Author: Neilie Johnson | 
Still Life 2 has been a long time coming. Four years ago we played the first Still Life and were glued to the screen in anticipation of uncovering the identity of the killer. Then we sat there in shock as the killer escaped unrevealed and the credits rolled. Due to the various corporate machinations of 2005, we reluctantly resigned ourselves to the unlikelihood of a sequel being made, but fast forward four years and the impossible has happened.
Still Life 2 isn't just the sequel to Still Life; it's the third in a trilogy that began with 2003's Post Mortem. All three games involve a member of the McPherson family, starting with detective Gus McPherson in the 1920's and ending with his granddaughter, present day FBI agent Victoria "Vic" McPherson. The story of Still Life 2 is complex, especially since it bears the burden of resolving the cliff-hanger ending of the previous game. It does that fairly elegantly in a series of flashbacks while moving forward with the story of a new serial murderer, Maine's "East Coast Killer."
Time to find some clues.
As in the previous game, you control two characters; this time it's Vic McPherson and her nemesis, nosy reporter Paloma Hernandez. Like most reporters, Hernandez values story over safety so at game start she's abducted by the killer. From then on, the gameplay alternates between investigation and survival, depending on whom you control. During investigative mode you control Vic whose keen insight and two key tools--her Smart Phone and her CSIA kit--make her a formidable agent. The Smart Phone stores files, documents, and contacts, as well as a list of gameplay objectives. The CSIA is basically a forensics lab in a box and contains a 3D scanner, a digital microscope, revealer spray (for revealing blood stains), fingerprint powder, sampling swabs, tongs, a computer key to help you crack encrypted files, and something called an "electric nose." This last is supposed to help you sample and analyze gases but you won't have much occasion to use it. The kit also comes with a computer that allows you to perform chemical, computer, and database analyses.
Still Life 2 isn't just the sequel to Still Life; it's the third in a trilogy that began with 2003's Post Mortem. All three games involve a member of the McPherson family, starting with detective Gus McPherson in the 1920's and ending with his granddaughter, present day FBI agent Victoria "Vic" McPherson. The story of Still Life 2 is complex, especially since it bears the burden of resolving the cliff-hanger ending of the previous game. It does that fairly elegantly in a series of flashbacks while moving forward with the story of a new serial murderer, Maine's "East Coast Killer."
Time to find some clues.
As in the previous game, you control two characters; this time it's Vic McPherson and her nemesis, nosy reporter Paloma Hernandez. Like most reporters, Hernandez values story over safety so at game start she's abducted by the killer. From then on, the gameplay alternates between investigation and survival, depending on whom you control. During investigative mode you control Vic whose keen insight and two key tools--her Smart Phone and her CSIA kit--make her a formidable agent. The Smart Phone stores files, documents, and contacts, as well as a list of gameplay objectives. The CSIA is basically a forensics lab in a box and contains a 3D scanner, a digital microscope, revealer spray (for revealing blood stains), fingerprint powder, sampling swabs, tongs, a computer key to help you crack encrypted files, and something called an "electric nose." This last is supposed to help you sample and analyze gases but you won't have much occasion to use it. The kit also comes with a computer that allows you to perform chemical, computer, and database analyses.
|
Author: Jason Ocampo |
The Humans is a puzzle platform game that's decidedly more puzzle than platform, and it's a puzzling game in its own right. That's because while it's designed for gamers three and up, the difficulty of the puzzles may confound the younger set. At the same time, the sheer repetitiveness of the action will dull out the older set. The result is a game that probably works best for slightly older kids, the kind with nearly unlimited amounts of patience.
In The Humans, you must guide a tribe of caveman ancestors through a series of platforming puzzles, with obstacles ranging from gaping chasms that must be leapt over, hostile tribe members who must be avoided or dealt with, and even roaming dinosaurs. It's that last bit that irks me, as dinosaurs and humans never interacted with one another (there's about a 65 million year gap between the two), and this is the kind of game where impressionable tykes will get the wrong ideas reinforced. Platforming in the Stone Age. Anyway, the goal in each puzzle is to basically get your caveman to a hut, or retrieve some crucial bit of technology (like a rope), or to free a squarish caveman lass from the hostile tribe. You only get five lives per puzzle, and if a caveman misses a jump or gets eaten by a dinosaur you use up a life. Once all five lives are exhausted you have to restart the entire puzzle. Where it gets annoying is the nature of the puzzles. The difficulty translates into a lot of trial-and-error as you figure out the process of events required to solve it. For instance, you might retrieve a spear early on which you can use to kill a dinosaur, but then you'll discover that you actually needed to spare the dinosaur because you needed the spear later on to kill a hostile tribal member. In that case, you'll have to restart the level and try again. It's also way too easy to misjudge a jump or accidentally walk off an edge (you usually get a warning animation of the caveman trying to keep his balance, but certain edges lack that warning so the caveman suddenly plummets to his death). It's also way too easy to accidentally throw away a critical item by hitting the wrong button. All this adds up to some frustration and a lot of restarting till you get the process of events down perfectly. Author: Dan Adams |
For a game made by two people and on sale for $15, this is a pretty decent entry to the economic strategy market even if it's unlikely to win any awards. Starting on future Earth, Light of Altair challenges players to push out into the solar system and, eventually, nearby stars in the galaxy. It's all about constructing colonies on planets, building up resources, and massing fleets for war. While the concept is great and the game has a low barrier of entry for players just getting into strategy, veteran players will probably find frustration along with the fun and will be left wishing for a little more complexity.
While many strategy games put most of their emphasis on military strategy and tactics, Light of Altair shies away from that by putting the emphasis on the economics of colonization and war. In this way, it's probably more comparable to games like the Anno series than Sins of a Solar Empire (minus the obvious sci-fi space comparison.) Each scenario puts you in charge of a fledgling colony which you must build to prosperity in order to colonize yet more planets in the system and compete with rival factions. Fleets mobilizing. Once you've colonized a few planets and grown them successfully, you'll know the pattern and some of the game's initial luster will wear off. There are no considerations about trading goods between planets so in many cases there's very little reason to pick one planet over another for colonization. There also aren't as many terrain considerations when expanding colonization on a planet as in a normal city builder or grand strategy game. Where building economy and eventually a military presence in a game such as 1701 A.D. or The Settlers (or even a standard RTS like Age of Empires) becomes trickier, more complicated, and more fun with new terrain designed for challenges, Altair eliminates the necessity for deep consideration about how you're going to set up a planet. Of course, this has the great opposite effect of being easy to learn, which lowers the level of complication for players new to the genre. |
More Articles...
