Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 7
Another FMV murder-mystery from the fine folks over at Wales Interactive (and developer Da'vekki Studios), The Shapeshifting Detective has you investigating the murder of a young cello prodigy who had more than a few murky secrets lurking underneath her perfect exterior.

As the name suggests, the gimmick of the game is that you have the ability to shapeshift into any of the characters you meet, and you use this over the course of the story to gain information and set suspects against each other. There are also elements of the supernatural that slowly creep in through the game, and there’s a really nice, spooky vibe to the presentation. In a similar vein to Contradiction! there's a lot of clicking around and trying to figure out which character to interact with to try and push the story along, and with the added task of figuring out who you should be "playing" it can get a little tedious at points.

Still, all the characters are very colourful, and when you begin to really see how everyone is connected and unravel their secrets the game absolutely shines. When you add in the fact that the killer is randomly chosen between three of the suspects, it just adds that extra element of tension - I was genuinely engrossed at the game's climax, terrified that I had chosen wrongly (I hadn't!).

The Contradiction! comparisons don't end at the gameplay; actors Rupert Booth and Anarosa Butler feature in both that game and The Shapeshifting Detective. Claude Dupont isn't quite as campy as Inspector Jenks but Booth is still the standout performer here. Overall, the acting is much better than in your average FMV game, with Aislinn De'ath's performance as Violet being another highlight. The only actors bringing the quality down slightly are those playing radio DJs Poe and Munro - and even then they're not really bad, it's just their 50s-esque transatlantic shtick feels horribly out of place.

The production quality is definitely on the "student film" side too - this isn't as flashy as something like The Isle Tide Hotel would go on to be, but isn't quite as rinky-dink as Contradiction either. In all honesty, I just wish Wales Interactive would have invested in some better lighting and makeup here. It's kind of crazy when you google Munro's actress and see how gorgeous she is - the Channel Awesome-level lighting job really does her no favours.

Overall, I'm actually surprised how much I enjoyed this. Wales Interactive's FMV games tend to vary in quality - for every The Bunker there's duds like Bloodshore and The Isle Tide Hotel. Even the other reviews on here and Steam are rather lukewarm, but I had a pretty great time with this. There's also a Poe & Munro-focused prequel which I may have a look into too.

P.S. no ending where I have a whirlwind romance with Violet? Cowards.

Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 5
Intriguing concept, absolutely abysmal execution.

Vaudeville is a murder-mystery game in which, theoretically, you unravel the mystery through AI-generated conversations that you have with the characters. It's an interesting concept for a game, with the AI-driven nature adding an element of unpredictability to the proceedings. Unfortunately, current levels of AI conversation generation aren't advanced enough to stop this being anything other than an absolute mess. An unintentionally hilarious mess, but a mess nonetheless.

As "Detective Martini" (yes, really), my first task was to visit the police station and get the lowdown on the three victims. The chief (a generic Unity model looking vaguely cop-like) gives me the names of the victims and locations of the murders, as well as the names of some potential witnesses for me to talk to. I ask about one of these witnesses, an Old Man Jenkins, and the chief tells me he'll mark his location on my map. I go back and check my map... nothing. Hmm. I go back and ask the chief to mark it again. He does. Nothing. Wondering if the game was bugged (as it was the day before when the morgue wouldn't unlock) I went to the developer's Discord server and asked about it...

... turns out Old Man Jenkins doesn't exist in the game. The chief just made him up. AI is the future, right guys!? If the character that is supposed to give you all your basic information about the case is inclined to make up random bullshit then how am I supposed to trust anything anyone says!?

I know that detective games are supposed to have an element of deceit, but the AI of Vaudeville doesn't seem to have enough restrictions put on it to prevent it from doing it's best to just block progress completely. It's like the game actively wants you to fail, and since the developers seem to be leaning into the "streamer-bait" marketing strategy I don't see them making the game any easier to navigate. I threw in the towel after asking every character to show me how to get to Cabane Violette, a location that exists in the game because I can clearly see it in Sandbox Mode. Even after the coroner said she would mark it on my map, it still wouldn't unlock, so I've decided not to waste any more time.

