Still Life
Score: 78% ESRB: Mature Publisher: The Adventure Company Developer: MC2 Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 Genre: Adventure
Graphics & Sound: Dreary and dismal is a good way to describe Still Life’s graphics. The game will take you from gruesome crime scenes in modern day Chicago to the grimy streets of 1920’s Prague and everywhere in between. Excellent cut scenes and beautifully rendered backdrops all convey a sense of forlorn as the story of Still Life unfolds. The characters, for the most part, are very nicely drawn, however the walking animations are a bit stiff. Whenever you click on an elevator or when you click on a person to speak to them, your main character will reposition themselves in front of the person or object in a pre-set animation. It tends to take you out of the suspension of disbelief somewhat when you are standing directly to someone’s side and your character walks about and repositions themselves in front. It’s a small thing, but distracting. The background music is understandably dark and really helps to immerse you into the feel of whatever area you happen to be in. In Prague, the music is lyrical with European tones. While investigating the murders in Chicago, the music is more intense and haunting. It’s very good stuff. The voiceovers are a bit forced, but I really enjoyed some of the dialogue, especially Victoria, the main character. It did feel, however, that a lot of random curse words were just thrown in for the sake of being there. Yes, this is a Mature rated game and only adults should be playing it, but at certain times, it seemed excessive.
Gameplay: Still Life has you beginning the game as Victoria McPherson, FBI agent extraordinaire assigned to a series of escalating gruesome murders. As Vic, you’ll collect evidence CSI style, process it, investigate leads, visit crime scenes and most importantly, read your grandfather’s memoirs in your downtime. Your grandfather, Gus McPherson, was a P.I. investigating a very similar string of murders in 1920’s Prague, as you will discover. As a side note, you may also recall Gus if you played another of Microids’ adventure titles, Post Mortem. Anyway, during gameplay, you will switch between controlling Gus and Victoria, thus switching between the past and the present. I found it to be a really good way to handle things and it was quite seemless. Still Life is an adventure game, so you will spend the majority of your time clicking the action button to see what shakes out. Depending on the icon that appears, you will either talk with someone, pick up an item, move about the area, etc. When you are speaking with other characters, you will have a choice. By clicking the Left shoulder button, you can ask them questions that get right to the point. By clicking the Right shoulder button, you can ask them more personal questions, possibly off-topic, but you can glean important info this way. By clicking the A button, you end the questioning. It’s just a way of offering you more choices in your adventure and I liked it. When you pick up an item, you can go into the submenu and either examine the item, use the item and sometimes combine it with other items. Your travels will take you to various locations, however to facilitate quicker travel, when you leave an area, a map of sorts will pull up. Locations that you can visit will be highlighted, with the newest ones added flashing in yellow. This way, you can easily just hover over the area to visit and poof! You arrive there. One problem I had with Still Life was the fact that at times, I wasn’t sure where to go or how to progress. Although you have a Journal and Files in the submenu that record your conversations with people, personal notes on what is happening and also every document you come into contact with, sometimes it wasn’t enough. At some points, I had visited every place I could and simply didn’t see what to do next. This relates to another problem that I will address in Game Mechanics, however. That problem is pixel hunting. But more on that later.
Difficulty: The difficulty in Still Life comes in two forms: frustration and maddeningly tough puzzles. The frustration lies in the fact that in certain spots, you can click over and over trying to move into a different area, but if you don’t hit the right spot, you won’t be able to access that area. Also, as you do explore an area, you may move into another room/section and that’s fine, but say you back up – you may inadvertently go into the map mode. This back and forth can get really annoying. Now for the puzzles. Some of the answers to the puzzles didn’t seem to make any logical sense and seemed more a matter of randomly clicking until the answers fell into place. I personally am not fond of this puzzle type. I prefer to be able to logically solve a puzzle. However, as I am more of an action/adventure and survival horror fan, maybe that’s just me. Still Life’s storyline really appealed to me, so I decided to review it. But when I had to consult a FAQ on several occasions, that’s a problem in the game, as far as I am concerned. I also spoke to J.R. Nip, a seasoned adventure gamer, who reviewed Still Life for the PC, and he admitted that he even had to consult the FAQ a few times when reviewing the PC version.
Game Mechanics: Pixel hunting – a dreaded phrase for adventure gamers. Although at first, pixel hunting didn’t seem to present itself as the icon clearly popped up when there was an item to be picked up. But say you need to explore an area – you will have to maneuver to the exact location to be able to progress (in some cases). This was incredibly frustrating. The other problem with control was mainly an issue within the puzzles. The control of the cursor was jumpy. For instance, when Vic had to enter her code into a keypad to be able to access the Morgue (the very first puzzle), to enter the code, you had to move the cursor to each number. Instead of gliding along, the cursor would jump from number to number, sometimes hanging up. This pretty much presented itself in every single puzzle. There’s a point where you have to control a robot and maneuver him around a maze of deadly laser traps. Death was inevitable over and over because of the control (or lack thereof). As Vic was walking around, she would often slow down and get hung up on debris or things on the ground, but sometimes on nothing at all. Shoddy collision detection here and just another control issue. Overall, the storyline drove me to finish the game. It was really riveting and did make me want to beat the game, which I did over a weekend. However, the control issues and frustration really put a damper on things. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but what I will say is this. Upon completion of the game, you are directed to a website where you can continue the story. The interface for the website was more like the game Missing, if you are familiar with that. You had to search websites and such to progress and it was very different from the game I had just played, yet it was supposed to be an extension of Still Life. I quickly gave up on this portion and as such, will never know the true ending of the game’s cliffhanger and I found that truly disappointing. What I suggest is this: If you really like adventure games that have gory and intense storylines and puzzles with a high level of frustration, but also some very clever ones as well, this very well may be the game for you. Do yourself this favor though. Go to Still Life’s website here and play the prequel of the game. From what I understand, there are three parts you can play online for free. If you dig the prequel, then you will know that you can at least complete the parts of the game that come after beating the Xbox version and can have closure. No, I am not sorry I played Still Life. I really enjoyed the ride, despite the frustrations. I just hate being left wondering, feeling like there was a sequel set-up, but not knowing if a sequel will ever happen (as Microids was purchased by Ubisoft recently).
-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Perkins
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