Lighthouse Interactive Overclocked: A History of Violence review

Verdict:

Review Date: 27 Jun 2008

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Alec Meer

Our Rating 2 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

This is one of the many point-and-click adventures that seem a little too preoccupied with telling a story rather than being a great game.

The plot, at least, is genuinely arresting: troubled psychiatrist David McNamara is called in to investigate why a group of armed teenagers have turned up out of the blue with missing memories and shattered minds. An atmosphere of suspense and fear keeps things relatively interesting, and McNamara is a refreshingly unusual protagonist. He's jittery and distracted - hiding some unsavoury secrets of his own - and is treated with contempt by much of his supporting cast.

The genre staples of exploration and item collection provide the solutions to most of the puzzles. In a smart twist, however, McNamara's hypnotherapy techniques drop you into his patients' memories, so the perspective and challenge change often.

Sadly, the puzzles are too dependent on performing actions in the right order, often forcing you to backtrack and scour the screen for a pixel-sized item you may have missed.

Frustration, rather than satisfaction, is the overall feeling you get when playing Overclocked. What's more, its effective mood is often undermined by the use of voice actors and translators whose native language is evidently not English. The main character's voice actor just about holds it together, but the utter nonsense that his supporting cast dribbles out is horribly jarring. For a game that relies so heavily on dialogue and narrative, it's a baffling error.

Overclocked is so hung up on its own story that it leaves critical game elements by the wayside. Still, if you can stomach the rock-bottom production values, you'll find that it has an interesting tale to tell.

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