Let's Talk About - Dracula: The Resurrection

This man just ticked of Dracula!  We're screwed!

So I'm taking a well deserved vacation right now. In the absence of any significant plans, I have decided to start working my way through some of my every growing back catalog of games.  GOG conveniently released the fifth installment of the Dracula adventure game series last week, so that is my first target.  Don't know if I'll get through all of that (I may get distracted ... it's happened before) but I've at least gotten to the first game in the series. I'll be linking GOG's website for each of these titles so that they are easy to find in case anyone is interested in playing them.

The first installment of this series, Dracula: The Resurrection, was released developed by Index+, France Telecom Multimedia, and Canal+ Multimedia. It was originally published by DreamCatcher Interactive. Apparently an iOS/Android version is also now available.  It is being published by my beloved Microïds (which is now part of Anuman Interactive).

Taking place seven years after the end of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Mina has begun to feel the pull of Dracula's castle.  She departs in the middle of the the night, and mere hours later a frantic Jonathon Harker goes in search of her. Using a series of logic puzzles and NPC conversations, players guide Jonathon on his search to find his wife. At this point, I feel that there are two things that should be clarified.  Firstly, this is 7 years after Dracula the book and not that Coppola film from 1992. (Though since the in game Jonathan has the same hair as Keanu Reeves' Jonathan, I can see were confusion could arise.) Secondly, this game was released in 2000. The year 2000 doesn't seem like all that long ago ... until I look at games from then. That was 14 years ago folks. Wow, graphics sure have changed.  

Ghosts of pictures past

Resurrection may look dated, but I have no issues whatsoever with the actual design of this game.  In fact, I've found myself to be pretty impressed with its overall construction, and it's aesthetic appeal is very high. Let's break it down.

1. Sound Design: Sound design is clearly low budget (one or two short sound clips per location), but the atmospheric effects are well chosen.  It's clear that they are looping, but the loop blends together well.  If it weren't for a small "pop" at the end of each clip, I might not even notice the loop all that much.  Sound clips are appropriate, and they give the game a lot of atmosphere. The inn felt sufficiently creaky. The cemetery gave me goosebumps. A feeling of suspense certainly surrounded me while in game world, even if I was not all that worried about dying.  The few stand along musical tracks that are heard during significant cut scenes were also very well done.
   Overall Score: A
2. Voice Acting: I normally make a point of playing France Telecom, Canal+, Microïds, etc titles in French.  Not only is it a good linguistic workout, but their French localization (without fail) is always heads and shoulders above the English language option. The thing is though, I also like to play these games with French language subtitles on.  This ensures that I'm not missing any important spoken cues. With no subtitle option available for any of the languages, I opted to use English localization this one time.  And ... the voice acting is not bad.  We've all heard worse. Resurrection's actors sound properly surprised, properly outraged, properly spooky ... but was all a little bit off. I was left with the impression that the developers pulled people from their offices or maybe even called up friends to play these parts.  Voices aren't bad enough to distract from the game's overall mood, but they aren't good enough to be memorable either. They're unoffensively average. Overall Score: C
3. Basic Visual Design: I mentioned above that Resurrection looks dated, and since it's 14 years old ... well that's kind of a "duh". I would still argue though that the game is still graphically well done and artistically tight. Overall Score: A+
   
   Colors and Lighting - Colors are appropriately muted.  The world outside Dracula's castle has a lot of grey, grey-blue, and brown. Meanwhile, the inside of Dracula's castle was grey (as one would expect) with the exception of Dracula's personal domain. For instance, Dracula's bedroom was predominantly decorated with faded, but undeniably rich, red fabrics. His personal effects (books, paintings, etc) were similarly colored with rich greens, purples, and blues.  Even with these jeweled tones though, the developers were conscious of the game's overall atmosphere.  Everything was lit or aged in such away that the environment remained sufficiently dreary.
   
   Scenery Detail - Detail was included for atmosphere sake.  The walls of Dracula's bedroom showed where pictures had once hung. Stained glass windows were set castle into walls. Ruined architecture wasn't just a collection of the same cut and pasted model for stone blocks or broken boards - at least three or four different shapes existed.  As with any game it was obvious that object models were reused here and there, but it was clear that the developers took pains to make the places look unique. For example, one would not mistake the inside of Broken Down Building A for the inside of Broken Down Building B.
   
