Space Boat
Read More: Best Cinematic Narrative Games.
Internet Court
I have to admit I found Internet Court really funny. It does have a lot of silly moments that make you go what but I loved it from beginning to end. You can beat this within 2 hours but it is really fun to get through. I love the acting being silly but worth it to make a good comedy. The Judge always makes me laugh at every turn. I love the silly ending that connects all 4 cases and my favourite case was the first one. I may not be a fan of the music in the game but love the credits song at the end.
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cinematic Comedy Games.
Great writing, including fun dialogue when you make bad decisions (intentionally or otherwise). Clear video and audio with acting by Gamecola staff emeritus.
The judge once said, “I’m going to let you try again, but first I’m going to give you a strike!” giving me my third strike and ejecting me from the courtroom. I might have gotten carried away exploring dialogue options.
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Rainswept
Rainswept provides an overall enjoyable experience but suffers from a lack of consistency in what is otherwise a mostly-polished piece of interactive fiction.
You need to go into this with the mindset that you’re about to watch a movie, not necessarily something that’s groundbreaking or will blow you away, but at least delivers on the genre by giving you all the things you expect at it from face value.
Yes, you will be required to show Detective Stone around a small town and click on various interactables as the investigation of an apparent murder-suicide plays out before you, but the developers make it clear from the start that they have a story to tell you, and a specific order of events in which they want to tell it in.
– Real player with 8.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cinematic Mystery Games.
*This review is for v1.1.5a
Playing status: 100% achievement, ~3x playthroughs
Grindy Achievement(s): No.
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (11 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.
Intro
Rainswept is a text-heavy adventure game where you have to investigate a murder that is happening in a small town.
Pros:
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2 endings with minor story branching
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Freedom to explore the area in any order that you want
Cons:
- No fast forward for most dialogues
– Real player with 7.1 hrs in game
Virginia
Worst outcome from the entire affair is the more I look into them and play them, less tolerance I have for walking simulators as such. Which is a shame because Virginia is honestly quite a good one. High production values all-around and obvious effort went into this project. It’s also a walking simulator seemingly hellbent on setting your pace and putting its intentionally jumbled narrative ahead of everything else it may have had to offer.
So, what’s cooking? We step into the shoes of one Anne Tarver, fresh FBI graduate who just got her first case assignment. Paired up with a more experienced partner the two embark to a fictional town of Kingdom where they are to investigate a missing child case. Twist is Anne’s superior instructs her to keep a close eye on her new partner, Maria Halperin. She may have some secrets of her own. That’s the premise and what we have to work with for a while, but as the game itself quickly reveals, there’s more underway and you can’t tell WHEN a lot of it is happening. So don’t let anyone tell you there’s no story in Virginia because there sure is. It’s simply told in this fragmented fashion where everything will only click towards the finale as you get context for game’s multiple events.
– Real player with 4.2 hrs in game
As much as I’m an old school action, adventure and RPG gamer from ‘85 onward, I got heavily into point n’ click/investigative mystery games as time went on. Even in more mixed offerings from the genre like The Suicide of Rachel Foster or the pretty ho-hum Call of Cthulhu redux I can usually find enough mystery elements to stay engaged.
Virginia is a detective game where I didn’t feel like a detective the entire playthrough. I didn’t even feel like I was the janitor on hire to clean out the department’s bathrooms. The Twin Peaks' vibes are strong with this one, there’s a touch of Kubrick happening as well but juvenile, thuddingly heavy-handed cliches and plot twists so insulting the ending may as well be the main character f*rting in your face, absolutely destroy any momentum that the game might have worked up.
– Real player with 4.0 hrs in game
Just Take Your Left
I super wanted to give this game a positive review, but it’s not quite ready for prime time yet. Even though I ultimately felt I had to give this game a thumbs down, please still consider supporting the developer by picking it up, perhaps on sale, especially if it looks like the kind of game you might be into.
Just take your left is a very short mouse-driven game by Mehrdad Rezaei, who seems to be a solo Iranian developer. Your character is an agent of some sort who is sent to steal a diamond from a castle, but is antagonized along the way by a small mouse who is determined to stop him.
– Real player with 1.7 hrs in game
this game has nice artwork and great character animation, a lot of though has gone into how the character reacts to objects, which is great to see.
I managed to get stuck a few times but not so stuck you’d give up or start hunting down a tutorial,
A little moan is quality control and grammar but English isn’t the guys first language, and considering its the cost of a burger the character animation is so much nicer than some dearer games, no aimless wandering about and dodgy “use” animation here!
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
L.A. Noire
Great game with a unique premise. The facial animation is used to determine if a witness/suspect is telling the truth or lying. The voice acting is solid and the cases are based on real life cases of the era. The developers researched how police investigations were done in the 40s and it shows.
Sadly, I can’t recommend this game as you require a connection to RockStar’s Social Club. After 30+ hours of playing the game stops connecting to the SC. That means it wont' launch. I’ve reinstalled the game but still I can’t connect to the SC. Such a shame too. It was good while it lasted. I’d avoid this entirely.
– Real player with 46.7 hrs in game
Buyer beware.
I have bought the Complete edition and it did indeed have all the content and DLC. However in 2019 I had to uninstall to make room for other games, and here I am in 2021 trying to reinstall it, only to find that it only gives me some of the content.
It only gives me a couple of the patrol cases and the DLC that didn’t come with the original game and I found none of the regular game levels are there at all, which is odd as I had done most of them before I had to uninstall and still have trophies for them.
