The Curse of Batterslea Hall was always my favourite CYOA book – it was also, for reasons I'll get into, one of the more unusual ones. It sparked my later love of adventure games and inspired some of my sketchy early attempts at creative writing (including a thinly veiled recreation on 90s 'edutainment' program Storybook Weaver ). It also deepened my devastation when I returned home one fateful school night to discover my mum had donated my extensive CYOA collection – precious gems tremblingly unearthed from the dusty Mills and Boon-straining shelves of my local Scope – back to charity. Around twenty years later, and I took the obvious next step for a mildly lockdown-crazed 90s kid squinting down the barrel of their thirties: sourced a copy inflated by just four times the original cover price through eBay. But was it worth it, and does it still hold up? Dust off your bootcut jeans and fire up your Walkman – it's adventurin' time, 90s* style... The premise Battersl
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Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller Game Review: Brimming with Unrealised Potential
Touted as the spiritual successor to Gabriel Knight, I really wanted to love this. An intriguing murder mystery/supernatural crossover setup, a strong female lead and Jane Jensen as a story consultant; this has a lot going for it.
However, I never really felt that this had the heart that some of the best adventure games have, such as the Gabriel Knight and Blackwell series. You're plunged into the action from the get-go, but I missed those quieter, reflective moments that give more insight into the characters through idle chit-chat, relationship building and even the protagonist's home space. You never visit Erica's home (the closest thing is her work desk – this tells you something about her, but nothing particularly meaningful) or learn much about her outside of her job/predicament.
The other characters are similarly sketchily drawn. Your partner/best friend is resigned to his desk for the majority of the game, interactions with your romantic interest don't really progress beyond an email and a couple of emotionally charged scenes and, cringe-worthily, one of your other main points of contact is restricted to the trope of Magical Black Friend.
One of the main assets of the game is the dark, twisty story (there are some genuinely surprising turns here), although I felt that the plot became rather convoluted towards the end and the lack of character development resulted in a less than emotionally satisfying conclusion. Another asset is the generally strong, if at times slightly uneven, voice acting; Raleigh Holmes, who lends her voice to the protagonist and soundtrack, is an impressive vocal talent (see video below), despite slipping in and out of a New York accent. The music, meanwhile, is tonally appropriate and atmospheric, with shades of Gabriel Knight, but lacks the same memorable quality and could be quite repetitive.
There are some challenging puzzles, and the postcognition ability is an intriguing concept that adds some variety, though it can be slightly tedious in practice and at times confusing (especially in Act 3, which involves excessive backtracking). And, while there is a clue function, a few more prompts woven into the gameplay would have been welcome, as it wasn't always apparent what I was supposed to do next.
The other obvious issue is that this game is riddled with glitches:
This is quite possibly the buggiest game I've ever played (and I've just finished the most recently patched version). The laundry list of offences is long: heinous graphical glitches marring an otherwise appealing visual style, freezing, seemingly random unskippable dialogue (even when repeated), unintentional dialogue skipping, overlapping audio during dialogue, occasionally unresponsive controls, menu freezing during scenes... As an indie title, this deserves some slack, but I ran into bugs so frequently the game felt unfinished. It also broke immersion, which is one of the main draws of adventure titles for me.
While I truly feel this has sparks of something that could have been much better, for the latter reason alone, I can't rate this higher and wouldn't recommend this to anyone outside of dedicated adventure gamers who are hungry for something to fill the void post-Gabriel Knight.
Verdict: Brimming with potential, but let down by weak character development and a slew of glitches.
Score: ★★☆☆☆
If you liked this, please consider fuelling my next post by slinging a cup of coffee my way.
Loved Gabriel Knight, as much as most of the old scummvm games. If you like character development I cannot recommend highly enough "Life is Strange". It's gaming perfection.
Sorry, just saw this! Couldn't agree more RE Life is Strange. As soon as Max plugs in her earphones at the start to drown out the mindless chitchat and 'To All of You' by Syd Matters kicks in I knew I'd love this game.
⚠️ This review contains spoilers and refers to sensitive issues, including sexual assault and abuse . After 21 volumes and 80 chapters, I've finally come to the provisional* end of a manga series whose characters have taken on the familiarity of old friends. Endearing, relatable and, at times, hopelessly infuriating. Saying goodbye to them was accompanied by a quiet sense of loss I'm sure the two Nanas would implicitly understand. So what was it about Nana that made me stick with it for so long? Nana follows two young women who move to Tokyo in search of their dreams at key junctures in their lives. A frivolous airhead who attaches herself to men too readily and a fiercely independent punk rocker set on making it as a lead vocalist, on the surface, Nana K. (a.k.a. Hachi) and Nana O. share little more than a name and the same train journey. Nevertheless, they make an improbable connection.
Throughout the pandemic, one international location in particular haunted my imagination : South Germany. While locked down, I took advantage of my daily exercise allowance of a single socially distanced outing in my local area. However, while I'm lucky to have access to abundant pretty, green spaces, my hometown is also a place where noteworthy sheep regularly make the front-page news. Like everyone else in the world, I craved a change of scenery – so I turned to the immersive worlds of books, films and adventure games to transport me from my somewhat fertiliser-seasoned surroundings. And, with its majestic forests, fairytale castles and melding of medieval and modern locales, the setting of FMV adventure game Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within gave me the perfect fantasy fuel. Better yet, it was rooted in reality; this was somewhere I might actually go someday – as fellow adventure game fans AdventureGameGeek and IPKISS4LIFE had before me. So, as soon as international travel
I've just excised a venomous influence from my life. And, as a dedicated yet chronically suffering writer with "little or no money in my purse", I would like to take this opportunity to post a sobering caution to all those who live by the pen. I've been writing on topics that inspire me for a long time. I've rarely had the pleasure of being paid to do so; it's simply such a vital part of my being that it would be unthinkable not to. When it comes to writing for money, however, I've had to resign myself to the reality that my options are limited; I have successfully pursued careers in both journalism and copywriting, and have personally found both to be soul-sappingly dissatisfying. Reporting the facts and representing a client's brand left little room for my own voice and creativity. When I found an advert on TotalJobs for a fully paid content producer position for a successful entertainment website, therefore, I was intrigued. WhatCulture were
Loved Gabriel Knight, as much as most of the old scummvm games. If you like character development I cannot recommend highly enough "Life is Strange". It's gaming perfection.
ReplyDeleteSorry, just saw this! Couldn't agree more RE Life is Strange. As soon as Max plugs in her earphones at the start to drown out the mindless chitchat and 'To All of You' by Syd Matters kicks in I knew I'd love this game.
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