[millenia]

Originally Posted by cbman

Exactly. So what is your point? I was saying the game wasn't enjoyable to me and I talked about why. Do you think I buy games wanting to not enjoy them or even to not play them? But if it's rubbish then it's rubbish. I'm not going to kid myself that it's not.

My point was that giving a game 10 minutes time to please you is not really much. As I said anyone can be as picky as they want but if you only play games or watch movies that impress you right from the start you are probably missing out a lot of good stuff. And that's your choice, I have no problem with that. Just wanted to spread the good word about how I have found a lot more enjoyment from entertainment after I started giving those pieces an actual chance to entertain me.

[ydranthantalus]

Originally Posted by millenia

Yes I noticed the four figures standing up and three lying down but I really couldn't tie them to any of the rows or columns below, let alone a specific symbol. Never noticed the correspondence there.

examining them with valentina reveals the occupation of the standing figures. sorry i left it out.

well, can't say that bm3 was a longest journey but it was decent at the least. won't say the same for the next big thing. it was one thing: short.

[Thorn]

Originally Posted by cbman

Why couldn't you have played through that early part of the game as the detective?

It really looked like this was the intention of the game designers, but maybe it had the lowest priority when they started to produce the game, and they had to leave it out.

Too bad, it would've been interesting!

[millenia]

Originally Posted by ydranthantalus

examining them with valentina reveals the occupation of the standing figures. sorry i left it out.

Ehm, how? I did examine everything with both characters and the only thing she says is something along "maybe the characters represent a certain row" which really didn't help me put together which character would represent which row, or which symbol in the row.

[ydranthantalus]

Originally Posted by millenia

Ehm, how? I did examine everything with both characters and the only thing she says is something along "maybe the characters represent a certain row" which really didn't help me put together which character would represent which row, or which symbol in the row.

i remember her saying that the figures that are lying down are a king, a warrior and something else. can't remember that one. : ) nonetheless, i am certain that valentina explains those three figures.

[millenia]

Ok I have missed something then. I wonder what I could have left undone not to get her to give me these hints. Or if it even bugged out. Have to keep an eye on this on my future replay.

[noknowncure]

Probably not needed, with the nature of the topic, but just in case, I've spoilered the following regarding the offering dish puzzle:

Spoiler:

When I played, Valentina mentioned two of the guys lying down were a king and a soldier and that two standing were 'maybe a priest' and a hunter.

That's all she said and I felt the images themselves were too indistinct for the player to make out their profession - I certainly couldn't see a crown on any of the lying figures for example.

I guess it was something to do with High and Low status jobs, the staff, fish, spearhead and bowl representing the common man or something. With only four of the figures mentioned by Valentina, it certainly wasn't clear.

I've no idea how the columns beneath the central image fitted

.

[millenia]

That narrows it down to yes for two and no for other two, making it easier to try out the rest. Seems okay. Except for Valentina never said that to me . She only kept repeating "perhaps these rows represent a figure". I certainly did go through all the hotspots so I don't really no what I could have missed but it's of course possible that I overlooked something or didn't use an item or whatever. I was sure I was supposed to get some kind of hint to figure out the icons on the rows and columns so I really felt like an idiot .

There was only the two puzzles that didn't really open up to me (this and the copy machine which I accidentally skipped) but I would have welcomed an option for hint instead of just skip. I also had the buggy version of the underlining puzzle, was stumped there for a while finally googling it told me I couldn't solve it at all...

[marcd2011]

Overall i think the non-inventory puzzles like this were a mixed bag. I did some easily, got stuck on some for ages, and skipped others.

I could only get Valentina to tell me two of the guys' professions for the puzzle everyone's talking about, which didn't help but even with that information, and knowing what the heiroglyphs represented because of Valentina saying something about it earlier on, i still couldn't figure it out, and i was extremely bored of the game by then so i just skipped it.

There's another heiroglyph puzzle where you have to click on tiles in sequence, and i did that one by trial and error rather than by working out the sequence, as the connection to the quote was tentative at best.

