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Blackwell Unbound The Stories The year is 1973. The sound of a lone, ethereal saxophone drifts over the Roosevelt Island promenade, while a series of accidents plague a midtown construction site. The citizens of Manhattan take no notice of these events, let alone think they are connected. Embittered medium Lauren Blackwell and her spirit guide Joey Mallone are the only ones who believe that there is anything strange going on, and they are the only ones who can stop an enigmatic killer from striking again… Introduction At the beginning of the game, Lauren and Joey have already checked out a number of possible investigations, and there are only a couple of things left to check. The subjects left might not seem very appealing at first, but after only a few minutes of playing you will jump right in the middle of some very interesting investigations. Gameplay There aren't any action sequences in Blackwell Unbound. It is a third person point and click adventure game. The inventory is easy to use; you left click to pick up and right click to see or to use. There is another feature in the game - the notebook - where you can combine different subjects to make new ones. During the game you are able to use two characters, Lauren and Joey. They both have different purposes. Puzzles The puzzles are dialogue oriented. I know Dave will hate me for saying this but other kind of puzzles might be very interesting to have. Graphics O.K. I know that adventure game graphics have evolved a great deal in the past year, so why does Blackwell Unbound have such old-fashioned graphics? From what I have read, Wadjet is a small developer without an extensive budget. Those of you who are running away from this kind of game should know that you will miss an excellent game if you do. It's true that there aren't too many locations, but the developer made the effort to make everything else in the game as enjoyable as he could. Music and Sounds The music was surprising. I can even say that it's high quality. There are a lot of different sound tracks - some are very jazzy. Every piece of music fits the ambiance of each part of the game. I even got the soundtrack of the game, and I'm listening to it from time to time. The character voices are well chosen - they fit each character perfectly. Guys, I can tell you that Lauren's voice is very sexy. *wink* Dialogue There isn't that much dialogue in the game, but since there isn't any way to predict what will be important or not, I suggest you to go through all the dialogues. Information you need to progress in the game is easy to get in this way, and a dialogue can be repeated if you want to do so. Conversations with everyone, including those between Joey and Lauren, can give you important clues. I don't think there are any dialogue choices that would change the outcome of the game, but I wish next time we could get the possibility to choose different ways to answer the characters. Bugs and/or patches I didn’t encounter any bugs during my gameplay. Computer specifications Pentium or higher processor My computer specifications Windows XP Closing statement The game was very different than other games that I usually play, but it was very surprising and interesting. Graphics aren't high quality, but remember this is a modest production, and if you can put the graphics aside, you will see the story makes the game worth it. The only sad thing I can say about the game is that it was too short. I could have played a couple of hours more. I still have Legacy , and I plan on playing it soon. |