Review of Still Life by Lucien21

A mature adventure game. One that doesn’t shy away from the brutal murders carried out by a Jack the Ripper type killer. One that dabbles in the seedy side of Chicago sex trade. (well it does a little bit). One that isn’t afraid to swear.

It was a fresh breath of air when it was originally released and replaying it was just as enjoyable and frustrating as the first time.

On the plus side the games atmosphere and setting is great. The gritty, cold modern day Chicago is mirrored in the brighter old world flashbacks to Prague. Two sets of murders connected by family and killer.

The graphics and cut scenes are great, the character models decent for their time (unfortunalty the goofy run animations are hilarious).

The story is captivating and grips you from start to finish with only the odd misstep along the way (Stopping to make daddy Cookies for instance)

Puzzles are generally of a very high standard with codes, lockpicking (fecking frustrating but logical puzzle), sliders and other puzzles keeping me entertained for most of the game. There are a couple of infamous puzzles like the aformentioned cookie puzzle and the timed spider maze late in the game that are the low points of the game but nothing game stopping.

On the negative side there are unfortunatly a few issues with the game.

The conversation system may as well be a cut scene as you are not given much of a choice of topics and just left of right click the mouse at regular intervals to advance the story.

The prague story progresses well with a decent conclusion, but unfortunatly the modern day Chicago story is unfinished and left open ended. You never find out the identity of the killer and even the obvious suspect is given such little screen time that you know nothing about them.

The game was rushed towards the end with Microids financial problems at the time and it shows in the frustrating and unsatisfactory ending to what is for the most part a superb adventure game.

Read the review »

Time Played: 10-20 hours