Finished
The Awakened yesterday (well, actually, it was 3 a.m.
). Great game. The controls were a bit awkward in the beginning but I got used to them pretty quickly and after a while, they felt completely natural and easy. The puzzles are challenging at times, the story is very dark - I still don't understand why the German version is supposed to be suitable for kids aged 12 and up. I'd never allow a 12-year-old kid to play this game; there are mutilated corpses, lots of blood, beheadings... nothing you'd want to expose a kid to. Although the story is very dark and gruesome at points, it never reaches true scaryness - I must admit I was grateful for that, having just completed Scratches two weeks ago. Being a huge Lovecraft fan, I obviously enjoyed the Lovecraftian theme of the story; one of the highlights (for me) definitely included finding a huge statue of good old Cthulhu
The music was excellent as well and contributed to the brooding atmosphere of the game; sounds and noises were picked to suit every location. Delightful.
I especially enjoyed the graphics; they were beautifully detailled, and you have a measurement of freedom to explore the various sites that I've so far encountered in a FPS but not in an adventure. Holmes is very british and can be really cold at times; he's not caring much for others, he's too absorbed in solving all kinds of mysteries. I kept wondering how Watson is able to put up with this...
The characters were, overall, believeable, the German voiceover was done perfectly even though at times the spoken word was kind of swallowed by my computer - hadn't it been for subtitles, I'd have missed some dialogue in the second half of the game. Other than that (and some very weird stuff going on with the controls whilst on that island in the swamp), the game worked fine on my computer. I had two crashes, I think; nothing to be mad about. The game is pretty long as well; it took me about a week to complete it, all in all I think I played for about 20 hours or more. 9/10
