Still Life Review

Adventure games are like the black sheep of the gaming industry, especially in recent years. While other games have continued to become thrillers with amazing sales that push the limits of gameplay, graphics, and overall presentation, adventure games have bitten the dust for the most part. Why? Tough call. But Still Life, a new game from Microids and The Adventure Company, hopes to break this monotony and strive in a downfallen adventure genre. Can it succeed?

The story is matching for an adventure game. You take the role of a female FBI agent who has been investigating some nasty murders recently. It is your job to solve the crimes. This story is actually quite intriguing and it is well presented with good quality pre-rendered movies. So, the premise of the game is intact at least, and we all know the story is the most pivotal point of an adventure title. Now, moving on…

Gameplay wise, Still Life is your typical point-and-click adventure title. Simply tap down the button to move to an area, investigate an item, pick up an object, etc. Most of your time will be spent scavenging through crime scenes and looking for clues and evidence to help you solve the crimes. You can also spend time talking to NPC's to try and get some information out of them. Not an overly developed part of the game, but somewhat useful nonetheless. The rest of your time will be spent solving puzzles, exactly what you should expect to be doing in an adventure game.

Like most adventure games, Still Life looks very nice and polished. It uses pre-rendered environments and they are all well detailed and designed. The characters look decent and have pretty good animations, but they definitely could have used some more work. For how realistic the game tries to come off as, the somewhat "cartoon-ish" look of the game can definitely throw you off. But to counteract the downside are the excellent pre-generated cinemas which are of great quality and, as already mentioned, really help to advance the story.