It looks great, provides a great game world, and is fun, but can be a bit of a chore.

User Rating: 7.5 | Kentucky Route Zero - Act I PC
"Indie" games have given us an awesome resurgence of the point-and-click genre. Kentucky Route Zer0 is the latest in that category, and it delivers a solid performance.

There's not much to say about the gameplay -- it's rote point-and-click, which I'm cool with -- no gimmicky action sequences or minigames. Where it shines, like it should, is in the story and game world. There are a lot of interesting character and story threads with some real depth to them. You're never 100% sure what's going on -- is it a dream, hallucination, parallel world, are people just nuts, what's going on?! There is no voice-over -- all conversation is text -- which I think works well for a game where personalities are so important. A bad voice over in a game can ruin the game world.

Graphics are fantastic, with excellent visual style. It's wireframe 3D with a detailed-but-minimalist style, and great use of lighting (or lack thereof). Animation is very fluid and smooth.

Sound is minimal, but effective -- it adds to and never distracts from the game world.

So why a 7.5? Well, the questing can be a chore. There's a lot of back-tracking, wandering for that one clue or story trigger point. You'll drive your truck around on a maze of roads, you'll walk to distant points to see if there's something you missed, etc. It's never terrible, but I did find myself getting a little bored with the traversing at times when I was stuck for what to do next.

Overall, a very good outing, but with some tedium mixed in.