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Tri Synergy brings Buka and Saturn+’s adventure game to the USA.
Everywhere I go, I read about how the adventure genre is barely existent. I don’t completely agree. Looking back over the last year or so, I’ve reviewed quite a few adventure games. Most of them come from The Adventure Company, so it’s expected, but there are other entries as well. This brings me to Midnight Nowhere.
The game has you escaping a claustrophobic hospital. Everywhere you turn there are locked doors. When you encounter another person, they are dead. There’s a killer out to get you, so you better move quickly. The problem is you can’t remember a thing. Once you leave the hospital, you’ll go to a police station where you’ll see even more dead people.
The gameplay, as in most adventure titles, is very mouse-point-and-click. If you have played an adventure game before, the controls are very straight-forward. There are icons to read, use, grab, view or talk to someone, and you must click on them before clicking on an item. While this takes a bit of getting used to at first, since most adventure games have an “action” button that makes that choice for you, it won’t keep you more than a few minutes. To move around you click on the arrows to go to a different screen. Sometimes the game’s multiple buttons confuse you because there are times when you’ll confuse the grab, view or use commands.
The game’s puzzles are very different. There isn’t too many locked door puzzles, etc but the puzzles included are very um...unique seems to be a good word. You’ll use items like condoms and vibrators to solve the game’s many puzzles. Because of this it doesn’t seem too much of a surprise that certain parts of the female anatomy are shown frequently in the game.
The game’s visuals do a good job. The backgrounds, though pre-rendered, are very detailed. The amount of detail is almost obsessive at some points. You get a good sense of this while exploring but viewing things up close is awesome. The actual character in the game is decent. His modeling isn’t very impressive; neither are his animations. Fortunately, it doesn’t distract much from the game’s visuals.
The audio portion of the game is strong. The voiceovers are strong and do a good job at moving the story forward. The dialog is very sarcastic and European, and can be pretty humorous at times. The background music can be very fitting at times and not so much at others. Nonetheless, its score fits the game. The sound effects included sound crisp and very realistic.
Midnight Nowhere is not going to be for everyone. While this review is based on final code, it isn’t a boxed copy. I didn’t find Midnight Nowhere on EBGames.com or GameStop.com at all. They don’t even list it. The reason I was looking for it is because I would love to see what the ESRB rates it. If you can find it, and happen to like adventure games, check it out, though.
System Requirements:
TBD -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Nov 6, 2003
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