There's a killer on the loose. (Still Life (PC))

Member Name: welshfruitbat

Product:	Still Life (PC)
Date:	10/05/06 (673 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great gameplay and storyline.

Disadvantages: The ending.

~~ Background ~~

My husband bought me this game back last year for my birthday. It was in game priced at £15.99 or any two for £25. He bought me the Harry Potter Trilogy to go with it, making four games for £25 a good price. Although at £15.99 on its own it’s still fairly reasonably, but you would be better off looking around as I managed to find it on sale now online for the following prices;
Amazon – from £7.28 to £19.91 plus postage and packaging.
Ebay - £7.40 plus postage and packaging.
Play.com - £14.99 free postage and packaging.


~~ General Information ~~

Still life was produced in 2004 by Microids (who also produced Syberia I and II, which are supposed to be excellent, although I have yet to try them). It is rated as an 18 game and quite rightly so as it does include scenes of violence and gore – although not a large amount, and also contains bad language.

The minimum system requirements are;
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
Pentium III 800 Mhz
32 MB 3D Card DirectX 8.1 compatible
128 MB RAM
600 MB free on hard disk
16X speed CD-Rom
DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card.

The recommended system requirements are;
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
Pentium III 1.0 Ghz
NVidia GeForce or ATI Radeon (or equivalent) video card
256 MB RAM
1200 MB free on hard disk
24X speed CD-Rom
DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card.


~~ The Plot ~~

This is one of those games where you play the part of two characters – Victoria McPherson, an FBI agent in modern day Chicago and Gus McPherson (Victoria’s grandfather), who is a Private Investigator in Prague in the 1920’s.

The game starts with you playing Victoria. You are investigating a serial murder case and have been called to investigate the murder scene of victim number five. All five victims have been plied with alcohol, drugged and stabbed. It now seems that the murderer is becoming viler, as he also mutilates victims four and five. There is no evidence, no leads and no witnesses. Tired and stressed out about the case, Victoria decides to go and stay with her dad.

Whilst staying with her dad she decides to go through some of her grandfathers things. Whilst going through an old trunk in the attic, she finds his case notes on a murder case he was working on in Prague in the 1920’s.

At this point we leave Victoria in Chicago and start playing as Gus in 1920’s Prague.

Gus is going out with Ida, an ex prostitute. It seems as though there is a serial killer on the loose who is out to murder as many prostitutes as possible. Bodies are turning up of prostitutes which have been stabbed and mutilated. The police have no evidence, leads or witnesses. Ida asks if Gus will take on the case and help the police before all of her friends are murdered.

Back in present day Chicago Victoria realises that this case sounds very similar to the one she is now investigating. Could it possibly be the same person responsible for them all, or is it a copycat killer, or even does someone know about the case her grandfather was investigating and wants to torment her.

This is the basic outline of the game. You play a certain amount of time as one character and then the game switches to the other character. Even though the game switches between the two, it doesn’t get confusing at all.


~~ Graphics ~~

I must admit that I was very surprised at to how good the graphics on this game were. The backgrounds, items you use etc are well defined. At some points you could easily forget that it’s a computer game and not a television programme.


~~ Puzzles ~~

As with all point and click adventure games you have a few puzzles to solve. Some of the puzzles are fairly simple, where you just need to sit back and think logically about something, whilst some are a bit more difficult. Although there was one puzzle that had me tearing my hair out – namely the lock picking puzzle. I tried for ages to do this and just couldn’t do it. I got my hubby to have a go as he’s good with these sort of puzzles and he couldn’t do it. In the end after being stuck for so long I must confess I cheated and went online and searched for the answer.

There was also another puzzle – namely the baking cookies puzzle that I also had to go online to work out. I worked part of it out on my own, but just couldn’t get the rest of it. It would have been better if maybe they had put a little more help in with this one.


~~ Game play ~~

The game plays really well. The characters and action moves on at a good speed. With some older games you would find that you click somewhere and your character will move there eventually. With this game that doesn’t happen. You click for your character to move and they start doing so straightaway. Likewise if you ask them to perform a task.

As you move from location to location the screen loads up very quickly – you are not hanging around just waiting. The screen moves as you do.


~~ Controls ~~

You control the game using just the mouse, which makes a pleasant change as so many point and click games today require you to use both mouse and keyboard. This makes it difficult to remember which keys do what.

As I just said this game uses just the mouse. Your left mouse button is your action button, which you use for walking, talking, doing etc. Your right mouse is for your menu.

The menu allows you the normal load, save and quit option. Plus it also allows you to access your inventory, case notes, journal etc.


~~ Icons ~~

You will come across a variety of icons whilst playing this game. The icons are as follows;

The wheel – this means that there is nothing specific to do and you need to move your icon to a different section in order to find something to do.
The highlighted wheel – this means that you can move to another area from here.
The spanner – this means there is something for you to do in this area.
The speech bubble – this means you can talk to someone.
The magnifying glass – this means you can look at something more closely and maybe find out some valuable information.
The hand – this means you can pick up an item.
The fist – this means you can use an item.
The star – this means that you can leave the current location at this point and move to a different one on the map.

There are some other icons which only appear at the top right hand side of the screen;

A book – this appears when some information has been entered into your journal.
A map/computer icon – this appears when a new location has been added to the game for you to access.
An envelope – this appears when you find or are given a new document.

~~ Music ~~

There isn’t really a lot to say about the music, apart from there is a haunting piece which is played softly in the background.


~~ My Opinion ~~

I have to be honest, I loved this game. It kept me interested in playing and had a believable plot.

The graphics were superb – I wasn’t stuck for ages trying to work out what things were meant to be.

The icons were easy to see and work out what each one was for, without having to constantly refer back to the playing manual.

I think it deserves the 18 rating it has been given, due to the nature of the game.

The puzzles were good and although some of the puzzles I had seen before in one form or another, kept me interested.

I definitely will be able to go back and play this game again, although I would leave it for a while so I ‘forget’ about the game and play it fresh, rather than just from memory.

The only disadvantage to this game in my opinion, was the ending. You don’t find out who the murderer is – although you will have probably lined a few people up during the game to be the killer. The playing manual does say that you can find out more and continue to play online by going to the website. I was really looking forward to logging onto this site and either playing more, or finding out if I was right with whom I thought the killer was. I tried several times to log on, but it kept saying the page could not be displayed. Curious to see if anyone else had this problem, I logged on to one of the forums, where someone had a similar problem. It actually looks as though the website is no longer working so I may never know if I would have found out the killer from this site, or if indeed I could have played it online. Maybe they are planning a sequel and that’s why the website is no longer working – who knows – I live in hope.


~~ Would I recommend ~~

Most definitely yes. If you like a good adventure game with an interesting storyline that will draw you in completely, then this is the one for you. Happy adventuring!!


Thanks for taking the time to read, Cath. xx

Summary: A great point and click adventure game.