Developer: KING Art
Publisher: Nordic Games
Rrp: £20.99 (Steam), $24.99 (Amazon), €29.99 (Nordic games Shop)
Released: 23rd July 2013
Available on Steam, Amazon.com and the Nordic Games Shop
Played using: Mouse & Keyboard
Someone’s stolen a priceless jewel from the London Museum, and that someone is The Raven! Only one man can stop him… A slightly portly, ageing, Swiss police Constable. That portly, ageing, Swiss police Constable is Anton Jakob Zellner, a man eager to prove that he can solve a crime through his deductive powers.
The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief is a point and click game of the traditional sort, complete with inventory puzzles. It was released in an episodic manner rather like that of the Walking Dead (ie you pay a lump sum and all the chapters are yours once they have been released). It’s different to most others in its genre in quite a few ways, sadly these differences aren’t always good.
The starts off on a train travelling through the Swiss countryside and it set in 1963, that is once the opening cutscene has finished. Have to say that cutscene, in fact the entire game, feels a lot like someone watched too many episodes of Poirot.
Your character is controlled via the cursor and left mouse button, to move him simple point the cursor and click. If the cursor changes shape then that means that whatever it’s over can be interacted with in some way. If it’s a magnifying glass your character will inspect the object, a speech bubble makes him speak to them and a wrench means it’s usable.
All objects that you collect are placed in your inventory which is accessed by moving the cursor to the bottom of the screen, a right click will cause the Constable to comment on the object.
Bringing the cursor to the top of the screen brings up three icons and a counter in the top right corner. Clicking the first icon highlights all objects that can be interacted with just as [space] does. The second is your notebook where you can read up on the exploits of the Raven and whatever else captures the Constables attention.
Lastly is the in game menu, which is also brought up by pressing the [Esc] key. The counter that appears ticks down each time you use the highlight objects button [space], and builds up with each puzzle you solve. Whatever number you have at the end is your score, the higher the number the better.
The notebook is a nice touch and has a contents page so it’s easy to get to the information you want quickly. There’s also a ‘secrets’ tab that allows you to look at some of the questions the Constable has and the current objects you have going on. This notebook also provides a bit of background on the various character you meet as well as your own character, but only if you wish to spend the time reading it. The notebook is updated when the Constable speaks to new characters or when events of importance happen, this is indicated by a flashing icon in the top right and a scribbling noise.
Investigating everything multiple times and exhausting all conversation options is the name if the game here. If you don’t check a item or person until it runs out new things to say then spectating event s will not be able to take place. A good example was a point where I had to examine the same window three times before I could speak to a certain character, which in turn caused another character to react in a different way than previous. I find that very frustrating.
Aesthetically this game has tried to go for a reasonably realistic look, the characters do land very firmly in the uncanny valley. There were quite a few moments where I just couldn’t watch a character speak, the way that some of the characters the mouths moved or the eyes blankly looked at you unsettled me greatly. The models also looks a little out of place in some of the pre-rendered backgrounds.
This game excels when it comes to the story, there are some real moments of intrigue and mystery. Unfortunately the rest of the game undermines all of that with all its various issues, which is covered in the next paragraph.
I’ve actually let out a audible sigh as I write this, I want to love this game. I want to love it for the story but everything else makes that impossible for me. There were little things like the annoying fact that once you set your character in motion to do an action he couldn’t be interrupted. Were it only that or maybe one or two other minor flaws I’d have had no trouble but… There are too many to ignore and some were quite major.
There are a several minor issues here and there with this game, sometimes a object clips through another, occasionally the voice acting gets cut off and there are times where the subtitles are misspelled, though this is rare. Normally all of these things would actually be somewhat forgivable for a game that’s clearly been made of a low budget, however during my playthrough I’ve had;
– The main character disappear from screen entirely.
– The game crash me to desktop with no given reason.
– The pause menu remain on screen once the game had been unpaused.
I could go on but I feel that’s enough.
I’ll be honest this game has been something of a slog for me, the story, while very interesting, doesn’t save it from the flat characters and unnerving animation. A game shouldn’t take a real force of will to play, which is a real shame because, as I mentioned, the story is actually quite good.
In short, no. I don’t recommend this game, I wish I could but I can’t in all confidence, maybe if you can get it for a very cheap price, like £2.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Murdered: Soul Suspect
Monkey Island
Grim Fandango