Even away from the frustrating AI, the rest of the game is just... ugly. The intro consists of a Powerpoint-esque slideshow of ugly AI art with an ear-grating, 1940s-style AI voiceover spouting overly flowery bullshit about the city of Vaudeville. The UI is basic and not well-designed, and some of the character scenes absolutely tank the FPS despite how simple they are. The map of the city? You guessed it, AI art. The assets are all, I assume, ripped straight from the Unity store, and the AI voices are practically text-to-speech, they're so robotic. And none of the characters talk like normal people. Every sentence they spout is intentionally as elaborate and fleshed out as possible... apart from one character, whose bluntness is almost refreshing. Just tweaking the AI so they talk like normal people would already be a big improvement to the game.

Any positives? Uhhh...
Any time the AI would freak out and start talking about unrelated stuff was pretty funny. Mrs. Potter telling me her husband had died but not knowing how he died also made me laugh. And attempting to breach the impenetrable wall that is Monsieur Saxabar was honestly kind of hilarious.

This needs a lot of work to get it anywhere close to an enjoyable detective game. If you have to, just watch any of the streamer compilations floating around on Youtube or Twitch. At this point, it's not deserving of your time or money.

Next up: Case of the Golden Idol

Pep's Season of Spooks - Game 13
A fantastic story, dragged down by flawed gameplay.

I adore the Max Payne games and Control, and since Alan Wake 2 is coming I thought I'd get myself reacquainted with the story. The cutscenes and writing are where the game truly excels, with Sam Lake's storytelling at it's very best here. The David Lynch/Stephen King influences are clear, same as the vein of Hong Kong action cinema and film noir ran through Max Payne. And there are plenty of references throughout, from the obvious Twin Peaks homages all the way to Remedy's own Max Payne games.

Sadly, where the game really falls down is in the gameplay itself. The "shine a torch in the enemy's face before you can shoot them" gimmick is fun at first, but it gets old fast. Plus the game has an annoying habit of always spawning at least one enemy behind you that always seems to hit you twice, leading to half your health being gone in a flash. Combine this with the clunky movement and by about the half way point I was cursing every combat section and rushing my way to the next cutscene. Don't even get me started on the "possessed objects that are too large to dodge" sequences! The fact that Control's combat feels so amazing compared to this is a miracle.

This also seems to be quite a poor remaster; cutscenes are restricted to 30fps - there were a few instances of character's dialogue and their actual mouth animations not syncing at all - some dialogue audio cut out early. There was even one moment early in Episode 6 where the game decided to skip a TV show scene entirely - I never got to see Sam Lake "do the face"...

The DLCs are almost all reused assets and mostly feel pretty pointless. The Signal is light on story and heavy on combat, and therefore you can probably skip unless you really enjoy the combat for some reason. If you're really invested in the story like I am then play The Writer, since there's a couple of standout cutscenes and leads into Control's AWE expansion and, I assume, Alan Wake 2 itself.

If you're able to handle the clunky gameplay then one of the most interesting and engaging stories in all of gaming awaits you. Moving onto American Nightmare and Alan Wake 2!

Scary Rating 5/10 - Overall Rating 6/10 (if I was just rating the story it would be a 9!)

Well, I didn't enjoy this quite as much as the first one.

I somehow managed to suck worse at this game than the first one, even with the modernised controls. I don't really like Raiden as a protagonist, and the story didn't really hook me like the first one did. I did quite like the meta nature of it all, even though it did seem quite up-it's-own-ass at times. The long, rambling codec call before the final boss really took me out of the game, in all honesty. Ah well, seems that's Kojima for you.

Moving on to what many consider to be the peak of the series: Snake Eater.

EDIT: after a few months of reflection I've realised that I actually like this game more than I thought I did, so I'm bumping it up a mark.

So this is basically Silent Hill in VR, for better and for worse. Credit to Outer Brain, Organ Quarter definitely nails the vibe of the classic Team Silent games in all their goopy, metallic glory, as well as classic Resident Evil in the gameplay.

