Inane puzzles and design flaws mar a graphically impressive point and click adventure game.
Then we have a second class of adventure games, ones where the studios just don't put the pieces together as well as the games that made me fall in love with the genre. The dialogue can be annoying, the plot nonsensical, the puzzles contrived, etc. I guess the point and click genre can be easy to get into, because I'm seeing these more and more lately, from Secret Files: Tunguska, Martin Mystere: Crime Stories, and now Art of Murder: FBI Confidential. In this game, inane puzzles and design flaws mar a graphically impressive point and click adventure game.
A lot of points in this game make the player go "huh?". Putting a spider in a jar makes a snake disappear? The PDA full of phone numbers that will never answer? A floor full of nondescript spots that make you fall as you're trying to escape gangsters while tied to a chair? Better get used to weird moments if you're going to play through the game.
For a game where you play an FBI agent, the chances to investigate the clues you come across are woefully inadequate. There are two chances where you get to put evidence in a machine to find out what they are. But it can be made so much more fun and engaging than that, really.
The script also lies on the weak side, for example the protagonist, FBI agent Nicole Bonner, will put together two pieces of inventory and exclaim "I got a 10!". What's that supposed to mean, exactly? While trying to rewire a circuit box to make an elevator work, she says "What a museum!" There are loads of weird sayings and misspellings throughout the game, and conversations can be tedious to listen to, not full of humor like the Circle of Blood series. Could it be because the studio is in Poland, and English was difficult to implement into the game?
Low points aside, the graphics are incredible and props to the artistic department for designing such elaborate settings. I think the series here might have some potential and I picked up the next two in the series. I hope they will be vastly improved.