   Cutscenes - One of the pitfalls of late 90s/Early 00s titles is that they can be a bit too enamored with 3D technology.  This can potentially result in unnecessary cutscenes.  The large number of cutscenes then, in turn, can results in cumbersome gameplay.  Resurrection, thankfully, is rather conservative with it's use.  Chapter transitions or major location changes featured some rather elaborate scenes that must have been breathtaking at one time.  NPC conversations featured cutscenes when questions were asked/answered (otherwise NPCs were image stills).  I'd like to note that the NPS conversations were very expressive,  and that their uncomfortably close camera resulted in a very unsettling atmosphere.  Scenes were also used when mounting and descending most stairs.  I am especially fan of this, because it minimizes the number of clicks the player must make.
4. Character Placement and Movement - Resurrection is one of those titles where you stand in one place and use the mouse to look around or interact with the environment.  When you want to move forward, your mouse turns into an arrow, you click, and you find yourself standing still in another location. In my experience, titles like this have a few common pitfalls. The first of these would be figuring out where you can and cannot go. In this game, where you can/can't go is very easy to find. Not only does the environments clearly delineate where paths are/aren't, but the hitbox for the directional mouse cursor is of a significant size. No pixel hunting here. The second of these is the environment's composition.  One of the most annoying things about this type of game is that their environments are often designed to elicit the maximum amount of clickage. (They may not actually be dsigned that way, but it sure does feel like it some times!) In order to navigate a mere hotel room, players may have to click six times just to navigate the small space. If these environments were better planned out, and more was accessible to the player each time they moved, clicks could be reduced.  Resurrection did an excellent job of making your clicks matter. A large amount of each location is available to players each time they move. Each move covers a significant (but not disorientatingly large) space. More importantly, most "dead end" areas are not there "just because".  Dead ends either serve to direct player movement (i.e. you can't go in this door, so the one down there should be your focus) or to signify a puzzle location.  Backtracking is minimized, and I thank the heavens for it. As a side note, I also love the fact that the player's means of entering/exiting spaces is always logical. You never "phase" in and out of locations.  Descending or ascending a well?  There's a ladder built into the wall.  Climbing up through a hole? You'd better have a rope on hand for that. Overall Score: A
5. Puzzle Design - Finally, the puzzle design in this game is fantastic. 1) Puzzles are logical. There are no rubber duckys here. 2) Puzzle pieces are easy to locate.  They aren't highlighted to show you can interact with them, but they aren't hidden in the scenery either.  In truth they look pretty much like anything else in the game.  I don't know how it is so clear what you can/can't pick up, but I won't question it.  If it works, it works. 3) The environment naturally dictates puzzles. Lighting is important. Did you walk to a dark corner with nothing in it?  It's probably a puzzle. 4) Puzzles are easy to find.  As with movement, the hitbox for "action", "action with inventory item", and "look closer" moments are of significant size.  No pixel hunting. 5) Progression is not game breaking. Puzzles are designed so that you cannot advance to Area B, get locked out of Area A, and then find you missed a puzzle back in Area A that you must have in order to move forward. It's impossible to skip ahead of yourself. Let's breath a sign of relief for that. Overall Score: A+

Not sure if this place is evil or not ...

In the end, I have nothing for praise for Dracula: The Resurrection - the first in this adventure game saga.  GOG sells it in a pack with two sequels for $9.99. If the second and third games in the "Dracula Trilogy" are as good as this one, then my money will have been money well spent. If I were a teacher and this game was my student, I'd give it a solid A in its assignment.

New Year and New Gaming Resolutions!

image credit: daykarobinsondesignsblog.com

Well folks, with January already half over (!!) 2013 is well on its way.  The past couple of weeks I have thought back over my gaming habits from the past year and ended up coming to a few conclusions about where I would like to see myself and L'Épée Magique this year.  They are as follows:

I will place ME2 and Meriel's Story on hold.

