Fortunately, aside from this fault, the game’s sound design is very solid. The effects are plausible and well done, atmospheric and appropriately menacing, while the musical score is perhaps the diamond point of the game, alternating soft piano orchestrations and breathtaking crescendos accompanied by drums and eerie violins. Similarly, the graphic design is neat and detailed, sports a great use of light and shadow, and the cutscenes that intersperse the gameplay are as good as the opening cinematic. This is especially true of the brief FMVs seen from the killer’s perspective, which remind me of Dario Argento’s Deep Red. The character models could have used more polygons, but the smooth animations do a fine job in covering this lack of definition, and the general visual quality is surely improved over the first Art of Murder installment. Two locations really stand out from the rest, thanks to lavish care put in their design: the killer’s apartment, which seems a modern, metrosexual version of Victor’s prison from the movie Se7en, and the cozy interior of the Moulin Rouge, filled with colorful costumes and disquieting mannequins.

The locations are explored through the simple point-and-click interface already seen in the first game, further refined by the improvements introduced in City’s other adventure, Chronicles of Mystery. Mousing over a hotspot, the cursor automatically changes into a Look, Take or Talk icon, while a double-click will make Nicole run. The inventory is easily accessible at the bottom part of the screen, where the player can also find icons for revealing all hotspots, reading Nicole’s diary (a rather unnecessary option, since she has almost no thought or emotion to share with us) or reviewing all documents and dialogues. Also like the previous game, only one location can be explored at a time, severely limiting freedom and eliminating the need for much creative thinking. Forcing players to stay in a given location until all tasks are completed is only one of the ways in which the game lays down its sometimes irritating linearity: actions must be executed in a precise order, and some hotspots won’t even appear until the player thoroughly explores everything and exhausts all possible dialogue options. For example, early in the game you’ll have to distract a police officer: to do so, you must first talk to him two times, and then retrieve an item that was perfectly visible all along but couldn’t be taken previously.

Puzzles are the usual adventure fare, mostly inventory-based with the occasional diversion offered by mechanical or slider puzzles. They are extremely predictable but often tortuous in their McGuyver-like solutions. In one instance, to grab keys hung beyond a hotel reception desk, Nicole chooses to make a grappling hook instead of simply hopping over the desk, which she easily could have done. The problem with this kind of puzzle is that they seem placed there to artificially lengthen the game with phony, unnecessary obstacles. The intelligent puzzles you’ll stumble upon from time to time – like decrypting a code based on Roman numerals, colors and cardinal points – are a severely endangered minority. Furthermore, many challenges are just silly and do nothing more than disrupt the suspension of disbelief. For example, to find some money, Nicole resorts to a public fountain which is filled with coins, despite the fact that it is located in a little village where everyone laments the lack of tourism. And this money serves no other purpose than to operate a slot machine to gain even more money through a simple but silly pattern-alignment minigame. The absurdity of such tasks would strain credibility in any game, but it particularly defies Nicole’s status as an FBI agent, making the scenarios feel even less realistic.

It took me almost twelve hours to reach the end of the game, with the challenge becoming a little harder in the final phases. The story also reserves a few nice surprises for the end, but this late improvement is insufficient to redeem the previous failings. Despite all these criticisms, however, Art of Murder 2 isn’t a bad game: it has many faults, but none manage to ruin the experience entirely. Yet it surely lacks any real merits that can keep players enthralled from beginning to end. Mildly diverting at best, but uninspired and dull at worst, it is overshadowed by the better, similar thrillers it so clearly was trying to emulate. Fans of the first game will no doubt like the sequel as well, though previous experience is certainly not required. So if you're new to the series, you may want to keep hunting for something better, but if you're searching for a light filler game that you can easily play without much challenge, and are willing to turn a blind eye to the hackneyed story, pedestrian dialogues and shallow characters, Hunt for the Puppeteer may deliver just enough of what you’re looking for. It’s like a fast-food game that you can quickly devour, only to forget all about when tastier, more interesting dishes are served.