"Original and Surprising"

A truly excellent game by David Cage. A truly original idea of normal game, turned into a movie worth several Oscars, where the story is mixed with murder investigation/puzzle/horror.

GRAPHICS 7/10

Could have done better, more lifelike since this is supposed to recreate a real life movie. But still with the very good light effects when the light moves through the windows and creates a very powerful illusion. The rest is just like any other average game.

GAMEPLAY 10/10

One of the most thought through and original ideas to create the most realistic gameplay EVER. First the most obvious is the tension between the characters in the game and the person playing the game. It is planned carefully, according to the reactions of the player due to scare tactics and surprise, the character in the game reacts the same. This is also related to the 'stress bar' which goes up and down according to what the character experiences. Another interesting thing is that the scenes where you talk to characters to reveal clues and information to what is going to happen, but the difference out of other games is that you can control the dialog to you advantage; or sometimes the other way around...

SOUND 9/10

There is nothing special about the music in this game, apart from fitting the scene. But in most cases, when the music does play in the scenes, it very much intrudes with the dialog, which can be made very hard to understand since there are no sub-titles. But the voice acting was very convincing.

REPLAY VALUE 7/10

Well, the game itself does not offer any REAL replay value, but players might be tempted to play the game again, and do different things to the story, but casual players would just leave this alone, and probably never play it again.

CONTROLS 6/10

This is where the game trips up on itself. Very much like FF X-2 which had the same problem. The controls are sometimes non-responsive to where you are pointing the analog stick to, on top of that, the camera changes when you move somewhere different like up the stairs or through a corridor, and this makes you go the other direction again. other than that its pretty simple with you only having to use the two analog sticks which is a shame, since there are many buttons left untouched.

LENGTH 8/10

Very well done up game, and quite long as well. The game takes you about 24-36 hours to beat. Now for me, this is enough to last a week or so, checking out every aspect of the game. But casual games who play 1-2 hours a day, this will take them a very long time indeed.

STORY 10/10

A truly frightening story of a murdered, thought to be crazy, but in fact, had been possessed. The whole plot is surprise after surprise, with calm in between, which is what makes this game like an Oscar-nominated movie.

CHARACTERS 9/10

Most of the characters have original characteristics which provides extra backup to the story. But some characters, mainly the police, are some-what cliche. I classic bossy character, with the energetic partner.

OVERALL

The game shows a truly, truly original idea, which is shaken, not stirred with the small trip-ups that the game has. I hope that more games come out with such original ideas as this.

RENT or BUY

I would suggest you buy this if you like these horror/murder sort of games, and you would like to complete it to find out what has happened, which in turn, is truly twisted. But if you are not sure if you like these sort of games, you could simply rent the game first.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/27/05