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More a “meh” from me than a “meow”. I enjoyed The Cat Lady overall, but I can’t say that I’m overly enthused by it. There will be no shortage of spoilers in the following paragraphs, so definitely be warned if you haven’t played or finished it yet!

I don’t feel the story added up too much, with the exception of Mitzi’s mission, which admittedly stood at its centre. Otherwise it was a bunch of nonsense to me. So you go on a quest, inadvertently, to kill five human parasites. The parasites are no McGuffins, they’re a big focus of the story. You don’t have a choice whether you kill the first four of them, but you can turn back from the last one. Which is nice, I guess, though that option doesn’t seem particularly motivated, except that killing said parasite would also mean killing yourself. Comitting homicide would also mean comitting suicide in that case, and you may not feel like that anymore. A rather contrived choice I think, but then, why are you killing these parasites in the first place? Oh yeah, because the old lady that resides between the here and now and the hereafter told you so. I feel her main excuse to be part of the story is to explain away why you can’t die in the game. It’s amusing that none of the “parasites” seem to irritated that you constantly come back to life.
The thing is, I don’t feel I got much out of the story. So your task is to kill absurdly depraved people that apparently find it pleasurable to wallow in the entrails of their victims or such. All their lairs are run-down, full of flickering lights, half rotten corpses, and blood splatters. Even if they would feel such an urge to kill and torture and rape and whatever, I somehow presume they wouldn’t exactly get high off sniffing the stench of rotten corpses. But that’s just me presuming, an average citizen on the internet. What do I know about murdering for pleasure?
Maybe that’s the problem I have with these segments: they’re merely there to showcase the depravity, but manage to do little else. No character is studied, that’s for sure. The parasites won’t suprise or shock, they mostly come across as well worn tropes, and there’s little depth to them. I understand that there’s no humanity left in them, but they didn’t scare me either. Actually, the game horrified me to an astoundingly little degree. Maybe in part because you can’t really die, but I don’t think that’s it. You die for the moment, it’s just that you can come back, which is basically the same as for every adventure game ever. Trilby’s Notes scared me out of my wits, and I had to talk myself down for a moment, repeating “It’s only a game, it’s only a game,...” as a mantra until I had the nerve to continue. “The Cat Lady” got a few jump scares out of me and occassionally grossed me out. It wasn’t a good idea to eat while playing, that’s for sure.
I was annoyed by the unoriginality of the horror. Ooooh, corpses, skulls and blood are littered everywhere, it’s like the designer asking “Are you scared yet?” over and over again. The intention probably was to go all out with the horror, but in the end it just went over the top and came crashing down. Sometimes it amused me, occassionally intentionally I guess, like the shambling cannibalistic wife murdering the player character repeatedly. You basically had to die to continue, so it comes across as a running gag.
I could have done without certain stylistic flourishes, like the piano sting that’s most of the time coupled with sudden appearances of something or somebody, and the colors that are desaturated with certain exceptions (like red for blood). At best these felt superfluous and distracting, at worst they came across as terribly cliched. Talking of cliches: the psychiatric ward. It’s a run-down place poorly maintained. Sharp shards of glass from a broken mirror seemingly provoke suicidal behaviour, an uncaring nurse treats her patients like cattle and the doctor is a psycho. Could it be more any cliched? I doubt it. Lackluster.

But enough of the complaints - for now. I appreciated the rather mundane story bits. Like the time when you come home and need to perform everyday tasks, which resulted, for me at least, in a nervous breakdown of Cat Lady Susan. Pretty much everything with Mitzi involved was to my liking. Her back story is touching and properly motivates her search for the Eye of Adam. I appreciate the dynamic between her and Susan and the various talks they have, on the balcony, over a cup of coffee, in the bathroom and in the kitchen after they ate some pancakes. Really mundane stuff, really, but I could connect to that, so I liked it. Occassionally the game can even be genuinely funny, like when it shows the consequences of your attempts to find out if the young baby mother is the Eye of Adam. Indeed, thinking about it, I liked everything that wasn’t connected to the four other parasites or the nightmarish visions of Susan. So, lots of stuff, actually.