The copier puzzle only involved moving one thing so it was easy, and the 2nd one was just logical after completing the first so again it only took me a matter of seconds.

I also skipped the underlining puzzle as there were far too many words which looked useful for me to select the ones the game deemed worthy. That was a terrible puzzle in my opinion, and the words that were actually the right ones seemed pretty random to say the least.

The door/light puzzle was probably my favourite one in the game, although i needed to look at a guide to find out what i was meant to be doing, as i thought i had to get the lights in the rooms with the shades in to turn on, killing the shade, and spent a long time setting that up, only to discover that they travel from light to light just as easily as dark to dark.. once i knew i just had to avoid them, i did it without assistance.

[millenia]

The underlining puzzle wasn't hard at all, just impossible to solve if you have the buggy version. Every time you hit one of the words Adrian had a 'thought' about them. So if you were really clueless you could just underline the whole thing 3 words at a time and see when it bites. But I had the version were the rows were mixed up and even after figuring out where the words were supposed to be, it just didn't count one of the words at all. The other two I found in a breeze and tried the third lost one in one of my first tries.

With the shade labyrinth I tried 'killing them with light' first too but had to find another approach after it failed. I liked that puzzle too. The second hieroglyph puzzle was rather easy since you just had to pick a connecting tile making the sentence. Yes, not all of them was obvious but a couple of missteps is nothing really.

I would have enjoyed alchemy puzzle instead of boring skeleton one though.

[Fien]

I finished BM3 an hour ago and I'm joining the chorus of the bored players. Nice graphics, excellent atmosphere, a couple of funny jokes, mixed voiceacting, looooong conversations, uninspired puzzles for the most part and an anti-climactic ending. I couldn't care less about the NPC's (another one dead, gee...) and the story was far too idiotic to be credible, Pope, nun and all.

Disappointing.

[Ivynwater]

Originally Posted by Oscar

That was me for most of the game. What's the point of setting up the new butler character if he disappears as soon as he takes on the job?

I totally agree with u. In BM3 there are also other aspects of the game that have been introduced to offer explanation of the plot but that have unfortunately lacking of "substance" (I think I mentioned them already in the "Reviews" thread).

As for the ending, and by this I mean to refer to the last few minutes of the game and not to the last level, I thought it was awful for the simple reason that it dismissed very quickly and simplistically the whole Murdred possession thing. I dunno, I think that none of the installments following BM1 has been able to actually recreate a small % of its amazing atmosphere.

However, overall, BM3 doesn't fail to offer the player an enough coherent story line explanation.

So....when are we gonna see BM4?

[Devilfish]

I enjoyed the game well enough, but there one thing I don't get (and apparently I'm the only one dumb enough to not get this, because I haven't seen anyone else ask this question):

Spoiler:

who the hell is doing all that killing? Is it Ralph? Dead bodies keep popping up and everyone acts so horribly blase about it. What was with that whole Phil thing? Torture videos? What? Is that relevant? I don't get it.

Call me an idiot, you'd probably be right to, but can anyone answer me that?

[GideonFrost]

What bothered me that hasn't been mentioned already is the non-existent level of gore. The first 2 games were laced with some pretty brutal murders and traps whereas the third only eludes rather than show. Of course visual gore isn't a requirement in an adventure game, but as a staple in this series up to this point I was disappointed. The "fall to the ground and hit your head blood splatter" death was a HUGE cop out.

Samuel Gordon's ghost appeared frequently in BMII. Why wasn't he there in some form for the finale? Or even the White Lady so she could finally find her son would have been nice. I understand these points are rather obvious expectations from the gamer, but they could have come up with a clever way to implement them instead of leaving loose ends.

To me this rushed game was an "expansion pack" and not strong enough to hold it's own sequel.

[Phaid]

I've just finished the game literally a few minutes ago, so I'd like to echo some opinions that have been voiced here.

