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Apparently, point-and-click games have gotten a little bit more gruesome since Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist. We spent some time with a preview version of Still Life, an adventure game developed by Microids, the team who brought us Syberia for the PC in 2002. This latest foray into the world of point-and-click adventures shows promise for fans of the genre. The story revolves around the young, sassy FBI agent, Victoria McPherson. It’s around Christmastime, and a serial killer is on the loose in Chicago, brutally murdering women. Still Life begins with Victoria arriving at the most recent crime scene to examine the killer’s fifth victim.
One of the first things you may notice is the focus on dialogue. Veronica is able to have lengthy exchanges with other characters, and a lot of your time spent with the game is just sitting back and listening to conversations unravel. For the most part, the writing is well done, which is good because there’s so much of it to hear. Veronica comes off as a smart, hip woman with a little geeky side to her (she makes references to Reanimator decks and midichlorians). The multitude of four-letter words proves the “M” rating is well-earned. While you can select between “small-talk” and business-related questions, the conversations don’t really branch out or have an apparent impact on future events. The story is quite linear, and it’s obvious that Microids has a specific narrative they want to tell in a specific way. Although there is no cursor during the gameplay sequences of Still Life, at heart it’s still a point-and-click game. You control Veronica with the analog stick, and when you come close to an object of interest, an action icon appears. For example, at the first crime scene, you are expected to collect evidence, such as blood and fiber samples. When you walk close to a blood stain, a magnifying glass appears. You then access your inventory and use swabs to collect the sample. Finding out everything to do in a room is a combination of close observation and walking all over the prerendered backdrops to see if an action icon pops up. Console gamers should understand that Still Life takes a deliberate, methodical pace. This isn’t your typical, fast-moving console action-adventure game. During a flashback, you play the role of Veronica’s grandfather, who is a private investigator in 1929 Prague. He too is investigating a string of murders that has some eerie parallels to the current day Chicago case. Along with in-game dialogue, engrossing CG cutscenes move the plot forward. The story is shaping up to be pretty intriguing. The game’s graphics are a mixture of static 2D backgrounds and polygonal characters. While Resident Evil Zero does the 2D/3D mixture considerably better, Still Life boasts some nicely detailed backgrounds. The visual approach isn’t meant to look 100 percent realistic, as characters have a slight cartoonish look to them. The murder scenes leave little to the imagination, displaying nudity and knife slashes. One of the staples of adventure games is the puzzle, and Still Life is no different. Be prepared to encounter some fairly obscure puzzle solving sequences. The old point-and-click adventure genre may not cater to today’s twitch-reflex console crowd, but Still Life could please patient adventure fans yearning for a gritty, gory, CSI-style thriller.
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