I have enjoyed Meriel, but at the moment she has gone on too long. I enjoyed Mass Effect tremendously, and I even enjoy Mass Effect 2 when I can convince myself to play it.  The operative key words here though are "convince myself to play it".  For me, gaming is meant to be an enjoyable adventure of both the mind and imagination.  Why then, should I have to feel like it is work just to place the CD in the drive and launch a title?  I'm not sure where along the line playing ME2 began to feel like drudgery, but it's likely tied to the obligatory install of Origin alongside ME3 that will prevent me from ever completing the series and experiencing the final chapter of this trilogy first hand.  That alone is enough to dispirit anyone.  I'm not done with the title, and I would really like to see Meriel finish her current mission, but I think we both need space before that can happen.  It's okay. The galaxy will wait.

I will make a dent in my GOG shelf.

I have a weakness for 90s/early '00 style adventure games, and GOG is more than willing to feed this fascination of mine.  As the result of weekend and holiday sales across the past couple of years, shelf upon shelf of these titles now fill my GOG gamecase (as opposed to bookcase).  I really want to sit down and spend some quality time with Gabriel Knight, Sanitarium, or my beloved Microïd titles.  I have, after all, recently acquired the rest of the Still Life trilogy.  It's been hard the past year or so to play this kind of game without feeling guilty about Meriel.  With her on hold, I finally have a chance to both play and blog musings about these titles.

I will start another lengthy title.

I have so many epic length cRPGs on my shelf  of both the virtual and physical varieties.  It is time to make a series dent in that list.  While I have not decided which of these titles I will plug in next, a decision will be made within the next week. I still want to story-tell whichever title I choose, but am not sure how exactly it will be approached. Look for posts regarding all of this around the beginning of  February.

Let's Talk About: Still Life

Spring has recently sprung, and what goes better with the celebration of new life than the contemplation of life expired?  Okay, so that was a little bit tortured.  Death, particularly homicide, is always an interesting premise for a video game though.  In this instance I'm particularly thinking about Microid's 2005 title, Still Life.  A detective style, point-and-click adventure game, this title does the developer's legacy proud as it follows the quasi parallel stories of FBI agent Victoria and her private detective grandfather, Gustav McPherson.

The Basics:

Victoria and Gustav

Still Life's most defining feature is the manner in which the story is framed.  Victoria is working in present day Chicago when a rash of murders go down. Eerily, the victims of her cases closely mirror the work of a serial killer that Victoria's grandfather, Gus McPherson, tried to track down in 1920s Europe. Despite the fact that 75 years separate our main characters, the number of similarities between their cases is unmistakable.  By alternately focusing on these two investigators, Still Life sends the player on an engaging adventure in the hopes that someone will finally bring the serial killers to justice. Along the way, gamers meet a number of well characterized NPCs and stroll through one breathtaking environment after another.  Microids, after all, is the patron saint of beautiful adventure game settings.  The player also faces a number of questions as they fill the shoes of Victoria and Gus.  Who is committing these atrocious murders? Is Victoria dealing with a copycat serial killer, or have the current crimes been committed by the same person Gus investigated?  Is that even possible? 

 

The Good:
Still Life benefits from solid characters, a compelling story, and (for the most part) very natural puzzles.  Not only are the main characters strong enough to carry this game but even the less important NPCs are strongly characterized.  One of the things that impressed me the most was the prostitutes Gustav spent a significant amount of time interacting with.  Each woman had a distinct personality, and each woman was treated with dignity without the game resorting to tropes and stereotypes in an effort to streamline the tale.  Gustav corresponded with the women in the same way that he did all others.  Most charmingly he even afforded them nods of his head, a tip of his hat, and other social pleasantries one would not expect given their station.  In the end, character interactions throughout the entire game are very well done.

