Still Life
It's Christmas time in Chicago and there are a series of murders that are all too familiar to Victoria McPherson's grandfather's memoirs. As the violent murders baffle the local police department she seeks her late grandfathers experiences to assist her since the two cases seem closely tied together. As you ping-pong between the present and the 1920's you'll see the murder mystery unfold before your eyes but the killings open up a lot of questions for our beautiful young agent. How are the victims being selected? What are their ties to the art community? Most importantly however is, who is responsible and how do you stop him before he can claim another victim?
Any of you who may have played Post Mortem may recognize Victoria's grandfather Gustav McPherson and will be pleased to step into his detective shoes again. It would appear that sleuthing runs deep with the McPherson family and they seem to find their lives intertwined with the murderer's life on more than one occasion. While the game's pacing may be slower than Xbox gamers are used to, it's an intriguing murder mystery that will pound you with disturbing images and brain bending puzzles.
Gameplay:
I haven't played a point and click, puzzle solving adventure game in ages, mostly because I have never been a PC diehard. The pacing in these games is deliberately slower than other genres so that you have time to search environments, find clues and ultimately triumph over the puzzle that stands in your way. Many adventure games give you hints at how to solve the challenges it represents while others would prefer you attempt things blindly, what we have with Still Life is a little bit of both worlds.
There were several puzzles that were painfully easy to solve without any guidance from the game, but at other times you are given almost no direction and left to your own devices in order to proceed. While you don't want an adventure game that's too easy, you also don't want one that is so frustrating that you are apt to throw down the controller.
Some of the puzzles involve patterns that you have to decipher like passwords or rotating blocks, but there are others that require a specific item that you have to find in another location. That's when things can get really frustrating and you'll find yourself backtracking and combing prior locations just hoping and praying that an icon will appear to interact with something. More often than not you won't have to deal with this, but be prepared because it will happen eventually that one of the puzzles will stop you dead in your tracks.
While some of the challenges you must conquer make sense towards the relevance of the story, there are some that are absolutely ridiculous and have no bearing on anything. I know its Christmas and Victoria promised her father she'd make them, but is it really necessary to be forced to make gingerbread cookies before you can move on in your investigation? I don't think so!
Other puzzles are just too complex for their own good or asinine all together. You want to get into your boss's locked office to get something? Simple! Go into the hallway and put a napkin inside the coffee machine and start brewing, this'll make a mess so make sure you tell the janitor about it. Once he goes to clean up after you steal his keys (and a screw driver for no apparent reason at the time). Now you can get into the office to grab his coffee mug so you can lift a fingerprint from it to access his locked safe for what you want.
What makes this so frustrating is how many steps are involved with seeing it through and you are given absolutely no direction for any of it. Other points like picking a lock will take you about 20 minutes to figure out, but at the same time there are puzzles that are as simple as picking up a key from a desk to unlock a cabinet. Going from challenge to challenge also keeps the game moving at a snail's pace, but it's the intriguing murder mystery that will keep you going.
The controls are intuitively translated onto the Xbox controller and the menus are easy enough to use and navigate. My only gripe with Still Life was maneuvering my character because they walked so damned slow. Sure you can make them jog, but a blind three legged hamster could run faster than Victoria and Gustav can move. Granted in an adventure game you aren't really required to run or have phenomenal hand/eye coordination, but considering you have to navigate the pre-rendered environments and backtrack through crime scenes it would have been nice if you could pick up the pace.
It's the story that keeps the game in motion, but for all of its down points the gameplay is strong enough for the adventure genre. Maybe I'm just too used to action games and having a finger on the trigger button, but despite my gripes I really had a lot of fun playing Still Life. It's more of a psychological thriller than it is a horror game, so don't be surprised if you find the hairs on the back of your neck stand up while you're watching a murder take place or viewing the aftermath.
Mostly because of the slow pacing and frustrating puzzles the game stretches out to roughly ten hours or so. Realistically the game time is shorter than that, but if you find yourself stuck on a puzzle you'll be there for a while. Thankfully Still Life gives us the ability to save on the fly so you don't have to worry about reaching a checkpoint or new chapter. If you've ever liked adventure games, you will enjoy this one; just take it with a grain of salt considering it does have some inherent flaws.
Graphics:
One of the first things I noticed about Still Life was the pre-rendered environments and how gorgeous they were. Static surroundings haven't really been used lately with the current generation and have normally been reserved for survival-horror games. There was never a point where I wish I had control over the camera, since each level is shown at a perfect angle to see everything that you need to. The only problem with pre-rendered environments is that the characters that inhabit the world always stick out like a sore thumb compared to the beauty of the game and that's the case here.
There are some stiff animations and blocky designs for every character in the game and they are a stark contrast to the many locations they find themselves in. The cinematic scenes have a style all their own though with some very nice animation and special effects. The gameplay may be a slower pace, but the movies have a lot of action and the direction for these scenes is marvelous. My only complaint about the cut scenes is that several of them feature some serious pixilation and compression, but this could probably have to do with the fact that game was produced for Xbox and PC instead of individually.
Audio:
Much like the visual aspect of Still Life, the audio is a mixed bag of great and so-so quality. The music and sound direction does a wonderful job of capture the creepy atmosphere and overall mood of the game, but some of the voiceovers are god awful. Actually, more like 70% of the voice work in Still Life is absolutely abysmal and laughably bad at times. The voices for Victoria and Gustav are fine, as are a few random characters you'll interact with, but it's quite evident that many of these voice actors found their first jobs on this project.
The only other issue I can think of is the quality drops at times to the point that the sound is riddled with static and a fluctuating volume. You have the ability to control the volume of effects, music and voices through the in game menu, but sometimes the audio comes through so overly loud it made my speakers scratch. Granted it didn't happen that often, but when it did, I found it pretty irritating.
Conclusion:
Still Life is a throwback to the gaming days of yore with point and click adventures that required more brains than reflexes. Consoles have been sadly absent of this genre for quite some time now, but thankfully this title has come out for the Xbox near the system's end. It may not be the fastest paced game in the world or the best, since it does have many flaws, but the story is such that it will keep you coming back until you find out what happens. The only problem is that beating the game doesn't even bring about any resolution, just more questions so I'm assuming that there is going to be a sequel.
For a budget title going for $20 the game shows its low development costs in every department, but is well worth the asking price. I had a good time with Still Life and couldn't put it down until I knew what became of the investigation. Recommended.