"Lets solve America's first modern serial killer mystery"

Black Dahlia is an adventure game by Take 2 Interactive. The game is very unique when compared to other games because it blends in three historic facts in its story line:

1) The region of terror carried out by the torso killer, America’s first modern day serial killer that scared the hell out of the people of Cleveland, Ohio. He was never apprehended, even though ''untouchable'' Eliot Ness risked his whole career on the mystery.

2) The rise of fascism in Europe, and the destruction of Poland and France by Nazi Germany made people believe Germany had something under their sleeves. People believed that the Nazis had supernatural aid; many people within Hitler’s inner circle was fascinated by mysticism, astrology, and pagan Germanic ritual.

3) The third historic event that is used in Black Dahlia is the murder of struggling actor Elizabeth Short. In January 1947, she was found tortured and dismembered in a vacant lot. A reporter nicknamed Short, Black Dahlia. There is a character named Elizabeth Short in the game, but the two are not the same. The name Black Dahlia has nothing to do with Short in this game.

So, how is the story?

You play as Jim Pearson (Darren Eliker), the COI agent sent to Cleveland to replace Walter Penski. The Coordination of Information (COI) was an agency created by President Roosevelt in 1941 to look into cases of espionage – mostly of German spies before America entered World War 2.

While the game is based on fact, the story throughout Black Dahlia is not. The developers take the great mystery of the Kingsbury Run (Torso Killer Slayings) and decided to solve the case their way. The story can get predictable at times – There is a FBI agent named Winslow you happen to meet. The second you meet him you know he’s trouble, and throughout the game, he ends up interrupting your investigation some how, for example, not giving you an important federal document. He’s a badass. Someone who is willing to do anything to win, and stomp on anyone in his path. Yet, the story keeps you into the game for the rest of the game. The concept of using unsolved murder cases is just intriguing, and while the game can get predictable, you won’t want to quit playing.

Getting into the story involves you to read – and read A LOT. For example, the first time you have control of the game, you find yourself in Pearson’s office. A newspaper clipping in his drawer is a short article about the COI. There are papers you can read about German mythology in the file cabinet. While it’s not necessary to read all of this to get through the game, it makes the game much more exciting.

Story line is great, but how does it play?

The game plays like an interactive Myst, well sort of. The game is played similar to Myst, where you click on a light switch, and the light will turn on and off. Click on a newspaper, and you can read the top page of it. You can’t look at everything, however (We aren’t playing Shenmue). Your cursor changes from the Black Dahlia logo to an arrow, whenever you highlight anything that needs to be important. Just make sure you move around each and every area you come to. You never know when something important needs to be clicked on. This is somewhat annoying, because you can end up doing nothing in the game for hours, just because you didn’t check that small little hole in a dark alley. Luckily, this doesn’t happen much. Think of yourself as a detective, and finding anything important becomes obvious.

While the game play is similar to Myst, Black Dahlia is actually fun! Black Dahlia takes the idea of Myst, but allows you to look around 360 degrees! Holding down the left button allows you to turn your body around, a great feature by Take 2 that remains smooth and constant. Never did the CD skip while I was doing it. On a funny side note, if you keep spinning around, a short clip of Jim will show. I won’t ruin it for you, but it’s hilarious.

Other then point and clicking, you are forced to solve puzzles to solve the torso killer mystery. Just about every puzzle in this game is too hard to solve. For example, you are given a black list of people who might be Nazi sympathizers and spies (similar to the Red scares America had after both World Wars). Along with that, you are given a piece of paper that your predecessor, Penski used, trying to figure out how to get the phone number for a Dr. Strauss. Your job is to decode how the black list is used, and call up Dr. Strauss. I must have spent hours on this, and I got nowhere. Every major puzzle is like this, and there are 2 mazes you have to go through. Thank god we have GameFAQs, or I’d still be stuck in that damn labyrinth. However, if you are a puzzle fan this is the game for you.

How does it look?

Black Dahlia uses computers to generate real-life settings, similar to what you might have seen in 1941 Cleveland. I suppose Take 2 decided to create the setting like this for more interaction with the actors and their background. It works well for some scenes, but the characters and the background don’t match too great. It’s really obvious that the characters aren’t part of their setting, and it takes some time to get used to it. However, the characters DO interact with their setting somewhat, like opening a door, or sitting on a coach, or using a rope to slide down.

The settings are very realistic on how they are organized. It really feels like you are with Jim Pearson in 1941, trying to solve this famous case. You become part of Cleveland, entering places like the Kingsbury Run, which was similar to a Hooverville, where people with no homes could set up camp and live.

Things to look forward to…

The acting is a high point in this game as it features such actors as Dennis Hopper (Walter Penski), Teri Garr (Madam Casandra), and Darren Eliker (Jim Pearson). Eliker does a good job of playing Pearson, and Hooper and Garr are mostly cameo spots, with 10 or so minutes of dialogue. The great acting makes you think you are watching a movie – add scenes where the actors do all the work and it is one. However, this isn’t the Bouncer here. There is way too much interaction!

Black Dahlia has some nice features such as a note pad which records key moments , but you can also write what ever you want in it too. It’s fun to be a real detective and take notes on everything you see. Disappointedly, the notepad ends at 22 pages so you may end up deleting some of your older notes. Another interesting thing in Black Dahlia is when you enter McGinty’s Bar. You talk to a few people in the bar at different times during the game, but each time a Radio Broadcast comes up and talks about the situation in Europe (before America entered) and stories in Cleveland. The broadcast doesn’t change sadly, but the music played afterwards changes every once in awhile. Also, when you walk into the bar, and the broadcast begins, you can talk to someone and you can hear the broadcast over your conversation. Not something necessary, but very cool.

One last interesting feature in the game is that you meet Eliot Ness. For you History buffs, you would know that Ness was the head investigator of the Kingsbury Run mystery (The Torso Killer Mystery in this game). Also, you meet Elizabeth Short in a bar in Los Angeles, the famed actress who would eventually be named Black Dahlia.

Overall Analysis…

Black Dahlia is a great game. It was fun, and it’s one of those games where you just want to keep playing. Sadly, it contains puzzles that are just WAY too hard to complete. Personally, I like to find someone be able to go through the whole game without cheating to get past the puzzles, but I don’t think it’s possible. Luckily, GameFAQs has a guide with the pass codes to enter to get past a certain puzzle. Sigh… good thing puzzles don’t have much to do with the story, so you don’t miss much, but it definitely feels weird to say you beat a game when you needed to cheat. I never thought I would say this, but you do actually have to cheat on this game.

Well, that’s basically the only bad thing about Black Dahlia. The graphics are nice and realistic, and the character actor is pretty good for being a game. I wished that the characters would have blended in better with their settings, but that’s like asking Square to produce a Final Fantasy every 6 months. It’s just not going to happen – high-budgeted movies these days still have this problem, so it wouldn’t make too much sense for a game to have the problem fixed.

This game is really aimed to history buffs. There is tons of information you can read about German mythology, the torso killer, and astrology. The game would still be fun if you didn’t read everything, but you are definitely missing a lot.

If you can find this game, get it. You won’t be disappointed. Wait until its midnight, turn off your lights, and be spooked to death. Enjoy!

Graphics – 8/10
Difficulty – HARD
Story – 10/10 - Great real-life story to make into a game
Gameplay – 10/10 - A 360 degree Myst? Alright!
Overall 9/10 – Point off for too hard of puzzles

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/02/01, Updated 05/02/01