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A Benoit Sokal Murder Mystery

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: August 17, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Praise should be given to Benoit Sokal for developing yet another intriguing and beautifully rendered point-and-click adventure game (like Amerzone, Syberia, and Syberia II). The game is different than his previous ones in that Sinking Island revolves around a murder mystery, making the adventure all the more fun.

The plot centers on a billionaire who is found murdered on his private island, Sagorah in the Maladives (based on the Maldives, I'm assuming). Walter Jones has built a massive Art Deco Revival hotel for the wealthy "jet-set" elites. But it is unfinished and structurally unsound, and there happens to be a powerful hurricane building in the area! Jones has invited his three grandchildren and their spouses/love interests, the hotel's architect, and Jones' personal attorney to the hotel for the weekend. There are also two natives living in a hut on the island. When Jones is found washed up on a rocky beach with his head bashed in, the mystery ensues. You play the part of detective, Jack Norm who is flown out to the island to investigate and as you do you begin to uncover the dark secrets of Jones and the 10 suspects as you question them and pick up clues scattered all about the island.

MAY CONTAIN SLIGHT SPOILERS:

Like most of Sokal's other games, there is a lot of running back and forth through screens that never have anything in them to click on, they are just there to look pretty and add to the atmosphere (which is very well kept, I must say!), which of course adds a lot of wasted time to gameplay. Another disappointment that goes along with this is that there are very few things to click on which is good when you're trying to find clues but not so good when you're wandering around...I mean they could have utilized their space more. The plot is very much like a modernized Agatha Christie-type story that one finds in many TV mystery shows, the only real advancement is having it placed in a sumptuous Art Deco Revival Hotel on a secluded island in the Indian Ocean. The major problem I had with this game was the atrocious final cinematic. The opening was OK, but the ending was just ridiculous at times. Not only did some characters change appearance, but some changed their personality for no apparent reason (right before the ending they were calm, but when you enter the room at the end, they are all of a sudden crazy). Then, I expected that we'd see very cool shots of the beautiful interiors flooding in a "Titanic" fashion, but no, we just see a rather cartoonish-feeling shot of the tower just sliding under the water...I'm unsure how the ocean rose or the island sank enough to consume 22+ stories of building, though. Then, when Jack is explaining everything to the survivors, it sounds like he's an elementary teacher taking questions from his students and explaining the details to their childish minds (not to mention that everyone seemed so unaffected by the calamity, there was nobody crying, or nervous, or anything!)...I don't know that might be a little of an exaggeration, but it just irked me a lot, that ending cinematic! After putting together such a well-crafted game, they almost ruined it with a really dumb ending.

Also, I played the game on an older PC but with a GEforce 5500 FX graphics card and I still had some issues running the game with high graphics quality (probably due to my lower processing speed). So, it should likely work fine on 2.0+ GHZ processors with more than 600 MB of RAM and at least medium-level graphics capabilities (of course you can always lower the level of detail in game, but I feel it detracts from the atmosphere--being that it stops the rain, blowing palm trees, lightning strikes, etc. And it's a DVD-ROM game, so it won't work on regular CD Drives.

So, overall I'd probably give this game a 3.5/5 but I rounded up to 4/5 because I feel the game's pros rather outweighed the cons.

Sinking Island sinks right into shallow water with it's story:

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: September 03, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I love adventure games because they make you think and usually have great stories that you can follow along with. In the case with Sinking Island it has a great atmosphere based on a tropical island in the Indian Ocean.

There is a hurricane (cyclone) as they call them in this part of the world brewing nearby which adds to the atmosphere of the game but then comes the story that sinks right into shallow water from the start. I found that the story was strait forward in that you collect clues and question suspects on the island but there was no suspense to be found.

In recent games I have played for example New Life and Darkness Within there is a layer of suspense where you want to find out the next chapter in the story and can't stop playing but this is not the case with Sinking Island. Yes, there is a who done it feel to the story but by the time you reach that conclusion you are bored out of your mind with mindless questioning and clue combinations in your PDA that you really don't care. Actually it's not real hard to figure this out before hand if you pay close attention earlier in the game.

The graphics are good with nice details here and there like swaying palm trees in the wind, crabs on the beach, lightning in the sky, etc. but once you get inside the tower and move aimlessly from floor to floor the game bogs down. Don't get me wrong Sinking Island is a good quality game but it takes more than a good reputation from a well known author who created the well known Siberia series to impress me.

If you like murder mysteries and don't mind many hours of questioning people and clue searching then Sinking Island will be a good choice but if your like me and want more suspense and edge of your seat type of story look else where.

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