Still Life mini-review

REview of Still Life

Title: Still Life
Company: Dream Catcher / The Adventure Company / Microids? There are three
names all over the game and I don't know which company did what.

Copy protection: Starforce v3. There is a no-cd crack available in the
usual places.

Game summary:
The game swaps back and forth between an FBI agent in modern times and her
grandfaterh when he was a young private detective. In both time periods
the main characters pursue a serial killer; the modern one being a copycat
of the earlier one.

Linear mouse driven point and click adventure. No chance of dying. No
bugs.

Plot & Story:
The story has a good opening, quickly pleateaus into mediocrity for the
first half. The second half doesn't make any sense at all, and there is no
real conclusion, just an ending.

Graphics:
Fixed background with 3d mobile characters, common to other adventure games
on the shelf. The graphics are good enough.

Puzzles:
I thought the puzzles were good. Just the right level of difficulty, and
some new twists on old puzzles.

There were three that I didn't like; two were elaborate puzzles to perform
a mundane task, and one that didn't make sense because the story had
stopped making sense by that point.

Most of the puzzles were engaging and satisfying.

Sound:
Good enough.

Interface:
The inventory interface was clumsy.

There is no quick travel option - double clicking on an exit makes the hero
run rather than walk, but still too slow when I just wanted to get
somewhere.

Other minor annoyances:
The story is purely linear, which caused problems with one puzzle and one
inventory item. The puzzle was one where any object might do, but the game
needed a particular object. The inventory item was one that should have
many different applications, but only one place that it would work.

Overall, a solid bargain bin purchase if you're looking for some puzzle
goodness, but not if you want a coherent story.

JSwing

In article <Xns98D9E44229E35threeMusketeers.RemoveThis@216.168.3.50>,
JSwing <JSwing.RemoveThis@no.spam.please> wrote:

> REview of Still Life

Thanks for posting it.

> Title: Still Life
> Company: Dream Catcher / The Adventure Company / Microids? There are three
> names all over the game and I don't know which company did what.

Unless I'm mistaken, Microids is the developer. Dreamcatcher is a
publisher, and The Adventure Company is the part of Dreamcatcher that
publishes adventure games.

Rikard