This is survival horror in its purest form. There’s item boxes, save rooms, puzzles and a (very) limited inventory. Of course, all of this comes with the pitfalls of the genre. Many times during the game did I end up having to run in and out of save rooms because I didn’t leave myself enough room for some important puzzle item. Also, while you get given maps of each area a la Silent Hill, the fact that you have to use an odd stamp system to mark locked doors and areas of interest yourself was pretty tedious. I’d rather the game just marked all these for you.

The environments are all pretty interesting, with some cool-looking locations like the cinema and the club adding some much-welcomed variety to the game. The gameplay has definitely started to show its age, with the quite basic VR elements not as immersive or advanced as games would become down the line.

The enemy designs are decent, although their AI doesn’t really let them do a lot except amble towards you, and most of the time they’re fairly easy to avoid completely. As a plus the boss designs are very cool and those fights are probably the best part of the game. The story suffers from that annoying trope of being overly ambiguous, with the only two NPCs in the game delivering overly flowery monologues but never really explaining what’s going on.

Apart from a couple of annoying indie horror game tropes Organ Quarter is a pretty solid VR horror game. Pick it up if it goes on sale.

PS: Technically I didn't finish this because the game bugged out after I beat the final boss and I ended up watching the ending on YouTube. I still count it though!

Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 2
An FMV interactive movie with lots of style but very little substance, The Isle Tide Hotel describes itself as "A British Twin Peaks" on it's Steam page.

I have to ask... how exactly is this similar in any way to Twin Peaks? Twin Peaks has a charismatic lead actor, this does not. Twin Peaks has an intriguing, twisting plot, this does not. A show/film with "weird" characters doesn't automatically make it "Lynchian", and it's pretty insulting to David Lynch that The Isle Tide Hotel would describe itself in this way.

The basic plot of the game has you play a father who is requested to visit a hotel by a private detective, to save his estranged daughter from a cult. Given the "choose-your-own-adventure" narrative that most of Wales Interactive's FMV games follow, what happens to the main character once you arrive at the hotel is largely up to you. To the game's credit, there seems to be quite a few different paths you can take and endings you can unlock, but I wasn't impressed enough with it to go beyond the one ending I got.

Some positives; the sets, costumes and cinematography were pretty nice, and I definitely got Eyes Wide Shut vibes from the use of masks. Like most FMV games, the acting is a bit all over the place. Jemima Rooper does her best as Price, but I feel like Michael Xavier sleepwalks his way through the central role. And the fact that they cast Richard Brake but only give him around 3 minutes of screen time is borderline criminal. The rest of the cast are varying degrees of "okay" - the entire production still gives me "student film with a budget" vibes.

!!SPOILERS AHEAD!! My biggest issue with the game (and bear with me since I only did one ending) is that the overall plot is pretty flimsy: it's not really established what the cult's overall goal is or what they want with Eleanor. You hear words like "term" and "core", the cult's leader waxes poetic and "body-swapping" is mentioned at one point. The fact that I got through an intended ending of the game knowing little about the actual cult is a criticism in itself.

Yes, I realise that this isn't really a detective game and I Pony Island'd myself again. But for a mystery game there's not much atmosphere or intrigue, and for an FMV game there's no real sense of fun. There's better mystery games and interactive movies out there.

Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 1
If I was to do THIS 🤟 would that mean anything to you?

A campy, delightfully British murder mystery, Contradiction is like an interactive episode of Midsomer Murders but starring the world's goofiest police inspector. Frederick Jenks walked so that Harry Du Bois could drunkenly stumble. Seriously, put those two in a room together, and they would just be asking questions to each other till the end of time.

The "gameplay" consists of clicking around the map, going from location to location and collecting evidence, that you then present and ask questions about to the game's cast of suspects. When you catch one of them in a lie, you select the two contradicting statements to push the story along. That's all there is to it, but as the statements build up it can be difficult to keep track of everything that's been said to see if a suspect is lying. You really have to pay attention by the game's late stages.

