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Cognition an Erica Reed thriller review

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Well I went with Erica Reed for three bucks bc it seemed the most highly voted per say.

I just beat Chapter 1 at 6 hrs and I got to say overall I am impressed enough to keep going.

Positives

- Good voice acting from most of the cast. the actress for erica does a good job although she slips in an out of her boston accent randomly. Still better than tim curry’s over the top fake southern accent for gabriel knight. Also there is a husband whose wife was murdered and I thought he was the best actor of chapter 1.

- I liked all the main characters, they are all tropes of characters you have seen on crime tv shows but, I still found them enjoyable

- Story kept my interest throughout, although it seems like somewhat of a saw ripoff

- Puzzles were engaging, never too hard, but the game also doesnt hold your hand either. I thought erica’s “powers” would end up being super cheesy but they work well in the game world

- The soundtrack was nice

Negatives

- Animation and graphics are pretty bad, with lots of clipping, and other audio issues

- The game in general is very buggy, It never crashed on me but it did glitch a lot

- The gore is a little over the top, sometimes it works sometimes it is eye-rolling bad

- Im not a big fan of the UI, it takes too many clicks to do simple task, plus the cursor is laggy which leads me to…

- The action sequences in chapter 1 are god awful, and im a player who doesnt mind them when done right, but the cursor is so laggy that a simple task takes forever to do even when you know what you are doing.

Overall I enjoyed my time with chapter 1 and it took me 5 to 6 hrs to beat, Im worried that much like telltale games the other three episodes will be much shorter. Still the game entertained me enough to keep going on my 3 dollar investment lol. Overall 7.5/10 for chapter 1 the hangman

     
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Checking my GOG galaxy I just realized I have 4 chapters or something I’ve never touched.

Well thanks for the head’s up jdawg.

Did you get the other chapters or are you stopping there?  I haven’t tried them yet but they look kind of blackwell, kind of Kathy rain, kind of laura bow.

Speaking of laura bow, we should play the crimson diamond preview together!

Sorry getting off topic.

So am I on the right track by comparing it to those other game or… what do you think?

     
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Celebreon - 01 July 2020 02:26 PM

Checking my GOG galaxy I just realized I have 4 chapters or something I’ve never touched.

Well thanks for the head’s up jdawg.

Did you get the other chapters or are you stopping there?  I haven’t tried them yet but they look kind of blackwell, kind of Kathy rain, kind of laura bow.

Speaking of laura bow, we should play the crimson diamond preview together!

Sorry getting off topic.

So am I on the right track by comparing it to those other game or… what do you think?

Not quite I mean I would say it’s really like a serialized TV show like CSI but with a bit of Supernatural stuff thrown in like you would see in a Gabriel Knight game. Jane jensen semi wrote this game. I do plan on playing the other chapters, i can wait a bit for you to catch up. How are you with Gore because the game is a little gruesome kind of like a Saw movie but it didn’t really bother me?

     
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Oh sweet.  I’ll give it a shot tonight.
I had started memoria, but I can put that on hold while I try out this game, and I’ll let you know by about this time tomorrow if I’m ready to follow it through to the end.

Memoria already made me mad because I encountered a save-breaking bug during an early level so, no loss.

     
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Celebreon - 01 July 2020 08:12 PM

Oh sweet.  I’ll give it a shot tonight.
I had started memoria, but I can put that on hold while I try out this game, and I’ll let you know by about this time tomorrow if I’m ready to follow it through to the end.

Memoria already made me mad because I encountered a save-breaking bug during an early level so, no loss.

No problem, i hope you like it

     
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It’s a “Detective with supernatural powers” game ... so of course Jane Jensen was involved.

Anyway, I tried twice to play Cognition and never got further than an hour without being bored out of my mind. Maybe it improves after that. I guess it helps if you are into comics, which I am not.

     
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Luhr28 - 01 July 2020 09:54 PM

It’s a “Detective with supernatural powers” game ... so of course Jane Jensen was involved.

Anyway, I tried twice to play Cognition and never got further than an hour without being bored out of my mind. Maybe it improves after that. I guess it helps if you are into comics, which I am not.

Lol not perfect by any means, but im enjoying it. I believe they integrated the powers well. Honestly though the first 30 mins to an hr at the graveyard is not the greatest. I felt like it got a lot better after that.

     
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Ok, hope you enjoy the rest then. And also.. the main character is trans, yeah? Just going by the pictures. That’s pretty cool if so, we don’t see too much LGBT in adventure gaming.

     
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Luhr28 - 01 July 2020 10:20 PM

Ok, hope you enjoy the rest then. And also.. the main character is trans, yeah? Just going by the pictures. That’s pretty cool if so, we don’t see too much LGBT in adventure gaming.

Lol i dont believe she is a trans, she is a female and has a twin brother. Hahah

     
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It’s definitely a playable game but the lack of proper budget does shine through and the story is a collection of rather uninspired cliches handled in a similar fashion.

     
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tomimt - 02 July 2020 12:52 AM

It’s definitely a playable game but the lack of proper budget does shine through and the story is a collection of rather uninspired cliches handled in a similar fashion.

I can see that. Like i said the game reminds me of any serialized crime tv show, with a bit of the movie saw thrown in. But for 3 dollars im not mad at it.

     

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I personally quite enjoyed it; but then I generally like mystery-themed stuff. That it could have been better goes without saying ... but then I haven’t played anything where that doesn’t apply.