But that’s the thing: to me it seems like the author didn’t place any trust in the mundane aspects of the story and tried to horror it up as a result, so to speak. That’s not necessarily true, of course - the somewhat tenuously connected predeccessor Downfall showcased the same affinity for gross out body horror and scares. Still, I can’t help but feel that the dealings with the first four parasites are superfluous and don’t connect with the rest of the story. I think you could cut those parts out without many problems and receive a stronger narrative as a result.
The over the top Eye of Adam confrontation might have disappointed me, if my expectations weren’t already low based on the parasites before. It was just like - yeah, he’s evil. If you expect any more characterization of the villains then you’re out of luck, because that’s all you get, nothing deeper. Superficial is the word.
I’m not sure I can say much about the gameplay. The puzzles try to strike a balance between keeping the player mentally involved and breaking the narrative down into little interactive chunks without halting it too much. One puzzle did get me stuck, and no wonder, its solution didn’t even make sense to me afterwards. Whether positively or negatively though, barely any of the puzzles stand out. For the most part they just serve their purpose and that’s it.
I wonder about certain plot threads left dangling. What is the deal with Joe? We basically only meet him in visions (or shared dreams?), but…I’m not sure of his place in the narrative. Is he another “parasite” that is simply never dealt with? Also, what’s up with Liss? She apparently commited suicide, but that comes into question later on, a question that remains unanswered.

Now, this post may come across as a big whine that unfairly focuses on the negative, and that may be true. There’s lots to praise about The Cat Lady, but I feel it was already praised enough by others, so I wanted to focus on the negative to balance things out. Overall I’m happy I played The Cat Lady, it was entertaining while it lasted, offered some wonderful set-pieces and is certainly an improvement over Downfall.

Final Score: 15 out of 27 Snowflakes ***************

ozzie - 01 March 2013 02:05 AM

You don’t have a choice whether you kill the first four of them…

Without wanting to comment your review (though I disagree a lot with it, but it is your opinion after all), this is wrong. Seems you have missed an option in Doctor X, the first parasite. You can simply leave if you want, without killing him...

Sefir - 01 March 2013 11:20 AM

ozzie - 01 March 2013 02:05 AM

You don’t have a choice whether you kill the first four of them…

Without wanting to comment your review (though I disagree a lot with it, but it is your opinion after all), this is wrong. Seems you have missed an option in Doctor X, the first parasite. You can simply leave if you want, without killing him...

Thanks for the clarification. I think I tried that, but the game probably threw some other obstacle in the way that had to be overcome first. I guess my mind was set on killing the parasite instead.
I noticed some other choices along the way and I wonder if the alternatives answer the questions that I felt were left unanswered. I hope not, actually, because in my opinion a story should be complete independent of the actions you choose.
I’m sure I’m in the minority with my opinion on The Cat Lady, that’s why I took the (rather embarrassingly long) time to write it down. I also feel no shame to admit that I really like Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2!

TimovieMan - 01 March 2013 11:13 AM

ozzie - 01 March 2013 02:05 AM

Final Score: 15 out of 27 Snowflakes ***************

0_o

How does THAT work???

Sorry, I didn’t read your review (I stopped after your first paragraph since I want to avoid spoilers), so I may have missed how this works, but as it is, that appears to be one of the strangest scoring systems I’ve ever seen…

Heh, it’s somewhat inspired by the Conan way of scoring games in his Clueless Gamer segments, like here with Skyrim. He is way more funny and creative with making up arbitrary score measurement systems, though.
In hindsight I should have themed the scoring based on the game. Hm…how about 3 out of 6 Drowned Kittens? That sounds about right to me.

in order to have that option of not killing the doctor guy, you need to have answered the questions right when the nurse tests you

Rem - 22 December 2012 08:36 PM

Just a quick reminder that The Cat Lady is now on Steam Greenlight!;)

If you liked the game, or think it deserves to be on Steam, please take a minute of your time and vote for it here:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=114327732

Thanks!;)

Thought that this deserved a wee bump - it’s an excellent game that deserves the recognition.

I just finished the game - it’s probably the best point-and-click I’ve played since ‘Resonance’ but I still agree with lots of Ozzie’s criticisms:  VERY MINOR SPOILERS BELOW

PROS:
- The control scheme meant it’s one of the only adventure games I’ve played that’s perfect to play on my big screen TV instead of a tiny monitor.
- The focus on the ‘mundane’ elements and Susan/Mitzi’s friendship: considering how many games don’t pass the Bechdel Test, it’s nice to see a female bond at the heart of a game (I was a big fan of Culpa Innata and Dreamfall for their similar use of the everyday and the epic)

CONS:
- One-dimensional ‘parasites’.  They would have been so much more disturbing if we knew why they were so messed up.  It’s much more horrific to think that normal people are capable of true evil rather than rely on cartoon killers.  Similarly, it felt a bit weird they made the Queen of Maggots try to act like she was Susan’s ‘only friend’ and never threw in any doubt about Mitzi; it seemed a bit too obvious who was good and who was bad.  Both needed a bit more shading.
- ‘Weirdness for weirdness’s sake’ - I liked it in Downfall because it was basically just a riff on Silent Hill 2; lots of the game felt really out of place.  I’m still not really sure what the point of the nurse hallucination was. 

Definitely worth playing, despite its faults.  The overall story, art, music and moments of humour are great (for some reason I really liked the part where you can write ‘A—HOLE’ on a door ).