So let's go down the list and see which ones I'd recommend people try if they have an iDevice, and which ones they should probably pass on in favor of something better, like dropping said iDevice down a flight of stairs.
First up on our list is Dark Arcana: The Carnival. It's another "search for items to mash against other items" puzzle, but with with the occasional hidden object search mixed in.
Once again, someone goes missing and you're tasked with figuring it out. I don't remember if your character is a detective for just a private investigator, but when a young girl's mother goes missing at a carnival, the whole place is evacuated and you're sent in all by yourself to figure out what's going on.
And honestly, how could you say "no" to a face like th-
GYAH!
...okay, so the character models need help. Like, "two gallons of gasoline and a match" help. But anyway, a young mother is in trouble, your job is to find her.
Immediately, the game takes a truly bizarre twist, involving another world that you can only get to through mirrors, strange and powerful creatures that block entrance to said world unless you solve a puzzle for them but later come back complaining they can't do anything about the evil about to be released so they need you to do all the work, and a monkey who temporarily acts as your sidekick in matters such as "go through those gate bars and open the gate" or "climb up that tent and grab that thing for me."
Strangely enough, other than the cops, not every character you meet is completely helpless in this game, and they provide some exposition instead of just saying "here, have this so you can do something I could easily do myself but can't be bothered to."
Oh, and it's a bit darker than most of the games I've seen them put out. Although, bonus points for a skeleton with an awesome mustache.
It can get a bit weary needing to wander back and forth across the map, especially since I couldn't find a single way to take a shortcut and at times you have to explore a lot to figure out which map has the one item you need to progress, but none of the puzzles were too difficult to solve and none came across as insultingly easy.
On the other hand, we also have Nightmares From The Deep: The Cursed Heart which might might somehow manage to win both the "perfectly encapsulates the whole storyline" award and the "doesn't tell you jack about the storyline" award.
...wait, no, I already did that. This one's called Abyss: The Wraiths Of Eden, which I think tells you just how generic these titles can get.
Here's why this game is so frustrating: underneath all the poorly written junk is a really great story hiding just out of sight.
Let me break it down: You play a young wife whose husband has (say it with me now) "gone missing" during an underwater dive. You toss on some scuba gear, dive down, and maneuver your way around until you discover a massive underground city. Once inside, you find a few scraps of humanity in hiding from some kind of force that has possessed the rest of the inhabitants, and you have to worry about freeing them, saving your husband, and keeping the people you found safe from dark forces.
You know why that's a great story?
BECAUSE IT'S BIOSHOCK, THAT'S WHY.
Bioshock, for those of you who don't know, is by far one of the greatest story-based video games ever created, with one of the most mind-bending plot twists I've ever seen. EVER.
Sunken city? Check. A scattered few people still retaining their humanity? Check. Something that has corrupted the rest of the city's inhabitants requiring you to, in one game, beat them into submission with a wrench and in another collapse an elevator shaft onto one? Check.
You could tell a simply amazing story with all the pieces this game put in place. I know this, because it's been done once before, but there was enough left untouched in Bioshock that you could easily take a similar location and tell an equally great tale. Saying it can't be done would be like saying "you can't tell more than one good story in the old west," or "ancient Rome? Surely there's only one tale that can be told in that place."
If you told me this game wasn't made in an attempt to cash in on just how huge Bioshock was a few years ago, I wouldn't believe you, which makes it all the more frustrating how generic the puzzles are ("use metal cup to catch dripping acid, pour acid on chain"), how little sense the plot makes, and how goofy the characters act considering this game might have the most gorgeous backgrounds of any game I've seen this company put out.
It's even more frustrating when you realize that instead of going for a "science" angle like Bioshock did, the game is willing to dive headfirst into something straight out of Call of Cthulhu that you realize how much wasted opportunity there was.
I mean, seriously here. Hidden underwater city, mysterious demonic force, overwhelming forces you need to hide and/or run from because fighting them is a losing game...
Somehow this company managed to take a formula that should scream either "summer blockbuster movie" or "greatest video game ever" and instead made something I found myself yawning to as I mashed the "hint" button because I was tired of wandering around lost looking for how the game wanted to solve a puzzle instead of how I wanted to solve the puzzle. And for the record, my idea of "use axe on every puzzle that involves locked items made of wood" should've worked.
I mean, the game actually has you battle a giant octopus at one point...and the solution on how to beat it made me just want to sigh because I wanted to scream at the game "it's attacking me in a room with a dinosaur skeleton hanging from the ceiling, how can the answer not be "drop skeleton on octopus?""
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| Alternatively, "use axe on octopus" should've at least been a choice. |
Spoiler alert, you scare it away with the chemicals used in old-timely flash cameras. Ugh.
I can understand trying to make a quick buck by putting out a simple game, but G5 managed to stumble onto a formula that I haven't ever really seen done before outside of ONE GAME and perhaps a movie or two (...okay, and an entire Stargate franchise) and simply wasted all the potential they had.
Turn it into a series, guys. Have there be episodes that further the plot, the mystery, and the action. Make us explore the entire city instead of just a few sections. I can see a lot more buildings in the background outside those windows that someone painstakingly drew, why wouldn't you ever let me go there? Leave me wondering if what's affecting people is a virus, a kind of "stuck underwater in a tight space" insanity, or something occult. Play up just how powerful this evil force is before I confront it.
You even had a really clever idea on how to defeat the final boss, but in this game it's like finding a tiny little gold nugget at the bottom of a bowl crystallized rock sugar declared to be cereal. Not only would it not cover the bill to your dentist, but it isn't worth the pain it took to get there.
Oh, and as for that update, I am still slogging (yes, it feels like that sometimes) through The Secret Society, but I want to make a few notes.
1) Fix the glitches. If you have a silhouette of an item I'm supposed to be looking for, don't let it be the wrong silhouette. Needing to tap different objects to figure out which one it's supposed to be is just bad game design.
2) Show me where the object was if I lose on a stage. It's fine to make the game tough, but just letting people think it's impossible after multiple tries is also just poor design.
3) Man, some of these images are really well drawn. Kudos to the artists.
4) The characters can get pretty annoying sometimes. "We need a lasagna, go into that photo with your magic powers and find me one." ...I have an idea, why don't you just MAKE one? "This object vanished from a museum, can you jump into a picture of a castle's throne room to find it?" First off, what makes you think it'd be in that picture? Second, instead of just "hey, go find it and let's never discuss this again," why don't we try to figure out why objects keep vanishing? "You must be this person, I'm the local mystic with a crystal ball and a raven who speaks in riddles. I have much to do." ...okay, I never invited you over, go away. "Oh, and find my raven, it went missing." Pft, forget you.
...it's still enough fun to keep going, but man, there's stuff I see and read that just makes me shake my head in wonder.
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