First, the good things/things I liked:

- fantastic, gloomy atmosphere - a return to the first game in the series in this aspect
- excellent backgrounds and weather effects - walking through the woods during the lighting storm was an amazing experience
- very solid first two chapters, I loved the creepy finale of the first one

Spoiler:

(the hell hounds, the white lady, the abandoned shack - it all raised questions and made me interested in what's about to happen)

Things that I dislike:

- the game is brilliantly atmospheric, but the potential is wasted, because in this game, barely anything actually happens. Explanation below.

- after the first two chapters, the story development really comes to a halt until the end

Spoiler:

when Adrian wants to commit suicide.

No surprises. No plot twists. No murders (BM2 managed to make the deaths of certain characters a surprise, they had an impact on the player and the story). No gore. Uninteresting NPCs that play no role, appear and disappear for no reason. The whole

Spoiler:

Phil/Tom criminal duo

serves no actual purpose.
Nice, awesomely creepy scenes like

Spoiler:

visiting Ralph's hut towards the end of the game for the last time and then hearing him roaming the woods (during the thunderstorm)

are few and far between.
Nothing keeps you guessing, there's no secret to discover, nothing makes you care about the story, the creepy environments aren't supported by plot events.

I liked the game as a whole, but the lack of an engaging story really drags the whole experience down.

[Majsan]

Just finished the game yesterday and I really liked it, but I think that BM II was better.

Really liked Darren/Adrian.
Was waiting for Angelina to turn up again though, especially somewhere around the mirror!
And the ending felt like 'ooo-kay'... I was expecting to have to DO more! Would also very much have liked some answers about Phil, Tom, but mostly Ralph...

[inm8#2]

Just finished and really enjoyed the game, but I would have liked more closure with the other characters, namely

Spoiler:

Tom. I never quite caught what Tom's motivation was. Did he brutally kill Ralph? Why?

[Peter254]

I agree. Black Mirror 3 was dull and seemingly overlong. I still enjoyed it, but that was due to the fact that I became emotionally invested in the story thanks to the previous games, and so my enjoyment of BM3 doesn't necessarily count as direct praise.

The simple problem was that the writing didn't have anywhere to go after all the hairpins turns of BM2. There were hardly any pressing mysteries left. It was, essentially, a leftover third act from BM2, surgically removed, grafted, and stretched thin into its own game.

[Jordum]

I recently finished all 3 games, and storywise I'm very disappointed. The first game had an excellent atmosphere and story. That was a thing that kept you going since the voice acting and some puzzles like having to return later after 3 tries were just horrible. Then there came the ending which was a disappointment which only left dozens of questions.
After that, black mirror 2 gives a bunch of illogical and unfinished stories.

Spoiler:

What happened to that girl who killed herself? Why was that even relevant? Why did angelina kill fuller? What was the motivation behind that? And if she didn't kill him, if biba's husband did, why was she there? What was the purpose of louis locking you in a bunker?

Ok, then I was so happy playing the third game, thinking, yep the questions will be answered. But then, nothing. The ending doesn't reveal much. The thing with souls and soul shades wasn't amusing. It was boring and a little bit complicated. Ending was like "soooo.... that's it?" leaving you with even more questions...

Spoiler:

Why was william gordon pushed out the window? He was trying to find out the truth about gordon family and if he found all the keys like samuel did, he would do the same. Found the altar and a book. Why would mordred's shade kill him then? Why weren't all gordons killers? Robert was aware of his deeds and he was just evil, but samuel wasn't. At least he wasn't aware of it. Why wasn't richard a killer? Why was angelina evil from the start and adrian wasn't? Just because they were twins? That's somehow not a satisfying explanation. What happened with phil and tom? Who killed them and why? You suspect it was ralph, but that also doesn't make sense. In BM3 you see that victoria actually knew a lot about gordon family. How come william didn't know what the soul keys were for? Then, there was this hole which led to morderd's study. Bates had it filled with dirt and tar. He probably knew where it was leading. It seems that bates and victoria knew a lot about gordon family. Having samuel roaming around black mirror wasn't very smart then. The first part of the game still doesn't make sense after completing the 2nd and 3rd. Such a disappointment. Such waste of time

Can anyone answer my questions?