"Only die-hard point-and-click adventure fans will be able to forgive these flaws"

Still Life is a more recent addition to a genre of games that is barely hanging onto life, point-and-click adventures. If you're like me, you have fond and fuzzy childhood memories with other PC adventure games such as Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Secret of Atlantis, and King's Quest. Still Life is another exercise in picking up items and solving puzzles, with a new millennium flavor to it.

This particular take on the genre doesn't look like Monkey Island though. In fact, it feels more like playing a survival horror game than playing an old school PC adventure. I love adventure games, and I love a good suspenseful murder mystery. On the surface, this game looks like a grand slam, but when I was done, I had a bittersweet taste in my mouth.

Still Life tells the tale of two series of serial killings, one in present day and one in the 1920s. The player will go back and forth through time via flashbacks, playing Victoria McPherson and her grandfather, Gustav McPherson, both detectives of sorts in their own time. As the story progresses, the similarities between the two serial killers becomes increasingly eerie, despite the 80 year gap in time.

The story, for good reason, is the strong point of Still Life. With each chapter, the suspense rises steadily for both Gus and Vic. The drama of having a serial killer just around the corner at every point in the game is heightened by the game's excellent sense of atmosphere. The dead of night in Chicago during winter is bleak and chilling. There are very few other people around to make you feel safe either. Likewise, the streets of Prague are dull and destitute. Every alley is dark, and a sense of security is seldom to be found.

I particularly enjoyed Gus's story. He becomes much more obsessed in his case, as he feels compelled to stick up for the people he befriends, as well as for his girlfriend. He plays an uphill battle, as few people other than him seem to care that prostitutes are getting murdered, and the police aren't lifting a finger to help. You have to root for an underdog like that. Vic's story is good as well, but she doesn't get as involved with most of the victims.

I will say one thing against the story though. It's good suspense. The segways back and forth through time are seamless. The plot twists are good. However, the ending is a let-down. I won't spoil it, but it's definitely and noticeably disappointing. That's a shame.

Unfortunately, the rest of the game isn't nearly as good as the story. Like all PC adventure games, you will collect items, trigger events, and solve puzzles. This is all par for the course, but where Still Life fails is in the intuitiveness of the puzzles, as well as their relevance to the story. Some of the logic behind the puzzles in this game will have you scratching your head for an hour until you guess something right. The one puzzle that signifies the frustration of this game the best is probably the cookie baking puzzle. You have to bake a pan of cookies, but you have to decipher the nonsensical recipe by making lots of guesses until you get it right. You actually have to do this to advance the story in a murder mystery game. Let's not also forget the hair-pullingly frustrating exercise known as lock-picking. These kind of puzzles don't really enhance the story at all. They just grind it to a halt.

Another major beef with this game is the length. Assuming it doesn't take several hours to solve each puzzle, one could complete this game in seven hours on the first try. It needs to be much longer to be worth the price. Games such as this give little reason to play through a second time as well, which makes the length all the more inexcusable.

As far as graphics go, Still Life is painfully average. The pre-rendered backgrounds are very well done, and make the atmosphere great, but that's nothing a PS1 couldn't do. The 3D characters look too blocky to be a 2004 game, and the Full Motion Video sequences are well below quality compared to what other contemporary games are presenting. Not to mention, none of the characters' words match their lips even slightly.

If you are a die-hard PC adventure fan who would love to see a newer take on this ancient genre, Still Life might satisfy. Casual PC gaming fans who aren't a fan of adventure games probably aren't going to be drawn in by the short game life and annoying puzzles. The plot is engrossing and engaging enough on its own to nearly warrant the purchase, but the flaws and brevity of the game mean this won't be for everyone.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/22/06