So in lieu of my failed attempt to retrieve childhood memories through Orpheo's Curse, I decided to buy a new computer game. I am on summer break right now and am waiting for the Nursing Program to start in the fall. I figured I could use a good challenge.
I drove over to Best Buy a few days after classes got out, and looked through the selection of games for PCs. There were Jonas Brothers Camp Rock games that I clearly wanted to save for later, stupid strategy games my dad plays, and other game styles that clearly didn't interest me. I wanted a point-and-click adventure game with puzzles and an intriguing storyline. I wanted something to keep me busy and haunt my dreams for the entire summer while I tried to navigate around a scary atmosphere and talk to strange characters.
I stumbled upon the game Shutter Island for MAC and PC. I hadn't seen the movie, and always like the feeling of elitism when I watch a movie like "I've been there before", or "this is different than the game". The previews were good enough. It had a creepy and beautiful visual quality to it, so I gave it a chance. It was rated T and up. The rating is important, because I figure that it would be a little more difficult if it was for both teenagers and adults. Ha.
I installed the game while Tony was in class, and started playing it. The imagery is very spooky, but you have to spend all of your time finding objects hidden inside other weird objects before you can do anything else. You are playing as Leonardo DiCaprio's Detective character, and your interactions with the other people are less than satisfactory. I mean, even old shitty games I played when I was younger had animated characters talking to you. In this game they just have a picture of a character and script next to them. They don't even have voice-overs! What the hell? Why put up a picture of Ben Kingsly if we can't even.... ugh.
When you aren't talking to mute pictures of people, you have to run around the asylum and look for things. You get to fix a generator and solve a few mini-games (which I enjoyed), but it all seemed too easy. Instead of letting you run around aimlessly to find things, you only had one or two options as to where you could go. It was like they were holding my hand the entire time, telling me which way to go. I ended up beating this game in two days. TWO DAYS! And I am no gamer.
I'd like to think of myself as an intelligent person, but I think this game was a little too easy. I think they could have put a lot more effort into the characters and layout of the island, and put up a few more road blocks. I understand they don't want to give away too much of the plot so they can plug the movie, but come on.
All in all, this game did what it aimed to do.... made me want to watch the movie. It teased me enough to get me spooked and intrigued in the character and storyline. I just saw a preview for the movie coming out on DVD this week and I just might buy it. That being said, it would be nice to have a little more challenging "adventure" game.
No comments:
Post a Comment