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A mature game that starts very well, but ends a bit unfinished

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: February 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is a follow on to the well rated Post-Mortem, which I have not yet had the opportunity to play, but playing that game is in no way required. Still Life starts out with a beautiful opening movie and musical score to immerse you in the story. The gameplay is exciting and thrilling as you get to play both as modern day FBI agent Victoria McPherson in Chicago, and later as her grandfather in old pre-war Prague. It seems that Victoria's pursuit of a vicious and macabre serial killer is somehow linked to a similar string of murders that her grandfather investigated many years ago.

The first ten minutes of gameplay are fantastic and gruesome. This is a mature game with gory depictions of violent murder, and thus is not for the faint of heart. But the gore is not the focus of the game, but rather the macabre pursuit and mysterious connection to the murders in Prague seventy years before. The psychotic scene that you will unearth at the first crime scene is very creepy and very well done!

Later on Victoria will discover her grandfather's journal, at which point you will begin playing as Gus McPherson in old Prague. This was my favorite part of the game; every time I switched back to modern day Victoria I couldn't wait to get back back to the old world of Prague, but both settings were fun to play and interconnected, the puzzles were well done and fairly intuitive, and the imagery was engrossing.

Now for the bad parts: First, Ubisoft bought out Microids as this game was being published, and it shows. It feels very unfinished when all is over, and virtually none of the mystery is solved. There is some hint that the game was 'to be continued', but with Ubisoft's decision not to buy Microid's game property this is very unlikely. Regardless, the ending just felt unnatural and disappointing.

Secondly, you can tell that two different development teams worked on the game. Not only was the gameplay different between Chiago and Prague (which is actually a plus) but the characters seem to have different physics models (Gus moves and runs naturally while Victoria seems to run in place and gets stuck behind objects in the game). Also, Prague was much more non-linear and had more places you could visit without feeling like you were looking for a needle in a haystack. Chicago on the other hand was more of a linear adventure which served mainly to fold the two stories together. Chicago should have been a larger and less linear setting.

Finally, while the best part of the game was the opening CSI style crime scene investigation that starts the game, it is not continued. While in the beginning you have to find clues and unearth a creepy message from the killer, the latter part of the game, particularly Chicago, is largely constrained to talking to people while collecting items and solving puzzles. No more crime scene investigation and only sparse pursuit of and contact with the killer... it just didn't seem to connect well. Fortunately, the Praque sequence holds everything together.

Despite all that, I do recommend this game. It is an excellent example of how good adventure games can be when done right... it is just too bad that all that was done right wasn't carried through to a conclusion.

Really disappointing.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: April 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game was extremely disappointing for me.The profanity is unnecessary and trite-a forced use of the F-bomb that fits neither the dialogue nor the atmosphere.The lack of an ending:this game ended so fast I think I have whiplash.I'm pretty sure it ended because I saw the credits roll.Only the ending from a S.King movie can abuse a person this bad.The game play is linear but the story line didn't make up for it.I think the only puzzle I enjoyed was the lockpicking. It starts easy,so you can understand it, and then became a bit harder in the end(so you can think). The rest were either stupidly easy or impossible(the cookies!!).I think if this game ended,I could recommend it, but I feel like I just got ripped off.I wouldn't bother unless you are a die-hard adventure fan and need a fix.

Fun but short

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: February 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game was really fun as it reminded me a lot of the other games i have like syberia 1 &2 and the longest journey. the story was fun but i thought it was too shrt and the ending was a little anticlimactic. I do like how they ended it, it makes you want to play a sequal, but just the abruptness of the ending was what was disapointing. still i really liked the game.

One Of The Best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game surprised me. I was hoping for a good solid game like Post Mortem (it's predecessor) but instead I found one of the best games I had ever played. This is a gritty thriller targeted at a mature audience and it's ending suggests a sequel may be likely. This game has excellent graphics and a creepy environment suitable to a murder mystery involving some type of serial killer. It's nice to look at, the locations are fun to explore, the puzzles are about the right level of difficulty, and the storyline keeps your attention and interest. If you like point and click adventures with top-notch graphics then you should definitely give this one a try.

One of those better Point-and-Click adventures.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: July 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

For some odd reason I like point and click adventure games. Mainly because you can't die. But with every point and click game, comes simple-minded puzzles. Like all the Space Quest games made by Sierra. Space Quest 6 was the only one I actually liked. It was hilarious as well. You click on something and the narrator yells at you saying, "Don't pick at it, you'll only make it worse!" with a sarcastic tone of voice.

Anyway, Still Life is one of my favorite point and click adventures. The game starts out like any murder investigation game. You arrive at the scene of the crime. Only this time, you have coffee in your hands! OH MY GOD! COFFEE! Ahem... you talk to the police officer at the door and he starts bitching about how cold it is and uses the word and any suffix he can think of of the word "f***". "It's too f***ing cold", or "This is f***ed up", or "Don't listen to that f***". We get the picture. After you leave the spazoid alone with his coffee, you make your way up the stairs to see your weak-stomached friend next to the fridge. Apparently he just puked all over the crime scene and doesn't really give a s***. You talk to him, he explains stuff, and he gets coffee. Once you reach the bathroom where the murder victim is, you approach the person who deals with murdered people. Then you are sent to find any evidence you struggle to find.

