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> Results: Still Life
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Still Life is a beautiful looking, occasionally satisfying, but deeply flawed adventure game. Developer Microids had a daunting task in making a game containing a mature storyline while simultaneously incorporating puzzle elements that work in a modern-day setting. Still Life had the potential to be at least partially successful in achieving that vision, but fails on too many levels to even warrant admiration for aiming high yet missing the mark. Ultimately, the game will only satisfy someone who is happy with a series of disjointed puzzles coupled together with a weak story.
The storyline itself begins predictably. A serial killer is on the loose, and has already claimed the lives of five victims. It is up to the protagonist, a young FBI agent named Victoria McPherson (Vic), to put together the pieces that will expose the identity of the killer. The plot gets more interesting when Vic discovers she has a family connection to the very murders she's trying to solve. Apparently, the same sort of murders happened seventy-five years ago in Prague, and the notes of the investigation conducted long ago by Vic's PI grandfather Gus McPherson eerily echo her own in the present day. Once this information is revealed via an in-game cut-scene, the point of view of the game switches over to Gus in the 1920's and focuses on his efforts to identify the Prague murderer. It effectively creates two interrelated storylines spanning multiple generations. The two storylines continue to alternate throughout the game and the game provides a good look at the two main characters' lives and the worlds surrounding them over the course of the adventure. While Still Life does well with the two main characters, stories are never just about them. Every good story needs to have a supporting cast that you come to know and care for, if only a little. Sadly, Still Life creates little or no identification with any secondary characters introduced in the game. While there are many potential sub-plots hinted at, none of them ever get any sort of satisfactory treatment, either. Perhaps such neglect of secondary storylines would be tolerable if the main plot was handled particularly well, but it isn't, especially the ending. The final scenes, while mildly climactic, don't actually succeed in doing anything an ending should do. They don't solve the mystery, bring closure to the story, or show the resultant fundamental change in the main character.  Problems with the storyline aside, there are some positives. The highlight is the visuals. Every single backdrop, cut-scene, and menu-item are beautifully and richly portrayed, including realistic but different styles and tones for the two main settings of 1920's Prague and modern-day Chicago. In fact, there isn't a single time in the game that the graphics don't mpress, and that's saying a lot. The music is atmospheric and changes dynamically from calm to creepy when Vic or Gus are close to a lead or are walking into danger, though the lack of musical variety causes this to get old quickly. The voice acting is average for a professional cast and the voices and dialog of the African Americans in the game are way over the top, bordering on racial parody. This characterization was probably not purposeful, but it is regrettable and should have been fixed prior to the English release. The actual gameplay itself is in some ways a step backwards from that found in other games of this type. As an example, the dialog selection process in adventure games usually contains an array of initial choices which yield more or less information (including additional dialog options) depending on how well the selected dialog furthers the needs of the conversation. Not so with Still Life, which eschews all such choices in favor of merely requiring clicking on either the left or right mouse buttons until all the dialog options are gone. No risk, but also no reward for skillful or perceptive players. The net effect is akin to watching a movie but having to click at the end of every piece of dialog. It's certainly more interactive than watching a cut-scene, but dubious in terms of play value. No adventure game review would be complete without discussion of the puzzles and unfortunately many of those found in the modern era of the game are inappropriate and illogical to the point of jarring you out of the experience. Why would a staircase at a crime scene suddenly collapse when that very staircase seemed quite sturdy on the way up? Why in the world would a family chest have a bizarre combination lock of symbols that just happens to match an old necklace? The game makes no effort to justify the inclusion of these incongruent elements, and though the 1920's portion fairs better, both eras are rife with examples of completely implausible puzzles. They sacrifice the suspension of disbelief in favor of adding filler brainteaser material with no real purpose other than to extend playing time.  The last major flaw is the mechanics, primarily linearity. The game is linear to a fault. All the puzzles have only one solution and each must be solved at the exact stage of the game that the authors intended. This means no user creativity and no out-of-order actions, including not being able to pick up items that will obviously be used later on in the story. This sort of strict formula destroys any illusion of freewill and hammers home the fact that you're following a narrowly defined script of actions. While linearity is a problem with all adventure games, most offer more flexibility than can be found here. Microids had all the makings of a killer (pardon the pun) adventure game including great art, great production values and professional voice acting. But they turned those precious resources into a mechanical exercise devoid of any real magic or spark, due mainly to inappropriate puzzles, completely linear gameplay, and a plot that leaves everything unfinished. 
This is a story about a serial killer of women. Though there are a few positive characterizations, including the main character and her mentor, all the victims are prostitutes and the treatment they receive in-game is far from uplifting. Furthermore, the initial cut-scene depicts the murders of several different naked or exposed women, including the killer callously dragging the body of one completely naked victim by the legs through underground sewers. Several other gruesome murder scenes are also depicted in great detail, often with disturbing or misogynistic imagery. In addition, the language in the game is often foul, leaning towards over-the-top. The gameplay itself encourages problem solving and is generally easy enough for older teens, but don't expect anyone to get the harder puzzles without hours of trial-and-error or resorting to a walkthrough on a cheat site.
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