– Real player with 46.1 hrs in game
Los Cops
Los Cops is a non-linear visual novel with point & click adventure elements in the form of a TV show about the life of aspiring actor Jeremy Jablonski, who teams up with private detective Santiago Hutchinson to save Los Angeles.
The plot of Los Cops depends entirely on your choices: what kind of relationship to build with the characters, what cases to investigate, how to deal with criminals, and what methods should be followed. You can act out the detective of your dreams or not act out at all, focusing primarily on a career in Hollywood or other delights of life. Every small victory and every bitter defeat will propel history towards unpredictable turns and endings.
Features:
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Join the amazing adventures of private detective agency Los Cops. Play as Jeremy Jablonski and together with him understand what is more precious in life: the career of a Hollywood star, the duty of a detective to the city, or the personal life and well-being of your loved ones.
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Each episode has its own genre, visual style and atmosphere. Enjoy classic 80s buddy movie, 40s noir detective, western, sitcom, heist film, road movie and much more!
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Feel yourself in the shoes of a real detective with your principles and skills - collecting evidence, chases, shootings, interrogations, investigations, cooperation with gray representatives of the law, infiltration with disguise and much more. Be considerate and resourceful, but don’t get too into the role.
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Spend time with a lot of colorful characters both on the side and on the other side of the law. Choose your friends, make enemies, build romantic relationships and just have a good time. You change with your environment and create it yourself. But remember - every decision has a consequence.
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Face the most motley gangs in Los Angeles: from anarchist rockers to maniacs, from petty bandits to the Asian mafia. Put them in jail, bribe them for further cooperation, or become a criminal yourself. But so that no one can see.
The Los Cops story is divided into several episodes. Each of them is a separate story with a continuous storyline. The Tequila Sunrise episode is the first. Subsequent episodes will be released in paid DLC format.
Ring of Fire
Ring of Fire is a detective noir puzzler set in the solarpunk utopia of New London.
You play as Detective Grosvenor, a jaded, middle-aged woman hunting through the still-dark corners of the city in pursuit of a radicalised serial killer.
Using your powers of deduction you must solve the brutally gruesome murders of the Ring of Fire killer. Examine clues, interrogate key suspects, and cross-reference your findings in the police database to uncover the mystery.
SEARCH
Solve the case using text entry, meaning you can’t brute force the puzzle.
INTERVIEW
Push your suspects to the brink through branching cinematic conversations with meaningful consequences.
INVESTIGATE
Explore the 3D crime scene to examine evidence both visually and textually.
D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die -Season One-
D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die is a true hidden gem. I consider it to be a masterpiece. It is among my favourite games, and one of the finest examples of the interactive movie subgenre. It’s also among the most immersive games, both overall and specifically due to how great it is with giving you a lot of different emotions. It’s sad, mysterious, weird, funny, and somewhat scary. It has a great balance of brightness and darkness, and not because it only plays on contrasts, but because it has bright, dark, and in-between moments, and they are placed appropriately, as well as equally good at what their purposes are. While some might claim the game is unfinished, it’s not exactly so, it’s more of a somewhat unfinished game, but worth it without a doubt. You can see it this way - even if a truly beautiful painting is unfinished to some degree, it still remains beautiful. Now let’s talk about the essential video game aspects.
– Real player with 27.0 hrs in game
8.5/10
My likes include 100% de Agave tequila. My dislikes are mainly drugs… And chewing gum.
Overview
D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die -Season one- is the first part of a planned episodic adventure games series developed by Access Games in the same vein as Telltale’s cinematic titles. D4 is a crazy story filled with wacky characters and ridiculous situations somehow fittingly wrapped into a serious, moody detective crime story.
Story
D4 follows the tale of David Young, middle-aged ex-cop and widower turned private detective in order to find D, a mysterious individual whose only known initial was Little Peggy’s (Young’s wife) dying breath.
– Real player with 16.1 hrs in game
Heavy Rain
𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐅𝐚𝐫 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐆𝐨 𝐓𝐨 𝐒𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐨𝐧?
I can’t believe it’s been almost 11 years since this game’s been released. I love this game from the bottom of my heart. I always had interest in story driven games, the moment I saw this game’s trailer I knew it was meant for me. It’s one of those games that defined my personality through my teenage years. How can you not love a game like this. It’s the game that took motion capture to the next level back in those days. Tragic drama thriller movie like game where your choices do actually MATTER. Main characters can die or get injured during their encounters. Every choice you make feels like it will have an impact on your experience. It offers a lot of content and replayability. The action scenes are very intense and gets you locked onto the screen. You can listen to your character’s thoughts that gives you more insight and adds depth about the situation the person’s going through. Which I have missed a lot of them when I was playing 10 years ago even though I’ve played this game more than like 500 hours now I’m discovering new things. To me, Quantic Dream games are really good in terms of creating and establishing scenes as well as writing story with characters and multiple different possibilities. And not to mention the unforgettable magnificent score. It sends shivers down my spine when I hear that Ethan Mars' Theme. Lastly, I believe Quantic Dream company really cares about the content that they’re making at least as I’ve seen from the behind the scenes and artworks.
– Real player with 72.8 hrs in game
-How many cliches do you want mr. Cage?
-Yes
I love narrative games so my opinion in this might be a little biased and I obviously recommend this game. It doesn’t come without flaws but we get so little of such games that i’m happy even if it’s not perfect.
Heavy Rain is an interactive-drama thriller. The Origami killer is kidnapping children and drowning them. One of the main character’s son disappears and father who’s name is Ethan gets a message from killer demanding him to take tasks in order to save his son. Killer is testing Ethan’s courage and Ethan must decide how far he will go in order to save his son.
– Real player with 30.2 hrs in game