As a former film student the rinky-dink filming style and spotty acting made me very nostalgic. Rupert Booth is the standout actor here, with his performance as Jenks knowingly over-the-top and fitting perfectly with the FMV game theme. The late Paul Darrow also has a great turn as the sinister Paul Rand, though as the most experienced actor of the cast it shouldn't really come as a surprise. Every line of his absolutely drips with quiet menace. It was also nice to see Huld Martha giving an understated performance before their absolutely unhinged turn as Jimmy in the fantastic At Dead Of Night, Baggy Cat's only other game after Contradiction.

The ending is a bit rushed, and the killer reveal is a bit of a let-down (it doesn't take much pushing for them to admit it in the end!). There's also a very obvious tease for a sequel that will probably never come, sadly. But I still had a really fun time with this, overall. A nice way to kick off my deep dive into detective games.

P.S. If you're reading this and you haven't played At Dead of Night, go play it! It's fantastic!

Pep's Season of Spooks - Game 17
I've played many PT-like games over the years and most of them were bad. This is not one of them.

Funnily enough, Devotion has some parallels with the last game I played for this season, Martha Is Dead. Both are psychological horror tales in period settings that reflect their protagonist's mental deterioration. But personally I think that this is a much better experience overall. There's even one particular scene in this game that manages to be more disturbing than anything in Martha with zero gore.

Set in 1980's Taiwan, the game has you exploring an ever-changing apartment figuring out what happened to the protagonist's wife and child (spoiler alert: it ain't good). The atmosphere in the first hour or so is unbearably tense, and there are a few well-placed jumpscares peppered in. The story is told through voiceover and documents that you pick up, and with some simple puzzles the game's progression isn't too challenging. There are no doubt some people that will dismiss this as a "walking sim" (a term I don't really consider to be an insult) but the story, writing and voice acting are all strong enough to keep you interested.

There are a couple of small issues I have with Devotion. There is a sequence towards the end that felt way way too drawn out and desperately needed cutting down. There is also one "chase" sequence that felt out-of-place for this kind of game. I guess Red Candle Games felt they needed at least one scene with some sort of stakes? Otherwise you're never in any danger.

Given the game's tumultuous release history (it's only available from the developer's own website after Chinese harassment led to it's removal from Steam) it's a miracle I got to play this at all. But in the end I'm very glad I did. A dark tale of religious fanaticism, family breakdown and one very unfortunate little girl.

Scary Rating 6/10 - Overall Rating 8/10

Pep's Season of Spooks - Game 11
A very obscure point-and-click horror from the mid-90s, I never would have even heard of The Dark Eye were it not for a recent article in PC Gamer. This is available to play in-browser but due to performance issues I decided to download the DOSBox version.

Heavily inspired by the works of Edgar Allen Poe, the game has you play an unnamed protagonist visiting his uncle's house whilst experiencing vivid nightmares. These nightmares are essentially retellings of some of Poe's most famous works, including The Telltale Heart, which you weave in and out of whilst an equally sinister original narrative unfolds in the waking world.

A "point-and-click" in the truest sense, there are no puzzles or any real choices involved in the gameplay; you essentially have to move around and click the right objects in order to make progress in the stories. While that may turn off a lot of people from the game, I didn't mind it at all since the storytelling on display is so strong.

Where The Dark Eye truly excels is in its visuals and audio. Sparse 3D environments are mixed with physical models using stop-motion animation - with how intentionally creepy the models are the effect is incredibly bleak and unsettling. Without spoiling anything, I will say that the final image of this game will haunt me for quite some time. Combine all this with some truly excellent writing and voice acting and you have one spooky story.

Since The Dark Eye is so difficult to track down legitimately, I feel this would be the perfect game to get a port or even a remaster from a company like Limited Run Games. A hidden gem in the truest sense, I highly recommend you find this creepy curio.

Scary Rating 5/10 - Overall Rating 8/10

Pep's Season of Spooks - Game 12
Fuck me, this really is as shitty as everyone says.

Madmind Studio were so busy trying to come up with extreme, edgy, sadistic ideas for their vision of Hell that they clearly either forgot or didn't care about making a decent game.

Yes, all the graphic violence and nudity (turned up to 11 in the Unrated version) is probably pretty shocking for players who aren't used to horror... for the first 10 minutes. Then all you're left with is a horribly dull, buggy walking-sim with the occasional stealth sequence to add frustration to the boredom.

