Comments on: Staying Alive: Still Life 2

By: Thomas Ascher

Thomas Ascher — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:28:53 +0000

I’ve come upon this thread late, but glad I finally found it because someone, somewhere needed to point out that the original Still Life was unfinished. Clearly, at the end, they simply took story boards, preliminary sketches and pasted them together to finish the game. Hearing that they ran out of money helped clarify for me what happened. So while the first half of the game, the part they finished, was stunning in appearance and involvement, it was ultimately a disappointment worthy of a rant! I too will wait patiently for reviews and user reaction to Still Life II before buying! And, thank you John for your initial review and beginning this thread. It needed writing!

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:42:17 +0000

My wife and I had a good time playing Still Life together. The puzzles were ridiculous but the story, dialogue, and presentation made up for it. The ambiguous ending pissed me off after all that effort but that ambiguity kind of grew on me.

The game doesn’t need a sequel. But I’ll buy it.

By: tick

tick — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:29:48 +0000

John
It’s late, but Ted was speaking about your review in Eurogamer, not in PCG UK.

By: Tims

Tims — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:35:38 +0000

I know this is an old post, but I want to add, that while I liked the game a lot. I agree it was a poor game :)

By: Trooper6

Trooper6 — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:31:28 +0000

Oh, just wanted to add that the music in Still Life was excellent.

By: John Walker

John Walker — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:18:12 +0000

Hi Ted!

I’m not *entirely* convinced you’ve read my review of Still Life, since it spends over half the time celebrating everything that’s good about the game, then going on to explain what was wrong, and how the score was so dramatically dropped because it doesn’t have an ending.

So let’s go ahead and assume you’ve not read, or remembered, the review in PC Gamer (it’s the only place I’ve reviewed it). Now let’s factor in that you’ve not played the game. I really hope you’re not too upset that based on this, I’m not going to be taking your opinion of me all too seriously.

By the way, to clear your other point up, criticising an adventure game for having bad puzzles, poor acting, terrible dialogue, horrible graphics, or in this case, no ending, is not the same as not liking adventure games. In fact, if you think it through, it’s more that I’m not liking bad adventure games and wishing they were good.

When I play good adventure games I give them positive reviews! I’m a maverick.

Get back to me when you’ve a) played the game, and b) read my review. Thanks!

By: Ted

Ted — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:58:56 +0000

I’m not from Just Adventure. John’s review was just a ridiculous piece of crap. If you’re attacking an adventure game for being an adventure game, you don’t need to be reviewing the genre. His review was about as sensible as some jackass complaining about an FPS game that the genre needs to evolve beyond shooting things. Or panning a Civilization game for being turn based. Adventure game fans are not exactly desperate for new product either, as his asinine comments about adventure game sites giving the game high reviews said. Look at any comprehensive new release list. Aside from casuals, there are more adventure games being produced for the PC than any other genre. And there’s a reason for this — I guarantee you the median adventure game sells better than the median game in just about any other genre (averages for other genres are obviously much higher because of a handful of blockbusters offset a mass of failures).

By: Terr

Terr — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:35:30 +0000

I liked Still Life as well.

Sure, some of the puzzles were too hard for an adventure game (thank you, GameFAQs) and the ‘avoid the security bots’ part at the end made me very, very, very angry, but it was worth it.

The grim atmosphere and the intertwining of the past and the present were brilliant. The cutscenes got my blood pumping, which is rare for a zombie like me, and the ending was memorable.

I hope the give the story a respectable ending, not some X-Files-ish “Oh, the killer was Victoria’s grandfather whose traumatic experience happend to give him the gift of eternal life” thingy. Yes, I’m looking at you MICROÏDS.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:15:20 +0000

You are so right on about Still Life there John! It had some potential but completely undone by an unfinished plot, terrible puzzles and the worst talking animations I have ever seen. If you are going to have detailed models you better make sure your animation in on the same level. Otherwise you would be better off cutting some of the details down on the models because the gap in quality between model and animation is distracting.

I frequent alot of adventure games sites and forums and Still Life is often brought up as a shining example of a modern adventure game. I think alot of adventure game fans are losing their marbles and so despearate for a professional level game that they are willing to accept a game that would have been mediocre at best, graphics aside, if it was released during the heyday of Monkey Island’s, Beneath a Steel Sky’s etc.

I sincerely hope the second game is good but I’m not buying it until I see your review John!

By: Dean

Dean — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:02:46 +0000

Ted: You are from Just Adventure and I claim my five pounds.

By: Tims

Tims — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:24:01 +0000

I loved Still Life, but probably I’m not normal. I loved how absurd some of the puzzles were. I wrote a php script to solve the combination lock type puzzle on the chest in the attic. Maybe there was some clue to it somewhere, but I was so pleased to do it myself. If I found a box like that in real life, the first thing I’d do is write a program to figure out how to open.

That was one of the most memorable things I’ve done in a game. I admit that towards the end it had a dubious plot and a non ending, but I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the whole way through.

It’s one of those games I can still remember the feeling of playing it. Unlike that game.. that I can’t remember at all anymore. Yeah all those ones.

It’s also one of the few games I’ve finished. Even if it didn’t really end.

By: Ted

Ted — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:01:16 +0000

I haven’t played this, but having read your review, you obviously came in to the game determined to hate and — surprise, surprise — you did. If you hate adventure games, why review them? Your review was a huge outlier relative to every other review by every other major source.