"Danger: Stay Away"

Blackstar is not the type of game you'd expect to find sitting on your local game store's shelf, but instead, it's one of the many Shareware/Abandonware titles that circle the internet. Reason? This title was the hobby of famous heavy metal musician Thomas Vitacco, who designed it, wrote it and programmed it all in his spare time. This one-man team was able to push out a Point-And-Click game with many ideas and puzzles borrowed from other titles, such as Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion, and since it was only a "hobby", he never truly released it, but shared it around with friends and family.

For Blackstar, the graphics are surprisingly pretty good for a game of this caliber, with some mighty high detailed scenes in most areas. They're not perfect, or even animated for that matter, but all of those small details in the artwork just add to the feel of the game. So, instead of having big, empty backgrounds with only the important stuff drawn in, you've got a scene brimming with colour and added elements - A book shelf doesn't have one book, but hundreds of uniquely drawn ones. Now, with good, comes bad, so we've got a downside to this, which is that sadly, all of these details can infuriate players. "How?" Point-And-Click titles are all about examining the entire scene, picking out clues and useful items from irrelevant details, but when there are loads of potentials interactions on screen (back to the bookcase example, you need just one book, but you've got hundreds to look through), so it can overwhelm them. Sometimes the object you're looking for is so small, that you miss it entirely, and then when you've given up on the game, you read that you needed to pick up a coin hidden under a leaf.

"A coin...under the leaf??! How was I meant to know that?!"

Bingo. You don't. It's annoying stuff. And not to mention, interacting with the game is a hard task to manage due to bad controls. Basically, to negate an action or read on, you need to click the Right Mouse Button...several times, because it doesn't seem to understand. It's the correct way to do it, of course, but just a single mouse click alone doesn't seem to work. According to my calculations, mixing Infuriating Puzzles + Glitchy Controls = Very tedious and strenuous to your fingers and mental health.

If you want to know the gist of the story, don't ask, since it's a very cliche plot that you could recite backwards. Blackstar (that is his real name, by the way) is an American Indian who left the tribe to become a Private Detective in New York. After having months of sitting around with no cases, he is suddenly thrust into a sinister plot involving his dead mother. Dun dun dun. It's a pretty interesting story, but it's some what old. Maybe the Native American background is a new twist, but it's still the same old story: Washed out detective, has one last case of his life.... Plus the gritty crime story was most likely an excuse to just throw in the random sex that's found in the game. Prostitutes line the streets, strip-clubs are plentiful and loose-talking women are everywhere. Hell, even your best friend is a call-girl, your every choice of dialogue is filled with innuendo and there's even a Peeping-Tom level where you must look at naked women through their windows with a pair of binoculars. ...Why? What good is having random sexual themes thrown in going to do? I just don't understand why Tom Vitacco decided to flood the game with these strong adult references for, but it certainly didn't do Blackstar any good, as in my opinion it was the final nail in the coffin to condemn an otherwise good game.

For sound? ...Well, I didn't even hear anywhere. Not a note. Being designed by musician, I was surprised by this. Maybe I screwed up the sound setup or something, but I can only imagine it to be nothing but MIDIs, and rather poor quality ones at that, too. As for the sound effects, same goes. I don't know whether it has them or not, but I can only assume that they're hardly going to be the greatest in the world.

To sum up, Blackstar is not a game I recommend you play. Last time I checked, the game was Freeware, so there's no fees or money to hand over, but only your time and energy. Don't bother. It's not worth it, and there are much, much better Freeware titles out there in adventure game communities.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 10/31/05, Updated 06/22/06