... my biggest gripe is the last episode. I won’t spoil anything for obvious reasons, but this is where I’d draw the comparison the Blackwell the most. It kinda “ruined” the series for me by sloppily forcing a conclusion in what I felt was partially far too rushed and partially just plain boring and just not what the rest of the series and the characters deserved ...

     
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Overall, I enjoyed the game. Could have been better, yes but a decent game just the same. The artwork was OK, the puzzles fun and the characters for the most part enjoyable. I’d play it again in a heart beat.

Heart

     

I enjoy playing adventure games on my Alienware M17 r4 and my Nintendo Switch OLED.

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Jdawg445 - 01 July 2020 04:37 PM

Not quite I mean I would say it’s really like a serialized TV show like CSI but with a bit of Supernatural stuff thrown in like you would see in a Gabriel Knight game. Jane jensen semi wrote this game. I do plan on playing the other chapters, i can wait a bit for you to catch up. How are you with Gore because the game is a little gruesome kind of like a Saw movie but it didn’t really bother me?

Okay I think I should be able to finish chapter 1 tonight and then we can continue if you want.

I definitely want to continue playing this game because I have…. many opinions!

People have said that it’s a shame they didnt have more budget, but from what I’ve seen so far,

much of this could have been fixed with different design decisions.  I’m not going to get into a ton of that right this moment, but as Jdawg brought up the V-A of Erica sometimes having an accent, but mostly not…

Whoever is directing the Voice actor should have recognized what was going on and either:

a] hired a voice actor that understood the accent

b] direct the actor to drop the accent entirely and write around it. (is it that important?!)

My biggest issues are the animation and the script/dialogue.
As I finish chapter 1, or maybe even the whole series, I’ll kind of expand as to why that is.

But I honestly feel bad for the developers because it ‘feels’ like they had a strong overall story arc, and strong game play, but couldn’t afford to hire a writer or an animator, so people just had to double down on jobs.  I even like the saw/heavy-rain style story at the beginning!

Jdawg did you get read the included comic before playing episode 1?
It’s nothing important in the way of story, but it would help you feel less thrown into chapter 1.  I’m not a comic-book type of guy, but it was definitely enough to get me sucked into the world.

The bundle I have of this game is the “Game of the Year Edition.”  Which why did they call it that?  I’m sorry, I’ve truly had fun and enjoyed level 1 so far, but this is not ‘game of any year’ in my opinion.

     
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Celebreon - 02 July 2020 03:03 PM
Jdawg445 - 01 July 2020 04:37 PM

Not quite I mean I would say it’s really like a serialized TV show like CSI but with a bit of Supernatural stuff thrown in like you would see in a Gabriel Knight game. Jane jensen semi wrote this game. I do plan on playing the other chapters, i can wait a bit for you to catch up. How are you with Gore because the game is a little gruesome kind of like a Saw movie but it didn’t really bother me?

Okay I think I should be able to finish chapter 1 tonight and then we can continue if you want.

I definitely want to continue playing this game because I have…. many opinions!

People have said that it’s a shame they didnt have more budget, but from what I’ve seen so far,

much of this could have been fixed with different design decisions.  I’m not going to get into a ton of that right this moment, but as Jdawg brought up the V-A of Erica sometimes having an accent, but mostly not…

Whoever is directing the Voice actor should have recognized what was going on and either:

a] hired a voice actor that understood the accent

b] direct the actor to drop the accent entirely and write around it. (is it that important?!)

My biggest issues are the animation and the script/dialogue.
As I finish chapter 1, or maybe even the whole series, I’ll kind of expand as to why that is.

But I honestly feel bad for the developers because it ‘feels’ like they had a strong overall story arc, and strong game play, but couldn’t afford to hire a writer or an animator, so people just had to double down on jobs.  I even like the saw/heavy-rain style story at the beginning!

Jdawg did you get read the included comic before playing episode 1?
It’s nothing important in the way of story, but it would help you feel less thrown into chapter 1.  I’m not a comic-book type of guy, but it was definitely enough to get me sucked into the world.

The bundle I have of this game is the “Game of the Year Edition.”  Which why did they call it that?  I’m sorry, I’ve truly had fun and enjoyed level 1 so far, but this is not ‘game of any year’ in my opinion.

Yes I did and I thought it was okay. What did you think of the voice actor for the husband of the murdered wife, I actually thought he did a really subtle yet awesome job. The animation is truly bad except for one part in the opening scene, when Erica gets stabbed in the legs and she’s going down the stairs of the crypt. that actually looked pretty good and was gruesome she looked like she was really struggling, but everything past that is just awkward. I got used to it because the story kept me entertained. I actually thought the hanged man in the first case looked pretty good, when they zoomed in on him. it’s like when they nail the design it looks pretty good but when they miss, it’s totally Off the mark. What do you think of the game play, I was woried the puzzles were going to feel over simplistic at first, but like I said I really enjoyed the powers and the fact that they keep adding to them so they don’t become dull and repetitive is good. I can’t wait till you get to the action sequence at the end of chapter one, I thought it was pretty bad, it took me me multiple attempts just to do it, because my cursor kept lagging.

If anybody wants to join us in the play through feel free

     

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Celebreon - 02 July 2020 03:03 PM

The bundle I have of this game is the “Game of the Year Edition.”  Which why did they call it that?  I’m sorry, I’ve truly had fun and enjoyed level 1 so far, but this is not ‘game of any year’ in my opinion.

Very true, but this is 2012 we’re talking about - hardly a golden age of adventure gaming. We were scraping the bottom of the barrel so much that some the weakest Daedalic and Telltale games were getting huge praise, mostly undeservedly. Maybe that explains why this was called game of the year, or maybe not.

     

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