Publisher: Lighthouse Interactive
Publisher 2: dtp
Developer: House of Tales
Category: Adventure
Release Dates
N Amer - 04/14/2008
Intl - 05/02/2008
Digital Download - 04/21/2008
Overclocked: A History of Violence Review
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Well.... I am truly a sucker for an appealing
game. No matter what the end result, I can't help but be intrigued by a good
story idea. I know I am not alone, there are all sorts of gamers out there
that are hopelessly waiting for the next well written and scripted game that
compels the player to play and complete the game. You know what I am talking
about, a game like Myst, or Half-life, something with such quality
production values and spit and polish where its more of an experience then
it is a game. This is not the game.
In Overclocked, you play as a military
psychiatrist named David, you start the game out in a hotel in New York city
amidst a terrible storm, you must go to the hospital because five patients
are all suffering from amnesia. Through a series of sessions you are tasked
with trying to unlock the rather peculiar mystery. From there, you play as
each one of the characters in a sort of flashback gameplay, while trying to
piece things together in the present as David. This being a game that has a
pretty decent idea going for it, the game is not spelled out linearly,
rather bits and pieces of the crazy crud that these people dealt with and
experienced. Sort of a cheap man's version of a Quentin Tarentino film, only
not that clever and with a lot less swearing.
"And then, this little Italian guy in red
overalls, knocked me down, and took my mushrooms!"
The game makes no bones about it, this is a
title for the game player who embraces mysteries and could care less about
gameplay, yes this is a point and click adventure. Preparing to go out in
the storm, our hero David must inspect everything in his hotel room and the
lobby. This means, inspecting every section and engaging in some rather
blathering conversation with the entirely-too-pompous-to-be a hotel staff
person. Failure to find everything will not allow you to exit the hotel. To
me this is a real turn off, and I am a sucker for a good story and
adventure, but to me the gameplay is lessened when you must run the cursor
over everything on the screen in the hopes the icon will change and you can
inspect it. Granted, this game takes the whole point and click interface to
a new level by having multiple icons appear over object when applicable and
having you select items from you inventory on the bottom of the screen and
placing them on to object in the game portion.
The game is decent enough to look at, the facial
expressions don't always match up to the tone of the character's voice
during a conversation and some graphics almost look phoned in. The hotel
staff person for instance, very drab and hardly any facial or body movement.
I will give some leeway since the game was originally a French made game, so
the English translations won't always line up with the facial expressions,
it is however kind of interesting to see what foreigners think, of how
Americans (New Yorkers in particular) should act. The locations are clean
enough looking but for a game that deals with some fairly intense subject
matter and violence, New York looked pretty nice and clean, almost like
Vancouver B.C. (a pretty clean city in my opinion), and that hurts the game.
A gritty more seedy feel was needed throughout the entire game, its like the
whole game was a PG-13 movie where they would bring you close to the R rated
stuff, but then pull back. The whole game left me wondering, what if?
"Batman, I need you to rescue me from
this game!"
The voice work in the game is nothing short of a
train wreck, again, the translations may have lost something going from
French to English, but man, this is some pretty bad dialogue. Our first
impression of David is that he must be some sort of hick who needs to talk
to everyone he meets, they being grumpy New Yorkers (which isn't entirely
true). He acts like a moron, and the script in which we are forced to digest
is not clever at all. The idea is clever, but some of the dialogue is 5th
grade reading at best, and that is insulting to 5th graders. Things do turn
better as you begin playing through the flashback scenes but not way better,
just, better.
To move around, you merely place the arrow on a
spot you would like your character to go, and then click, the character will
then walk to that specific area. This is how you navigate around when you
are in big enough areas to actually walk. Standing next to a desk and
clicking on it will bring up a top down view of the desk and you can then
use your cursor as expected. I wanted to really get pulled into this game
and find myself enveloped by the story and gameplay but it simply never
got the job done. Maybe it was the odd flow of the game, maybe it was the
goofy-silly dialogue and interactions that kept ruining the mood, but one thing is for sure, this was a disappointing
title.
| Review Scoring Details for Overclocked: A History of Violence |
Gameplay: 6.0
It is a new fancy version of point and click,
but at the end of the day, its still point and click.
Graphics: 7.0
Passable, if not because the game has a clean
look to it, characters are all different looking but don't emote all too
well. More time was spent on the New York skyline then the facial gestures.
Sound: 5.7
Ah, the game is entertaining in the voice work
but it is purely unintentional, goofy dialogue, goofy inflection in the
voice work, just goofy all around.
Difficulty: Medium
Concept: 7.0
I thought this was a clever idea for a game and
had the glaring problems been reeled in and corrected, this could have been
something special.
Overall: 6.0
Overclocked is a valiant effort to shake the
point and click adventure genre up. The plot is clever but the game seems to
miss the mark when it comes to production value, I think with some better
dialogue and voice work we may have had a sleeper hit.