OUR RATING: 7.1 VERY GOOD About our ratings

TANGIBLES: Gameplay: 7 Visuals: 8 Audio: 7 Value: 7 Quality: 7

Why you should buy it: Not Available Why you should rent it: Not Available

UNIQUE RATING: 7.1 SUGGESTION: N/A

When we played a demo of Still Life in March, we were pleased by the game’s combination of some arty visuals, and a seedy, oppressive atmosphere that clung to the opening milieu like a leech. Beautiful art direction aside, the minimal control interface didn’t please us and the few puzzles we encountered were easy, but we felt Still Life could lift adventure games out of the mire somewhat. We still do. Having completed the game in its entirety, Still Life’s combination of old school sleuthing and interesting conundrums will please purists. Any newcomers who wish for the little gray cells to be tested will find Still Life a worthy, rewarding experience, too.

The game’s opening cutscene paints a picture of the sorts of events you can expect. We see a killer dragging a victim through a seedy lair, and a man splashing red paint onto canvas. Herein lie two of Still Life’s main focal points: art and murder. Although the former isn’t apparent until you delve deeper into the story, the player must immediately get to grips with Still Life’s gruesome depiction of death. Even in the opening section, there is a brutally eviscerated body to be examined.

It’s probably safe to say that Microids has tried too hard to enforce a sense of maturity on the player. Many of the characters will voice profanity, for instance, and we’d certainly have sacrificed the “F‿ words for better voice acting. Indeed, many of the characters sound comedic enough to belie Still Life’s otherwise adult nature; what with some gratuitous scenes depicting slain woman, wet with blood, it’s safe to say this isn’t a game for your ten-year-old grandson.

The plot tracks the events of Victoria McPherson and her grandfather, Gus McPherson. Victoria’s story takes place in modern New York (we’d hazard a guess at the year 2010) as she looks to track down a ruthless killer with a penchant for prostitutes. This seemingly tried-and-tested story envelops a rather more complex formula when her grandfather (Gus) enters the fold and we learn of events that occurred in 1920s Prague. Both these cases are eerily connected, although it’d be churlish to spoil anything.

No matter what your age, if the game didn’t incorporate a diary system to track dialogue and events, you’d forget much of the plot. Still Life has the annoying habit of introducing characters by way of dialogue so that you’re likely to forget their name within hours. It’s perfectly possible to put Still Life down for the evening, wake up the next morning and say, “who?‿ when Victoria mentions someone. The diary setup is a godsend then. Both Victoria and Gus will communicate their thoughts into the diary, and this can often serve as a clue as to where you should go next. Additionally, all of the game’s dialogue is recorded, so if you’re particularly thorough, you can scrutinize past encounters with the game’s multitude of characters for information you might have previously missed. As we mentioned in the third paragraph, the voice acting is rather terrible in many cases, although both Gus and Victoria have appealing voices. It’s just as well you hear these two characters most.

When puzzles do crop up, they’re good enough to keep players satisfied, although there's a huge discrepancy (difficulty wise) between many. The interplay between the frustration of being stuck and the elation at finally solving the offending puzzle is at the core of adventure gameplay, and Still Life manages to keep a nice balance most of the time. However, there are cases when Microids seemingly threw caution to the wind, and allowed their minds to utterly and completely unravel on a puzzle. Resultantly, there is the odd conundrum that is so mind-numbingly difficult it’ll likely force the player to resort to a walkthrough – these are usually played from a Myst styled, first-person perspective, and involves trial and error. Moreover, there is a gameplay sequence toward the dénouement that requires a steady hand and quick reflexes. It’s here that the ability to switch between the default mouse setup and the keyboard control system is handy. And guess what, we’ve conveniently refrained from speaking in-depth about the game’s interface until now. For the most part, you’ll want to control Gus and Victoria with the mouse – the exception being the gameplay sequence, which is such a diversion from previous exploits, it might have some gamers toppling off their seats in surprise. The mouse cursor itself will change when moved over objects of interest. In these cases, a magnifying glass will pop up and the player will have the opportunity of taking a closer look. From here on, there are likely to be objects to pick up. Using an item in your inventory with an object in the gameworld is a rather problematic process. It involves reaching an enhanced view of the object in question, entering your inventory by way of the right mouse button, clicking on the object and then the clicking the use hand (also in your inventory screen).

The act of interacting with a character via dialogue is handled in a simple way. The left mouse button can be pressed for topics on a professional, formal basis. The right mouse button can be pressed for an informal, off-topic subject. Consequently, the game is thankfully devoid of any dialogue trees, but you lose the freedom of dictating the direction in which the conversation proceeds. Essentially, every piece of dialogue recorded will be heard by the player. Informal chats are limited too, and conversations in general must be prompted by the continual clicking of the appropriate mouse button. It’s strange that when there are no other ways in which the conversation can proceed, the game simply doesn’t let the talk flow, instead of forcing the player to continually click. Although this might enable players to leave their seats at certain junctures, it would have been more coherent and fluid to be simply able to pause the game when you wished.

Put it like this: Still Life retains the feel of many classics, but both LucasArts’ and Sierra’s titles had control systems that allowed the player more freedom. When you couple in the fact that Still Life is as linear as a train-track (for instance, you won’t be able to pick up a fire extinguisher until the end of the game, and for no good reason) you have to content yourself with playing a game that Microids have envisaged. As we predicted in our preview, there are no multiple endings. And, on the topic of conclusions, Still Life ends on a huge cliff-hanger that sadly leaves a rather stale taste in the mouth.