The game picks itself up when you finally get home and look through your grandfather's old cases. Before you do that, you have to solve a stupid puzzle that took me a while to solve. It wasn't that hard to figure out either. When solving puzzles, you generally have to look around the same room or something to find some kind of solution. Each puzzle give you some clue in order to solve it. You have to look carefully.

The voiceovers are nice. Since 98% of the game is voice acted, you won't really have to read anything. The voice actors have good emotions in the situation at hand. You see a dead person on the floor, the character has a low tone of voice and wispers some thing like "oh s***..." or something. Forget it. I'm not good at explaining voice overs. Let's just say it's good.

The background graphics are rendered like the old Resident Evil games. The characters on the other hand are what you would find in "The Sims". Yes, the characters look that bad. The backgrounds look absolutely beautiful. Whether it's outside Richard's art gallery or outisde the club, they look amazing. The cutscenes are very nice. Although they're only like three minutes of movie, they are nice.

Even though this is a point and click adventure, it was pretty addicting (to me anyway). The story made you want to venture around that next corner instead of making you want to quit. Since the gameplay is pretty straightforward, you won't spend alot of time trying to figure out what the hell to do. Characters or past items usually give some clue on where you should go.

If you're not a big fan of point and click puzzle games, stay away from this game. If you don't really give two s***s whether or not it is a point and click game, pick this one up. The only thing that will disappoint you is the ending and how short it is.
(...)

Best in a long time

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: September 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is probably the best we have played since the Dracula Resurrection and Dracula Sanctuary series.

This game has good environments/graphics and realistic dialogue.

Most importantly ithas a better storyline than most movies we have been renting lately

Sicko Plot, Bad Ending and Tired Stereotypes=NOT Fun

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 12
Date: January 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Warning: This game involves VERY disturbing subject matter. I'm sure that this review will garner a good number of "not helpfuls" from those who are diehard fans of this sort of game. So be it.

The first game in this duet was Post Mortem, which I purchased because I like Paris, period mysteries, challenging puzzles, and great graphics. Post Mortem was a little twisted, but NOTHING like this sicko sequel.

In Still Life, the developers at Microids have pushed detailed descriptions of horrific murders to stomach churning limits. The problem is that none of the forensic details have anything to do with solving the puzzles or finding the murderer.

I finished the game only because I paid my money and took my chances. It was not FUN. The one saving grace was that the carved up bodies (and body parts) are not rendered realistically enough to REALLY make you throw up.

Gameplay was for the most part smooth on my Dell laptop, although Victoria sometimes ran or walked in place for a few seconds before continuing her gruesome work.

The level of difficulty in solving the puzzles varies. Some are challenging, some were so illogical that in spots Still Life is tiresome. The robot sequence is one of the best and most maddening puzzles. You will undoubtedly have to start over again and again as you cannot save your game in puzzle sequence. It gets easier as you memorize previous moves and progress through the robot manuever.

It was offensive to me that the only African American males (a cop and a bouncer) in the game are portrayed as foul mouthed idiots. Studies have shown that 80% of video games contain negative stereotypes of African American males. Sadly, this is what young gamers have become accustomed to--they think it's amusing.

Stereotypes aside, ADVENTURE COMPANY, if you are going to include black characters, A. CAST THEM WITH BLACK ACTORS! And, B., lose the offensive stereotypes. The Hispanic janitor was almost as bad, but at least he wasn't an expletive spewing misogynist. And, go figure, the gainfully employed men sound like thugs and the hookers sound like finishing school graduates.

And, while we're at it, if part of the story takes place in Europe, please hire actors who can at least manage a vaguely European accent! A lot of the dialogue sounds translated: there is a disconnect between the dialogue that the "Americans" speak in the game and idiomatic English.

The ending is unsatisfactory, even if you watch the credits until the end. Small frys (Microids Canada), take note. You never know when you'll get gobbled up by a bigger fish (UbiSoft) who doesn't want your inventory-- (and who can BLAME them?) Each game in a series should be able to stand on its own; don't make the mistake that Microids did and assume that a sequel is inevitable.

No matter, based on this effort from Microids I would not purchase any sequel to this game.

UGH.

Great Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: May 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Wow what a great game! This game was just as interesting and fun as Syberia, but very graphic and violent. If those kinds of things don't bother you, then this is the game for you! I had to give it only four stars just because of the ending...

disappointed already...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: July 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

i liked the demo for this game and was hoping for fun. everything was fine until the point i couldn't get into the morgue because my key card didn't work. after trying everything i could think of, i had to consult a walkthrough. what annoys me is that there was no hint before in the game that i would have to use this method to solve anything, or indeed that i COULD even use that particular method. i'm so annoyed by this, it has tainted my whole view of the game. i see nothing like this in the indigo prophecy. while that game has its own problems that i covered in my review of it, it did a better job at the type of things in this game. what is it with adventure game makers today? they just can't seem to get it right. people complain about adventure games dying, yet no good ones are ever made..

i like the main character, it has good graphics, and the story seems good enough, but it doesn't make up for the boring gameplay

Still Life

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: August 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This was a very good mystery
puzzles were not off the wall, ie, some game puzzles have no logic and can only be solved by using walkthroughs.

there were no game glitches, every thing worked as it should.

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