Since I do not want to spoil the story, let it suffice to say that Still Life's tale is well constructed and it maintains a steady pace throughout. I genuinely wanted to know what would happen next, and the script manages to continue luring you forward without resorting to cheap tricks. Plot points are not unnecessarily belabored and little time is wasted with needless backtracking. A few of the story elements may require some suspension of disbelief on the player's part (depending on how jaded they are regarding adventure game logic), but the shifts between Victoria's and Gustav's timeline are well placed and they flow naturally from one to the other.  I personally never felt like too much emphasis was given to either character, and I very quickly felt the (natural) emotional connection that Victoria shared with her grandfather.  Overall, there is very little to complain about here.

The Bane of My Existence 

Perhaps most important for me was the natural implementation of Still Life's puzzles.  While my old nemesis puzzle locks made a number of appearances, I suppose that is to be expected of any point-an-click adventure game.  The majority of the puzzles not only made sense in the context of the story, but with some careful thought they were possible to solve without resorting to gamefaqs or walkthroughs.  Likewise, character interactions made it clear where the player was supposed to go and what they were supposed to do when arriving there.  In addition, I only ran into a handful of instances were objects I needed to pick up blended into the background.  Environments are designed in such a way that points of interest were clearly defined without being extremely obvious.  No pixel hunting here.

The Bad:
While I found little truly "bad" about this title, there are certainly a few of things that Still Life could have done better. The most notable of these being the character models.  While most of the models fall well within what one would expect from an adventure game circa 2005, there are a couple which are extremely sub-par.  The prostitutes of 1920s Prague are particularly guilty of this.  It is clear that their clothing and hair styles attempt to follow era appropriate fashion, but something about their appearance never looks quite right.  The women end up looking far younger or far older than their intended ages.  One woman in particular, who was supposed to be very popular with the men (for her beauty among other things), does not even resemble the role she plays. A shapeless dress, boxy grandmother heels, and swollen cankles make me wonder how she ended up with the number of clients she reportedly entertains .  For a developer that clearly put a great deal of effort into every other visual aspect of this game (something that some of the other character designs reflect), I am perplexed at how characters like this woman slipped through the cracks.

Dialogue Options
(click to enlarge)

While a minor gripe, there is also this game's conversation system. Instead of opting for a dialogue tree à la Syberia or Broken Sword, Still Life institutes a rather unique method of navigating its extended dialogue sessions.  Upon initiating verbal contact, Victoria or Gustav generally speak for a while and receive a reply from their contact, and then image of a mouse appears.  If there is more detail to be uncovered about the recent exchange, then the right mouse button will be highlighted red.  If there is additional key dialogue to add to the most recent exchange, then the left mouse button will also be highlighted red.  There is no on screen indication to show what will be discussed, there is no tree that will let you revisit pas dialogue points, and there is nothing telling you what the purpose of the right and left mouse buttons are.  I only discovered the difference between the right and left buttons by testing them out.  One can assume that old dialogue options (even from the current conversation) cannot be revisited because everything they say is added to the character script log.  One shouldn't have to open a new screen and scroll through mountains of text to find something if they missed a detail though.  I can sort of see what the developers were doing here.  After all, everything else in the game tries to flow as naturally as possible.  The story elements flow smoothly into each other, puzzles fit naturally into the world, and even cut scenes mainly exist to advance the story so that it doesn't stagnate.  When mixed with these aspects, a traditional dialogue   tree or "notepad" element could easily feel stilted.  By using their mouse system, conversations flow smoothly and have beginning, middle, and end.  I can't help by wonder though why the dialogue tree was axed when equally awkward lock puzzles were left in.  After all, you cannot tell me that people actually use complex systems like that to secure their chests and safes.  In the end, Still Life's dialogue system is not a deal breaker, but it does not really do this title any favors either.

Another nitpick is the manner in which this game compensates for Gustav's lack of current forensic technology.  While Victoria has the FBI's resources at her fingertips, Gustav is a private directive with few resources beyond his wit and connections he has made over the years.  I will not go into how the game compensates for Gustav, but let's just say that the talent it introduces does not make a great deal of sense without context.  A bit of reading on my part seems to indicate that it makes more sense if one has played the related game Post-Mortem, but a passing mention in Still Life of how this talent was acquired would not have been amiss.  (Released in 2002, Post-Mortem is essentially a prequel to Still Life, and features Gus as its main protagonist.)

