Summary
Would of, Could of, But Wasn't
The Good
Well I have been playing adventures for a very long time (cut my teeth on late 80's sierra stuff). I have had a hankering for an adventure with todays tech and finally found one I could get into.
Post Mortem has all the great stuff a Dark Adventure trip needs. Murder, a tough smart detective, scary moments, deep plots. Like about a million books before it Post Mortem uses the out of work police detective that was shamed\fired\ect. The feel of the game was great, the designers did a great job making sure everything was dark and deep.
The Bad
Unfortunately Post Mortem suffers from some fatal problems.
1. Character animation is just terrible. The trouble is not in the graphics themselves but in the way the characters move and act during conversation. I would never in a million years think real people would act that way. (well unless they were on some sort of drug, perhaps)
2. Voice acting.
This problem isnt as bad as I have read some reviewers say. Yes there are some places that the lines are drop down bad (some horrible writing) and even more instances of terrible performance of lines (especially the women). But overall I think its ok.
3. Your character knows things he shouldnt.
There were some moments that the character had found something out (in what way I never understood) that wasnt revealed in a note or object that was found. He would just blurt it out. There was some real problems with story maping in this game.
4. Overall Game feel
This game just felt incomplete, it was like someone designed a A++ game but then didnt do the basic QA needed to polish it up to the same level he designed it for.
The Bottom Line
Overall I think the game had great potential but just failed to pull it all together. If I was on the QA team for this game I would have purchased a copy of a Tex Murphy Game and gave it to the writers and designers. That way they could see a better example of how to pull together an excellent story.
Overall I give it a rating of a C
Could have easily been A++, but they dropped the ball
