Angel Devoid: Face of the Enemy Review

If you enjoyed the tranquil, nonviolent reflection of photorealistic adventures games like Myst and Welcome to the Future, the first thing you should do with Angel Devoid is set fire to it, then sprinkle the ashes with holy water. What Angel Devoid lacks in acting and scriptwriting—and believe me, that's a lot—it makes up for immediately with dark good looks and sheer, bad attitude. Set in a mishmash “Neo-City” of every tech-punk cliché imaginable, the four-CD (!), first-person game wastes absolutely no time: waking up in the hospital bed—with the face everybody in the known universe fears, hates, wants to kill, or some combination thereof—you've got about four New York seconds to move your butt before somebody unpleasant arrives and blows it away. From then on, you're a fugitive, meeting various characters who believe you're the criminal you are attempting to hunt down. The nice touch in character interaction is the response system, which allows you not only to react, but to present your reactions in degrees of sympathy, attitude, or blandness. (Blandness is a dangerous temptation, because half the time you're responding first and checking out your acquaintances later, and the other half the safest bet is to simply start shooting.) While puzzle-solving elements exist, they really serve to throw the hectic violence into sharp relief. For a point-and-click adventure, Angel Devoid is pleasingly violent and fast-paced enough that the player never gets bogged down in Myst-style contemplation without receiving adequate punishment.