Post Mortem

The Good
This review concerns the English version of the original Microids release. The Adventure Company's version (for US & Canada) may be different.

The internet was flooded with previews, interviews and screenshots, so naturally anticipation was high when the game was finally available. I, too, was swayed by all the excitement and it was added to my "wanted list" as soon as the first few reviews came out. Now that I've played it, I wonder what caused all the hubbub.

My opinions about Post Mortem are so mixed, it's hard to differentiate between likes and dislikes.

The entire game is decidedly French. It takes place in Paris, but don't think you will get an opportunity to see the sights. The closest thing you'll see is a bistro which really looks no different than any ordinary bar and grill. All of the NPCs have French names, but very few actually speak with an accent (in the English version). The voices were well-matched to the look of the character they were portraying. But, on the minus side, some of their tones and inflections were unrealistic (especially that of the main character, MacPherson). Also, whoever typed the English subtitles made many mistakes so that what you were hearing wasn't exactly as it was printed on-screen.

The overall interface is easy to use, although scrolling through your large inventory can become tedious. If you have the proper inventory item, new topics of conversation are available with the one person on whom you can use it (a little bit different). The game includes a great navigation map on which new places are added as you learn about them. There also seems to be no limit to the number of games you can save.

The graphics seemed realistic enough for my taste, but no new ground was broken here. Panning around in 3D is nice ... and necessary for finding important "hot spots". Brightening your screen and/or adjusting gamma lightens up the darkest areas - and there are plenty of those. Finding important objects is easy without the "pixel-hunting" problems of some other games.

Post Mortem's saving grace is its puzzles. Even though the theme of the game reminded me of Black Dahlia, 90% of this game's puzzles are new, fresh and well integrated into the plot. The most memorable one for me is the Lockpick puzzle in which you must actually decide which picks to insert, where as well as figuring out how to jiggle them around in the proper way. Ingenious! Those of you familiar with a "Magic Box" will recognize those math-related problems. Otherwise, you'll be making a sketch of a suspect based upon interrogations, finding the differences in two pieces of artwork (and marking them), deciphering an alchemical formula, and otherwise reading documents and finding objects to solve others.

Post Mortem is not a short game and it'll take you more than a weekend to finish, even using a walkthrough.

The Bad
I mentioned some of the quirks in the above paragraphs, but below are the things that irritated me most about Post Mortem.