Last but not least is the English voice acting.  As you can tell I played the game in French.   On one hand, this was partially because doing so helps me maintain a grasp on the language.  On the other hand, it was done so because the English voice acting is atrocious.  During the first chapter some of the voices (like Victoria's) are tolerable, but others are so mind-gratingly awful that I actually turned on subtitles.  With the dialogue not readble, I could skim the text and then skip through the spoken dialogue at a much faster rate.  That, my friends, is never a good sign.  The voice overs are not a game breaker, but I really wish that Microids would have hired decent actors for just one game in their library.  As for the French actors, I found their VO to be pretty good.  Not every character was excellent, but they were certainly more tolerable than their English counterparts.

The Worth Noting:

Victoria's GPS vs Gustav's Map

Still Life's attention to visual detail is one of the things that makes this title so special.  There are always amusing little features like the Microsoft "flower box" screensaver seen on the computer in Victoria's father's office, but Microids also took a great deal of pain to differentiate between the early-2000s and the 1920s.  Details and settings found in one era often found their way into the other as if to reinforce the year gap.  For instance, Victoria's SUV is a prominent game feature since it is used to navigate from one part of the city to another. While Gus uses a paper map (instead of a GPS like device) to move from location to location, era appropriate cars are scattered throughout in order to emphasize changes in technology.  These vehicles would be easy to dismiss, except for the fact that Still Life makes sure you see them.  The first time we meet Gus, one vehicle is blocking a one-lane road near the river.  The sole purpose of interacting with this object is to have Gustav wonder what kind of jerk would park his car there.  In another example of era comparison, both Victoria and Gus speak with coroners and morgues.  The FBI Bureau's morgue is a pristine, metallic locale with bright lights, modern technology, and clean white linens.  You can almost smell disinfectant in the air.  Gus' coroner (Chap. 2), however, is an former, accidental army surgeon who operates out of an abandoned chapel. Blood stains the floor, the table, the medic's apron, and the player almost gags on the smell of death, dust, and decay.  In 2005, the deceased was placed on a brushed metal table and covered in a clean sheet.  In 1920's Prague, the deceased was placed on an old stone altar and still wore the old burlap police had used as a makeshift body-bag.  From a visual standpoint it also bears mentioning that cut scene camera angles are both varied and interesting.

Character Specific UI

To only focus on the environments though, would be doing the game's interface an injustice.  That is right, the interface. A title's UI is generally something one does not usually pay attention to past the point of noting whether it is intuitive, functional, or a pain to use.  With this game, however, one must go a step further since it changes in appearance according to the character using it.  Victoria's interface is predictably electronic in nature, and puts one in mind of a palm pilot (or other early-2000s data storage device).  Here she can access extensive case files and conversation notes.  The usual inventory management and save features are located here as well.  Gustav, on the other hand would not have had access to this kind of technology.  A such, his case notes and and past conversations are recorded on faded notepaper.  It is as if he is flipping though a handwritten notebook or file folder to obtain the information he needs.  Other visual cues differentiate between the eras as well.  For instance, where  Victoria's character picture is color and on an FBI card, Gustav's head shot is black and white and on a yellowed ID card.  In the grand scheme of things something like this may seem small, but it is one detail which convinced me that playing this game through was a good idea.  Any developer that cares enough to change features like that, things which most people would not have noticed had it stayed the same, has most likely dedicated equal, if not more, attention to the game play features that really do matter.

The Verdict:
It should be noted that Still Life has a sequel (Still Life 2) in which some of its events are (hopefully) resolved.  The game does end with a cliffhanger and an end-credit cinematic tells us where the next game will take place. The credits also urge gamers to continue the experience online at stillife-game.com.  No longer an active website, the Original Official Still Life website can be found here via the Wayback Machine.  I have not played the sequel yet, which recently became available on GOG, but I see myself picking it up very soon.  In the end, Still Life is a point-and-click adventure game which makes you forget that it is a point-and-click adventure game.  The story is compelling, the characters are memorable, and the environments are beautiful.  I can unreservedly recommend this game to anyone looking for a good story, even if adventure titles are not usually your "thing."