Played: Broken Age: Act 2 (2015). PC.
The more critical distance I get from this, the second part of what promised to be an extraordinarily good game, the more I feel disappointed that it didn’t live up to its (admittedly lofty) promise. There was a lot to love about the game to begin with; there were two compelling leads, and a story that had both humor and ideas, and puzzles that felt more logical than the usual messiness of a lot of adventure games.
Here, the humor is still there, and it’s still very professional - the voice acting in particular is still great, and the few new environments we see are equally gorgeous - but the narrative focus on the two kids and their seems to have been lost in favor of some vague lecture on how technology distances us from our parents and a plot about aliens, or something. The whole first act was about the two kids discovering that the world spun for them by authority figures was a sham, and that had the potential to go in some very interesting directions. Unfortunately, that direction seems a little muddled, abandoned in favor of some increasingly tricky puzzles that resort back to the adventure game logic of using one of a dozen inventory items with the environment.
It’s a shame - this is still leaps and bounds better than a lot of point-and-click games, but it’s not the masterpiece I had hoped for. The saddest thing, though, is that it’s the writing where the game falls down, rather than any of the more cosmetic features. I’ll re-iterate: the art in this, by Nathan Stapley, is gorgeous, and Peter McConnell’s soundtrack is as brilliant as ever and tries to make the most of the new setting and attitude. Elijah Wood and Masasa Moyo are excellent as the two leads, and infuse their dialogue with as much pubescent attitude as they can muster. But the bones of the game look a little arthritic.
All that said, Grim Fandango just appeared on the App Store, so at least Double Fine, the company behind this game, is doing something right.