MINI-REVIEW: Outcry (Sublustrum)

MINI-REVIEW: Outcry (Sublustrum)

Designed by Georgiy Beloglazov, Denis Tambotsev, Pavel Bogdanov, Alexey
Efremov
Phantomery Interactive: http://www.phantomery.ru/

(Review copyright 2008, Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath.RemoveThis@eblong.com>)

(Note: _Sublustrum_ is the original Russian title. The game appears as
_Outcry_ in the English-speaking world. _Outcry_ is neither _Fallout_ nor
_Far Cry_. Please adjust your expectations.)

The "hallucinatory sequence of surreal subworlds" is not untrodden territory
for adventure games. You've played them before. (Heck, *I* wrote one.) Nor
will you be surprised, in such a game, when a grim backstory begins filling
itself in from strange letters and diaries.

So _Outcry_ gets no awards for blindingly original modes of storytelling.
But so what? It plays its hand deftly. Its settings are whimsical,
surprising, and evocative. Its artwork is gorgeous -- fantastic imagery
layered with dynamic visual effects. (The first scene plays out as an
ancient film, complete with sepia tones and flickering scratches. Subsequent
scenes have their own distinctive styles.) I said "whoa" a lot. The puzzles
are satisfying. I am happy that I played it.

I can quibble, but I quibble with love.

- The translation (from Russian) is bad. This is a pity, because the writing
is decent, as far as I can tell, and the English voice actors do their best
with what's put before them. But the actual text of the game -- spoken and
written -- is barely grammatical; it's full of off-by-one synonym choices
and opaque idioms.

This is only a quibble, because I never had any problem understanding what
was meant. I just felt like everything had been written by a reclusive
Russian professor with a thick accent. (In fact, it would have worked better
if the English voice actors had *had* thick accents.)

- The visual focus was mostly good, but a couple of important objects were
too small and brown to see easily.

- A lot of sound puzzles. If you have hearing trouble, don't even try
_Outcry_. You need to spend a lot of time tweaking controls and listening to
the results.

- The first sound puzzle was enjoyable. The second one was not; it made no
sense to me even after I gave up and read a walkthrough. The third one -- I
think the creators must have perfect pitch. I couldn't make a dent until I
installed a piano app on my iPhone and started writing down pitches. (But I
*did* solve it, and it was fun to solve.)

- I'm pretty sure one of the diagrams in the game had two labels swapped.
This made its puzzle way too difficult.

- The game is small.

Short games are fine. Nothing says every game has to be a forty-hour
monster. _Outcry_ is the right length for its story. But I think it gives
short shrift to its game mechanics. There are several nifty puzzle elements,
but most of them are used just once each. A longer game would have had room
to develop and vary these elements, which would have made for a much richer
puzzle experience. (I'd even go for a short game which used *fewer* nifty
elements, but did more with each one.)

But these are quibbles. Overall, _Outcry_ is a tasty treat, and I hope the
creators stay in the business.

(Hey, a mini-review that was actually short. Surprised?)

(This review, and my reviews of other adventure games, are at
http://eblong.com/zarf/gamerev/index.html)

--Z

--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*

Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath RemoveThis @eblong.com> wrote in news:ghskll$3f0$2
@reader1.panix.com:

> (Hey, a mini-review that was actually short. Surprised?)

Not surprised; happy that you are still writing reviews (and I thank you
for putting in the effort).

Even though I haven't played a game for a year now, I still plan on getting
a few for this winter.

--
Murray Peterson
URL: http://members.shaw.ca/murraypeterson/