Post Mortem Preview
Microids is following up on the critically acclaimed Syberia with another promising adventure game. We get new details on Post Mortem straight from the developer.
Following up a success may be an enviable problem to have, but don't try to convince Stephane Brochu of that right now. The Microids designer is currently hard at work leading the development team on Post Mortem, the first adventure game from the company since Syberia earned critical raves and became a cult hit last summer in Europe. While the forthcoming game isn't a sequel, it carries with it the high expectations of adventure fans looking for the same high quality evidenced in its predecessor.
Looking at a late beta build makes us think that meeting those expectations might not be much of a problem. More than a month away from its prospective release date in North America, Post Mortem already bears all the hallmarks of a memorable adventure. Those looking for a game in the tradition of Syberia, however, are likely to be disappointed. Brochu's current project is different in almost every way, veering away from Benoit Sokal's slightly surreal fantasy and into a pulp-fiction world of private eyes, mysterious dames, and whispers of the occult.
"Post Mortem is in the proud tradition of film noir and the gritty detective stories from the 1920s and 1930s, but it also has a touch of other 1920s writers," Brochu explained. "People like [HP] Lovecraft and [Arthur] Machen are represented, and why not? They both wrote in roughly the same era as the classic crime noir authors, and to us it seemed like a natural mix. There is even a hint of Poe."
Specifically, the setting is Paris in the 1920s. You assume the role of Gus MacPherson, an ex-private eye from New York City who has traded in his gun and the Big Apple for a paintbrush and the Left Bank. This dissolute take on retirement ends as soon as he meets Sophia Blake, the standard noir dame with a problem. In this case, the problem is the recent grisly murders of her sister and brother-in-law in a Paris hotel. She lures the impoverished MacPherson away from his easel with promises of cash, and soon the former detective is back on the job, scouring Parisian nightspots for a killer. That job isn't easy. The ritual beheading of the couple, along with vague occult overtones, make this more than a typical murder case, and MacPherson is soon neck-deep in conspiracy theories and suspicion. Making matters even stranger is a series of frightening, violent psychic visions that he experiences whenever he gets close to people and places connected to the killings.
This story will be told using Microids' new "natural dialogue" engine. MacPherson is given a number of possible directions whenever he begins a conversation. For example, when he questions an obnoxious hotel clerk about the murders, he is given the option of telling the truth or making up a false identity and claiming he's an insurance investigator. Success or failure is never a given in the beta build, as there seem to be no absolutely right or absolutely wrong dialogue paths. Befitting the name, the natural engine creates natural conversations, in which you can start off trying to cover your identity and find that the resulting discussion ends up in an area you didn't anticipate. Telling the hotel clerk that you're an insurance investigator simply allows him to indignantly present you with the outrageous bill that the late couple ran up prior to their untimely demise.
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