Rock, Paper, Shotgun

There’s controversy surrounding the 2004 Microids adventure Still Life. Because controversially some people think it wasn’t astonishingly disappointing. Not disappointing in the way most crazypants Euro adventures are, but disappointing in the sense that it was a murder mystery game that didn’t have an ending. It just stopped. When they ran out of money. The ludicrous claim was put on the game’s website that, ahhhh, it was the beginning of an ARG you see. Which it wasn’t. And Microids very soon dropped dead. Well now they’re back! And Still Life 2 is coming soon, with a demo out. And it’s astonishingly disappointing. But in an interesting twist, it is disappointing in the way most crazypants Euro adventures are.

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I’m a little bit surprised to hear news of Still Life 2. It’s reasonably likely that you missed the original – an adventure game that should, were it to have been finished, have been almost okay. But instead it was hopeless, a murder mystery with no ending, no resolution, and littered with the most ludicrous puzzles imaginable. I have faint memories of needing to use a crane to move some crates so some dogs wouldn’t bite me, but the crane required I solve a peculiar puzzle to be able to move its levers, as it was apparently designed by a mad sadist. And a gingerbread recipe in code. And in the game.

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