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Still Life
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Game Name:
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Still Life |
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Console:
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PC |
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Reviewed:
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Unknown |
Adventure games are like the black sheep of the gaming industry, especially in recent years. While other games have continued to become thrillers with amazing sales that push the limits of gameplay, graphics, and overall presentation, adventure games have bitten the dust for the most part. Why? Tough call. But Still Life, a new game from Microids and The Adventure Company, hopes to break this monotony and strive in a downfallen adventure genre. Can it succeed?
The story is matching for an adventure game. You take the role of a female FBI agent who has been investigating some nasty murders recently. It is your job to solve the crimes. This story is actually quite intriguing and it is well presented with good quality pre-rendered movies. So, the premise of the game is intact at least, and we all know the story is the most pivotal point of an adventure title. Now, moving on…
Gameplay wise, Still Life is your typical point-and-click adventure title. Simply tap down the button to move to an area, investigate an item, pick up an object, etc. Most of your time will be spent scavenging through crime scenes and looking for clues and evidence to help you solve the crimes. You can also spend time talking to NPC’s to try and get some information out of them. Not an overly developed part of the game, but somewhat useful nonetheless. The rest of your time will be spent solving puzzles, exactly what you should expect to be doing in an adventure game.
Like most adventure games, Still Life looks very nice and polished. It uses pre-rendered environments and they are all well detailed and designed. The characters look decent and have pretty good animations, but they definitely could have used some more work. For how realistic the game tries to come off as, the somewhat “cartoony” look of the game can definitely throw you off. But to counteract the downside are the excellent pre-generated cinemas which are of great quality and, as already mentioned, really help to advance the story.
The sound is nothing to brag about. The music does nothing for the game and the special effects are bland and empty. The voice acting has some solid aspects, but the poor acting from the main character really drags down the game. This is the one area that could have used a lot more work and polish.
Replay in an adventure game? Blasphemous! Seems like no adventure title has ever tried to put much effort into the replay department, and Still Life is no exception. Once the game is finished, if you like it enough to take it that far, there will be absolutely no reason to go back and play the game again.
Still Life just ends up being a typical adventure game. It has some fun parts and good refined point-and-click adventure gameplay, but it is lacking in many of the other fields, mainly presentation and effects, that other adventure games also fail in. Is the adventure genre truly headed to an ultimate demise? That remains to be seen, but Still Life has done nothing to fix the problem.
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