The few hours I spent playing Agony pretty much comprised of:

- getting stuck on the environment
- wondering what the fuck in the environment was causing me to take damage
- looking away from the poorly animated scenes of sex, r@pe and torture (of which there are only around 5 reused constantly throughout the game)
- cursing the horrible checkpoint system as an enemy bugs out and teleports to me, instakilling me

I've seen some people defending Agony by praising the visuals, and I genuinely have no idea what they're talking about. To me the environments were so ugly (not in the intended way), and the awfully-animated cutscenes had a habit of glitching and going blurry.

After checking Steam I saw that Madmind have clearly taken advantage of Agony's reputation since they've released Succubus since (even though this game has a "Succubus Mode"?), which I can only assume was made for anyone who didn't jerk off enough to this game. They also have another three games coming up. Please don't buy any of them. Their entire MO is simply shock value and not actually making good games.

If you have to, just play Scorn instead.

Scary Rating dogshit/10 - Overall Rating dogshit/10

Well, this took me a while. Full disclosure - I technically didn’t finish this. I finished the main story and DLC but had to stop School Stories (more on that later). Overall I really enjoyed this, some elements are better than the first Judgment game, and some are noticeably worse. I’ll split this review into a few sections.

Main Story: I was worried going into this - the idea of Yagami (with his penchant for younger women) being around a school might be inadvertently creepy and uncomfortable. Luckily it’s all fine, with the issues of teenage bullying and suicide - as well as Yagami’s interactions with teenagers - being treated with respect. Yagami comes off as more of a guardian for the kids than anything else. The story is full of the usual RGG twists and turns and it’s highly satisfying watching all the pieces come together. This game has possibly the best final boss (and boss theme) in the entire RGG series - it’s that good. The combat is even better than the first Judgment game, and I’ll fully admit that I used Snake style 99% of the time.

There are no Friend Events this time round, and there are less side cases in order to make room for School Stories, so the game feels a lot more streamlined, content-wise. The “detective elements” are scaled back a bit for this one, which is good since the changes made to the Tailing missions make them somehow even worse than in the first game? It’s bizarre. The new sneaking mechanic is way too simple for it to be a challenge, and every stealth sequence feels like a chore. While it's nice to see Saori get the spotlight again, the fact that she's involved in yet another "using her to lure a bad guy like a piece of meat" sequence is... concerning.

Another minor complaint; I wasn’t sure what was with the weird flanderization of Kaito, especially in the first few chapters. He seemed a little dumber at the beginning of the game, and his weird horniness for Sawa-sensei (boy am I sick of hearing that name) never really went anywhere. Luckily, he comes good by the end, and his title of “best boy” still remains. Speaking of Kaito…

The Kaito Files: What. A. Ride. This almost feels like an apology for the relative lack of Kaito in the main story and man, did they knock it out of the park with this one. Despite the relatively short runtime, The Kaito Files packs in more great characters, awesome boss fights and emotional moments than a lot of the other full-length Like A Dragon games. The story gives some incredibly interesting personal insight into Kaito as a character, and the shorter length allows for a compact, well-paced narrative with no padding to get in the way. With any potential future Judgment games up in the air, if Takuya Kimura isn’t able to return as Yagami I’d be more than happy for Kaito to step up and take the lead. The Kaito Files puts Kaito up there with Kiryu and Majima as one the best protagonists in the entire series.

School Stories: I’m sorry, Kyoko Amasawa. As much as I love Amasawa (genuinely one of my top 10 favourite LAD characters) and the MRC, I couldn’t finish School Stories. It’s all down to… you guessed it, fucking Robotics Club. It’s by far the worst minigame RGG Studio have ever devised. I would rather play a Like A Dragon game based entirely around mahjong and shogi than have to do any more fucking Robotics Club. It’s such a shame that you have to finish it to unlock the rest of the stories, as I like the MRC and Dance Club activities and side cases a lot. I’ll have to come back to Lost Judgment and finish these side activities eventually, but honestly? Right now I just want to move on to Gaiden.