This is the last of the games! Review begins with spoilers.
I felt like I wasn’t going to like this game at first for two reasons: one, the title didn’t grab me (yeah another lame title that says nothing), and, two, when I initially start the game, this guy, who turns out to be my brother, tells me everything about who I am due to a temporary amnesia. It’s a big, awkward, hard to track info dump. I am not really a fan of this method of starting the game; puts it on kind of a bad foot, especially with the “detective with amnesia” trick.
The dialogue system seemed good at first but I found it sort of irritating after a few conversations because the dialogues are sometimes just a bit too linear. It pretends I have agency during these parts, but it’s like I was going to ask all the questions in order, anyway. It’s particularly linear when you’re talking to the reverend, although for an IF I guess this method is better than ten pages of ‘hit any key.’
Getting a riddle dropped on me with no warning, that I have to immediately solve, makes me lock up. Though if I try ‘hint’ I get a context sensitive hint immediately which is a nice feature. I did my best with the riddles but honestly they just seemed out of place here. The only one I really solved legit was the simple math one (which turns out to be optional if you use the device instead, but the game gives you a lot of options).
That being said this game had enough to grip me to try to finish it once, and I enjoyed a lot of it. I liked that it clues you on most major unusual verbs (things like “swipe card”) so you don’t have to guess. I also like little touches in the game’s writing like the crazy barber lady.
The first time I finished this I seemed to have a good end but didn’t get max points. I decided to explore off the beaten trail and started encountering some major bugs. I went to the Maxi-Mart and somehow managed to break a bunch of things this way. Though I want to buy a pie tin (surely I can “wear” it, right? and bypass all the trouble of the aluminum hat), it says nothing is for sale if I try “buy tin.” Worse, somehow I managed to drive my car in to the building. I guess this happens if you forget to ‘exit’ it before entering a building. When I try to go home, I drive my car in to the house too, and now it won’t let me leave the house, since I can’t figure out how to drive the car back out. Funny but gamebreaking accident… I think all I can do is restart if I manage to screw it up that badly.
I also discovered that if I get a haircut and a nice suit, I seem to be able to flirt with Dierdre, but she won’t unlock the office for me. That whole bit is kind of weird, since I’m looking for my wife, and it doesn’t seem to lead to anything that you can flirt with her (I guess it has more purpose if you bring Steve with you).
From there since I didn’t have too much time left I checked the walkthrough, and found three different paths to finish the game (with variations, in theory). I am pretty charmed by this. The entire “no deaths” ending is something I never would’ve concieved to follow (I followed the walkthrough to get that wacky stuff just to see what happened) but seems to fit well, and it’s cool that you can get captured and still win the game, which I did accidentally discover on my own earlier.
Leave a Reply