In this day and age of action-packed “in your face” games, it’s not often I come across a different kind of puzzler that I can take a breather with, giving my trigger finger reflexes a rest — not to mention easily kill time away (which came in very handy while I was laid up sick for awhile, shortly after the hustle and bustle of the holiday season).
The fine folks at King Art Games excellently deliver “The Raven: Legacy Of A Master Thief”, a point-and-click – or in this case, point-and-button press – crime adventure that spans three episodes. It’s a story that immerses you in both sides of the tale, that combines an Agatha Christie-esque thrill-of-the-chase “whodunit” with risk and reward of a good heist story.
TR’s story goes a little something like this: It’s 1960’s Europe. A master thief who is simply known as “The Raven” shakes everyone up with his spectacular burglaries, while remaining unscathed in the process — that is until a hotshot investigator, Nicholas Legrand, confronts him and kills him. A few years later, a priceless jewel – one of the “Eyes Of The Sphinx” – was stolen from the British Museum and a raven feather was left at the scene of the crime. Could it be that the ol’ bird is back from the dead or is there an impostor following his footsteps? In any case, Legrand is back to action and this is where the gamer, as protagonist Constable Anton Jakob Zellner, comes in and aboard the Orient Express passenger train.
Graphically, TR is truly a cinematic experience with dozens of cutscenes galore. As the game begins, you get treated to a movie-style opening cinema, complete with opening credits, and right away you can feel the suspense stirring. From there on in and throughout, the eyes are constantly treated to luscious, well-detailed environments and surroundings, and the characters themselves. I especially liked just how much visual detail was put into this game.
Just as the eyes are spoiled with the visuals, the ears are given equal treatment with the audio. While it’s not constant, the background music is excellent and is even more so during TR’s intro. The voice-overs are very well executed also; the characters’ voices are full of emotion here; not boring and monotone. Aside from conversing with NPC’s to try to find out vital information and clues, it’s amusing to hear Constable Zellner talk to himself while observing a person or object. And with TR being of point-and-click variety, the control scheme here is certainly not a factor, as you’ll mainly be using the left control stick and the A button for majority of the time, so there is definitely no concern or worry about what purpose each button has on your controller.
The main part to TR is locating objects to use for a particular puzzle or situation. While the game isn’t difficult overall, the hardest part to it is literally trying to find said objects, as they aren’t exactly highlighted in any real form or fashion. On the flipside of this though, the object searching has gamers to either use the true blue method of moving the cursor all over the screen to see just what can be observed or interacted with, or they can spend some “detective points” to temporarily highlight noteworthy items, and choosing the latter option though will diminish your final score.
The cursor moving method may be tedious, but that’s the whole point to TR — to thoroughly examine everything and everyone. Just how thorough are we talking here? To where you’ll often need to examine an item more than once in order for Constable Zellner to really notice anything of importance about the item. And in order to find out plenty of information, you’ll have to engage in lengthy conversation with the NPC’s, in which there’ll be certain topics or questions for you to choose from. This particular method is especially ideal for me, as I’m the inquisitive type.
The general storyline in TR may seem to move at a slow pace, but at least there are those optional side mission puzzles to take part in, like helping a nervous train passenger get into his cabin after he had managed to lock himself out or helping a baroness find her missing purse.
What really stands out in TR is not the actual gameplay, but the cast of characters, as each of them has their own little quirks and nuances. I don’t have a problem at all with the point-and-button pressing adventure, but the character interaction is where it’s at. And if I were to have any gripes about the game, it would be that perhaps Constable Zellner could have a bit more of a personality, but he’s still a likeable character nonetheless. Plus, I’ve also noticed that characters tend to occasionally slide into position, as opposed to walking. All in all though, TR is a solid mystery title and I hope that the second and third episodes are just as good as the first.
Sean Boley
Platform: Xbox 360 (Available on Xbox Live)
Developer: King Art Games
Publisher: The Adventure Company & Nordic Games
ESRB: T
Price: $9.99 (Episodes 2 & 3 are also available, at $9.99 each)
| Review Score | |
|---|---|
| Graphics |  |
| Absolutely gorgeous and breathtaking visuals -- and HD at that. | |
| Sound |  |
| Charming music complements the graphics; voices are well done. | |
| Gameplay | |
| Not much action involved, other than search, observe, and interrogate. | |
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| It's solid and suspenseful; what more could you ask for? | |
