
Quickie Game: Continuing Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2.
Main Feature Game: I have to write my Billy Tipton article, so I'm not going to start a new game until I'm done. If I must play for a bit of stress relief, I'll try to push forward some more on Ninja Gaiden...who knows, I may even finish it.

Comments

I'll second that

[ichbinkelsey.livejournal.com]

OK, first off, here's the chair joke. In a police station in Prague, one of the characters has a chair that's clearly this one--it's a Mies van der Rohe Brno chair, which is a) one of the most famous examples of early minimalist industrial design, b) highly coveted/collected now, by people who may or may not include me, c) $1,531 plus shipping from DWR and d) [I learned today] designed in Prague right around the time the game was set. So Gus, your character walks by, and if you happen to click on the chair, he says "This design will never catch on!" That's a lot of research for a joke that many people won't even hear. That impresses me.

Beyond that, I just wanted to add how very very much I liked this game (I was just watching, so I didn't have to deal with any of the gameplay aggro that T6 did.) It's true that it's very fiddly and puzzle-y, but I am here to tell you that I was totally captivated watching T6 attempt a lockpicking puzzle--which was one graphic--for an hour and a half. It's a game that's very hard to stop. Also, along the lines of the chair joke, I dug all the little erudite touches that the designers threw in: for example, there are lots of books laying around that you can't read, but if you know them, you get a little bit of insight into your situation (The Prisoner of Zenda and Foucault's Pendulum both make appearances, and they both have a lot of resonance with the setting [I think--I only finished half of Zenda]) And finally, cool, non-annoying female character--I like to mention them when they happen. Ooo! Also, it involves the University of Chicago and some very lovely Chicagoscapes (fugue_maniac, is this wheting your appetite? It's X-Box only...)

Re: I'll second that

[trooper6.livejournal.com]

Part of me feels really badly for giving it a 3.5...I mean I found the game to be totally fun (I played it basically non stop for a two days and finished it up quick)...and the amount of fun in this game (including erudite humor--and some pretty non-erudite humor!) is phenomenal (if you like puzzles)...especially for the price...which is a great price! The puzzles are tough, but they aren't as frustrating and opaque like I found Myst III. So it is a very accessible puzzle game, I think. Which is another plus.

And the music is really great. So are the cut scenes. And the two main voice actors are really fun. So much atmosphere, so much goodness! But I have to dock it points for technical mistakes. But even with the docking--really good game. Though, I must point out that people who don't want to spend a long time looking at one screen figuring out a lockpicking puzzle will not want to play the game...because these puzzles aren't things you have to do in order to get on to the game, they are the game.

Re: I'll second that

[ichbinkelsey.livejournal.com]

No, it's true--the puzzles (and the wandering around part) are totally the game. And don't feel bad about giving it a 3.5--you're just like Eurogamer with your ratings that mean things. It might be easier for you if you did points out of 10 (a la Eurogamer--I bet you would have felt better if you could have said 7/10 instead of 3.5) but otherwise, no need for concern.